As of fall 2025, news and media updates have been integrated with the Augsburg Now alumni publication. This site archives news stories from before September 16, 2025. Please visit augsburg.edu/now or select "Augsburg Now" from the left navigation for current news.
The 33-year-old Forum on Workplace Inclusion March 8-12 is the nation’s largest workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion conference designed for national and global audiences and based at Augsburg University.
This year’s Workplace Revolution-themed forum examines both the workplace disruptions caused by the pandemic and the disparities that were a focus of protests following the murder of George Floyd.
The forum asks, “What will it take to start a workplace revolution that moves us from talk to action?”
Sessions include “A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing and Implementing a Diversity and Inclusion Program,” “Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit,” “A New Lens for Revealing Unconscious Bias,” and “Cultivating Trust in Remote Organizations to Support DEI.” In addition, participants can take part in 90-minute small group coaching sessions and connect with others through a virtual marketplace of ideas.
More information and a registration link are available on the 2021 Forum Annual Conference webpage.
About The Forum
For 33 years, The Forum has served as a convening hub for those seeking to grow professional leadership and effectiveness skills in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion by engaging people, advancing ideas, and igniting change.
The annual conference is HRCI and SHRM Continuing Education Credit (CEU) eligible.
About Augsburg
Augsburg University offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and 11 graduate degrees to 3,400 students of diverse backgrounds at its campus in the vibrant center of the Twin Cities and nearby Rochester, Minnesota, location. Augsburg educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. An Augsburg education is defined by excellence in the liberal arts and professional studies, guided by the faith and values of the Lutheran church, and shaped by its urban and global settings. Learn more at Augsburg.edu.
Augsburg University has again been named a top producer of Fulbright students among U.S. master’s institutions for 2020-21. Each year the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists of top producers of Fulbright U.S. scholars and students annually.
Five Augsburg students received 2020-21 Fulbright awards to teach English in four countries. The students are Winni Godi ’17 (Rwanda), Abdulkadir Sharif ’20 (Malaysia), Eh Soe Dwe ’20 (Malaysia), Natalya Arevalo ’20 (Honduras), and Bethany Lor ’19 (South Korea).
The Fulbright Program was created to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Students can teach English, participate in graduate study, or conduct research. Fulbright is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. 2021 marks the 75th anniversary of the Fulbright Program.
About Augsburg
Augsburg University offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and 11 graduate degrees to 3,400 students of diverse backgrounds at its campus in the vibrant center of the Twin Cities and nearby Rochester, Minnesota, location. Augsburg educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. An Augsburg education is defined by excellence in the liberal arts and professional studies, guided by the faith and values of the Lutheran church, and shaped by its urban and global settings. Learn more at Augsburg.edu.
Mark Engebretson, professor emeritus of physics at Augsburg University, recently surpassed his 300th publication when three articles to which he contributed were published earlier this month:
“Observations of Particle Loss due to Injection-Associated Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron Waves” in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
“Magnetic Conjugacy of Pc1 Waves and Isolated Proton Precipitation at Subauroral Latitudes: Importance of Ionosphere as Intensity Modulation Region” in Geophysical Research Letters
“Nighttime magnetic perturbation events observed in Arctic Canada: 3. Occurrence and amplitude as functions of magnetic latitude, local time, and magnetic disturbance indices” in Space Weather
With the publication of these papers, he is now the author or co-author of 303 publications. In addition, another of his articles, for which he was lead author, was recently accepted for publication.
In October, Engebretson received his 30th grant from the National Science Foundation.
Scientific research is usually collaborative, so most of Engebretson’s publications were written in collaboration with several colleagues from around the world. Augsburg undergraduates have been co-authors of 27 of these publications, and five students have been lead authors. Engebretson’s publications have included articles in Annales Geophysicae, Nature, and Sun and Geosphere and a chapter in “The Dynamic Loss of Earth’s Radiation Belts,” among many other journals, conference proceedings, and books.
