This section of the News and Media Services department site tracks stories in print and broadcast media that feature Auggie faculty, students, and staff. The area also is home to material developed for University-related programs, events, and more.
Renee Most joined Augsburg University’s StepUP® Program for students in recovery from substance abuse as its new director in fall 2019, bringing her own experience as an alumna of StepUP and her 15 plus years of clinical work in the field of addiction related issues.
“I am honored to bring my previous experience in the field of recovery to the StepUP community and to continue to strengthen this program,” she said. “My personal experience as a student in the StepUP program made clear to me the power of collegiate recovery programs.”
Renee, who attended Augsburg in 2001-2002, is available for media interviews and has expertise in collegiate recovery and many related subjects, including the opioid crisis, youth binge drinking, and eating disorders. To arrange an interview, contact: Gita Sitaramiah, director of public relations and internal communications, 612-330-1476.
Renee has dedicated her career to the field of recovery, serving individuals at:
Kodiak Recovery, where she served as Executive Director
The Emily Program, as a Clinical Relations Specialist
Assistance in Recovery, as an Interventionist and Clinical Case Manager
South Washington County Schools, as a Chemical Health Prevention Specialist
Hazelden Betty Ford, as a Chemical Dependency Counselor
Renee holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Catherine’s University, is a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LADC) and earned a master’s degree in addiction studies from Hazelden Graduate School.
The Augsburg University StepUP Program is one of the oldest and largest residential collegiate recovery programs in the United States. The program, unique in addressing both mental health and addiction recovery, strives to help students achieve academic success, and thrive in a community of accountability and support. StepUP students fully engage in the Augsburg experience, including study abroad, varsity athletics, student government, and research, while living on campus.
About Augsburg.Augsburg University, celebrating its 150th anniversary, 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 honored the calling of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 20 by hosting the 32nd annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation.
The presentation “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” was presented by this year’s speaker, John S. Wright, Professor Emeritus of English and African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. Wright helped lead the student movement that founded the University of Minnesota’s Department of African American and African Studies, which he chaired for three terms, and its Martin Luther King, Jr. Program, which he administered from 1970-1973. He also built a major in Afro-American and African Studies at Carleton College, where he taught from 1973-1983. The convocation, open to the public, included student performances.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (January 20, 2020) — The Augsburg University Music Department presents “Tienda,” a new chamber opera by Augsburg faculty member Reinaldo Moya and Caitlin Vincent on Friday, February 21 at 7 p.m., and Saturday, February 22 at 7 p.m.
This unique performance presented as a part of Augsburg’s Sesquicentennial Celebration will feature a partially-staged opera by Reinaldo Moya with words by Caitlin Vincent. The cast of singers includes mezzo soprano Jill Morgan, as well as Dominic Aragon (-baritone), Matthew Valverde (tenor), Mario Ángel Pérez (tenor), and Bergen Baker (soprano). The production will also feature The Augsburg Choir and the Augsburg Orchestra. The stage director is Doug Scholz-Carlson.
The opera tells the story of Luis Garzón, a Mexican musician who immigrated to Minneapolis in 1886 and opened a small Mexican grocery store, or tienda, in St. Paul in the 1920s. While Luis had married an American woman and was fully integrated into Minnesotan society, his store served as a community hub for the newest arrivals from Mexico, many of whom had fled the Mexican Revolution and now toiled on the sugar beet farms of rural Minnesota. “Tienda” explores the immigrant experience: what must be left behind—and what cannot be forgotten—on the journey to a new home. This world premiere performance of “Tienda” is one of the highlights of Moya’s two-year residency with the Schubert Club.
For Moya, Luis’s story has personal meaning. “I had wanted to write an immigration opera for some time,” said Moya. “When my librettist, Caitlin Vincent, and I started doing research for this project, we came across a human interest story of an immigrant’s journey to and life in the United States. Luis’s story resonated with me because we both came to the U.S. as young men and remained here for a long time. We are both musicians, and we both feel a strong pull towards our home culture while simultaneously seeing the promise of the American dream, even when it fails so many.”
Moya also sees the strong connection between the issues immigrants faced in the early 20th century, and the struggles they still face today. “Luis’s story is also one that is still very relevant in today’s political climate. We might think of these immigration issues as relatively new, but “Tienda” shows that we as a country have had a long history of reckoning with our heritage as an immigrant country.”
Tickets for “Tienda” include two options: An Immersive Seating* option for $20, and Balcony Seating for free. Tickets are required and available for purchase online at augsburg.edu/tickets. All Seating is general admission.