About Augsburg
Augsburg University offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and 11 graduate degrees to 3,400 students of diverse backgrounds at its campus in the vibrant center of the Twin Cities and nearby Rochester, Minnesota, location. Augsburg educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. An Augsburg education is defined by excellence in the liberal arts and professional studies, guided by the faith and values of the Lutheran church, and shaped by its urban and global settings. Learn more at Augsburg.edu.
Lupita Benavides, a student in the Master of Arts in Nursing program’s transcultural nursing track, is administering COVID-19 vaccines in this KARE 11 story. The February vaccine clinic, sponsored by M Health Fairview and St. Mary’s Health Clinics, targeted members of the Latinx community in St. Paul, which has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
FOX 9 recently featured Minneapolis South High School students Gabe Chang-Deutsch and Clara Conry, who are part of the nation’s top-ranked debate team in the January 2021 National Coaches Poll. Minneapolis South High School is one of the schools that participates in Minnesota Urban Debate League, a program of Augsburg University.
Chang-Deutsch noted that the Urban Debate League’s coaching has helped them be competitive with students from prestigious private schools. Amy Cram Helwich, executive director of the Minnesota Urban Debate League, also was interviewed.
Elaine Eschenbacher leads civic and community engagement at Augsburg University, but when COVID-19 hit, she was tapped by the first lady of Minnesota and Augsburg’s president to help the state get through the pandemic. She became the higher education operations lead for the COVID-19 Testing Work Group at the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC).
In this role, she collaborates with members of the testing workgroup, leaders at colleges and universities, the team of epidemiologists at MDH that focuses on higher education, and others. Eschenbacher remains employed by Augsburg, which has a contract with the state for her time.
On January 20, William Green, M. Anita Gay Hawthorne professor of critical race and ethnic studies at Augsburg University, gave a lecture titled “What Happened in This Region to Create the Disparities That Black Americans Continue to Experience Today?” The lecture was part of a series on racial justice sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Foundation. In it, Green spoke about moments in history, such as the Civil War, when people addressed injustice; reflected on whether or not the protests following the death of George Floyd signaled major change; and spoke about the need for leaders to make racial equity a priority if the work is to continue.
Margit Berman, program director for Augsburg University’s PsyD program in Clinical Psychology, and Mark Carlson-Ghost, clinical associate professor at Augsburg, received the 2021 President’s Award from the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology.
The award was given to recognize their outstanding leadership during the closure of the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology, ensuring that their students and faculty found an educational home at Augsburg.
More than 1,000 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2020 Fall Semester Dean’s List. The Augsburg University Dean’s List recognizes those full-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.50 or higher and those part-time students who have achieved a grade point average of 3.75 or higher in a given term.
President Paul Pribbenow was quoted extensively in “Private college presidents turn focus from pandemic to insurrection,” an Inside Higher Ed story about how college and university presidents are responding to the recent attack on the U.S. Capitol. Pribbenow and others learned of the violence during a plenary panel he was leading as part of the Council of Independent Colleges’ virtual Presidential Institute. Among the topics he addressed were concerns about how the historic trauma faced by students of color can be exacerbated by images from January 6 and the need for institutions of higher education “to model healthy democratic engagement.”
The 33-year-old Forum on Workplace Inclusion March 8-12 is the nation’s largest workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion conference designed for national and global audiences and based at Augsburg University. 
FOX 9 recently featured Minneapolis South High School students Gabe Chang-Deutsch and Clara Conry, who are part of the nation’s top-ranked debate team in the January 2021 National Coaches Poll. Minneapolis South High School is one of the schools that participates in Minnesota Urban Debate League, a program of Augsburg University. 
On January 20, William Green, M. Anita Gay Hawthorne professor of critical race and ethnic studies at Augsburg University, gave a lecture titled “What Happened in This Region to Create the Disparities That Black Americans Continue to Experience Today?” The lecture was part of a series on racial justice sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Foundation. In it, Green spoke about moments in history, such as the Civil War, when people addressed injustice; reflected on whether or not the protests following the death of George Floyd signaled major change; and spoke about the need for leaders to make racial equity a priority if the work is to continue.