* Immersive theater seating includes samples of Mexican food and beverage to accompany the opera
About Reinaldo Moya Reinaldo Moya is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system. Through El Sistema, he had access to musical training from an early age and was a founding member of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra touring throughout Europe, North and South America. A graduate of The Juilliard School and a participant in the prestigious John Duffy Composers Institute and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Conce Composers Institute, Moya now lives in Northfield, and is Associate Professor of Composition at Augsburg University. Moya is the recipient of the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer and the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House.
About Caitlin Vincent Caitlin Vincent is an American librettist and lyricist whose writing has been praised as “nuanced and honest” (DC Theatre Scene), “intriguing” (The Baltimore Sun), and “luminous” (The Huffington Post). Her opera “Better Gods,” with composer Luna Pearl Woolf, premiered in January 2016 at the Kennedy Center as part of Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative. In 2017, Vincent and composer Douglas Buchanan won the prestigious Sackler Music Composition Prize to fund a new opera about Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator, and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, the first female governor of Texas, for a premiere in 2019. Other recent commissions include “Nullipara” with composer D. J. Sparr for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and “Little Black Book” with composer Susan LaBarr for Carnegie Hall. A classically-trained soprano, Vincent graduated cum laude from Harvard University and holds a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory and a PhD from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.
About Augsburg University Augsburg University, celebrating its 150th anniversary, 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.
The Star Tribune reported that the Cedar Cultural Center is partnering with Augsburg University and KFAI on January 11 to raise money for the victims of the tragic November 27 fire in one of the nearby apartment towers. Augsburg duo Tatum Mildred and Tessa Waite are part of the lineup of performers.
More than 900 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2019 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.
Augsburg’s brand new women’s wrestling team is already getting noticed.
“I feel like there’s a lot of stigma that it’s not a girls sport,” Bel Snyder ’23 told Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. “That it shouldn’t be that rough or anything. But I don’t think people understand that most of the time girls aren’t wrestling to make a statement about girls doing something. It’s not supposed to be like that. You’re wrestling because you want to be a wrestler.”
The article highlights the struggles that the team members faced growing up playing a sport that is generally associated with men. These Auggies are already breaking down barriers in the sport. Read the full article on the Mpls.St.Paul Magazine website.
Augsburg’s first-year class entering fall 2019 is the largest and most diverse.
Augsburg University President Paul Pribbenow was interviewed by the Star Tribune’s Evan Ramstad about how Augsburg is working to attract the diverse students who will be the workforce of the future as population growth is to slow.
“For us, it was about getting a larger share of the market from the communities where there was growth happening,” Pribbenow said.
Augsburg recently added new majors, a women’s wrestling team, and the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion to attract students.
The Real Talk with Roshini radio show featured Augsburg University student Danny Reinan and English Professor John Schmit.
Reinan is a second-year student who has identified as non-binary transgender since 12. “I use pronouns they, them, theirs,” Reinan told host Roshini Rajkumar, during the November 17 live program. “When I use those pronouns, I need to be patient with people in my life; I try to educate them and understand that this is a process that’s still ongoing.”
Reinan told the WCCO audience that it’s best practice to just ask someone what pronouns they prefer to avoid making any assumptions.
The professor said that student pronouns are now in professors’ official rosters at Augsburg. “We have to think about how people want to be referred to. It’s a simple matter of respect,” Schmit said. “We make assumptions sometimes. You can’t tell just by looking at somebody what their pronouns or gender is.”
Augsburg President Paul Pribbenow (left), Urban Investors founder Peter Heegaard, and Mike Christenson celebrated the Urban Investors program last month at a reception at Augsburg. Twin Cities Business.
The new program director of Urban Investors at Augsburg University, Mike Christenson, was previously a key member of former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s administration, Twin Cities Business reported.
Urban Investors, which recently moved to Augsburg, creates experiential learning opportunities for bankers and finance professionals who spend a year learning about urban issues to catalyze investment and community development that moves families out of poverty, revitalizes neighborhoods, improves schools, and builds economic opportunity. More information about the program can be found at thisblog post published by Augsburg’s Sabo Center.
Christenson told Twin Cities Business that he plans to work with students interested in banking careers and connect them to bankers in Urban Investors as well as other bankers he knows. “Business is one of the top majors at Augsburg,” Christenson said in the article. “Many Twin Cities-based banks “are getting white male candidates” for open positions, and they want to diversify their workforces. It’s very exciting for me to be involved in something that develops the next generation of leadership.”
German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine recently published the article “Mississippi in the Anthropocene: Whispering Waters.” The article explains the purpose of the trip and highlights some of the projects being executed throughout this journey.
“The aim of this expedition is to start a conversation,” the article says. “And it is for this reason that artists, authors, political activists, and scientists with very different interests will be present alongside the most numerous group: students of the River Semester at Minnesota’s Augsburg University. Their first mission: learning how to canoe.”
work in the field of addiction related issues. 
More than 900 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2019 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.
