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.
Mayors Jacob Frey and Melvin Carter at the debate. Photo by Andy Mannix – Star Tribune.
Jacob Frey and Melvin Carter, the new mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, served as judges June 7 at the Minnesota Urban Debate League’s Great Education Debate at Augsburg.
Augsburg’s urban debate league program provides resources and programming to support competitive academic debate at Twin Cities high schools and middle schools. The goal is to empower students through competitive academic debate to become engaged learners, critical thinkers, and active citizens who are effective advocates for themselves and their communities.
At the debate, four students presented arguments on the topic of investing in career technical education as an alternative to four-year college degrees. Both Frey and Carter gave tips and feedback to the participants.
“You have mastered a skill that has largely been lost in American society, which is the ability to debate respectfully,” Frey told the students.
The Augsburg Education Department East African Student to Teacher program partnered with The Minnesota Education Equity Partnership to research and publish the report Somali Student Achievement in Minnesota about the state’s largest East African diaspora community.
This report, which was released and discussed at a launch event in May at Augsburg, invites readers to consider and recommend innovative practices to strengthen academic achievement for Somali students and to guide educators across Minnesota to better support Somali students and their families.
The Society for Human Resource Management, the nation’s leading human resources organization, highlighted Augsburg’s strong commitment to transit and environmental stewardship.
Following a 2015 survey in which 78 percent of Augsburg employees said they drove alone to work, the university aimed to reduce those solo trips by 28 percent, which it eventually did, the article noted.
Last December’s federal tax legislation made changes to employers regarding commuting benefits, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
“I don’t see it changing what Augsburg University does for our faculty and staff or our students, mainly because we have a strong commitment to both environmental stewardship and our community,” said Nicole Peterlin, Augsburg’s human resources specialist.
See the full story on the Society for Human Resource Management here.
More than 800 Augsburg University undergraduate students were named to the 2018 Spring 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.
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt reported about how Augsburg’s StepUp program has successfully helped students in recovery to graduate.
NBC’S Catie Beck talked with Neil King ’18 about the support StepUP provided him while he was a full-time student at Augsburg.
According to NBC, King began using drugs at age 14, and discovered Augsburg’s StepUp program four months into his recovery. “I really learned to believe in myself, and my skills and capabilities,” said King, who is now heading to graduate school.
StepUp Program Director Tamarah Gehlen also was interviewed by NBC. “We always say that no one should have to choose between recovery and a college education.”
According to WCCO, McDonald’s, Chipotle, Netflix, Amazon, John Deere and more have all recently announced they are raising prices. So why are things getting more expensive?
To answer this question, WCCO’S Heather Brown spoke with Augsburg’s Business Department Chair Jeanne Boeh. “Prices are going up partly because people have more income,” Boeh said.
There are two main ways for inflation to occur, Boeh explained to WCCO. The first is called “demand pull,” and that is when people have more money, they demand more and, in turn, businesses charge more. The second way is “cost push” inflation, when the inputs — like gas or wages — that go into a making a good or service rise.
U of M students look to Augsburg’s StepUp program as recovery community role model. Image by MinnPost.
University of Minnesota journalism students identified Augsburg’s StepUp program as a role model, according to a MinnPost article.
The StepUP Program at Augsburg strives to help students champion lives of recovery, achieve academic success, and thrive in a community of accountability and support.
“As soon as you start to look for recovery colleges, you see Augsburg because it is such an exemplary model,” U of M student Alex Wittenberg told MinnPost.
Tamarah Gehlen, StepUp’s director, said in the MinnPost story that the need for the program is demonstrated and it’s working. “We have produced wonderful results.”
Post promoting a rally was among the sponsored ads on Facebook, targeted to people within 50 miles of MN.
The Star Tribune reported about thousands of recently disclosed fake Facebook ads and posts and interviewed Augsburg political science professor Andrew Aoki.
Many of these ads and posts released by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee referenced several Minnesota events, including the police shooting cases of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile.
“There’s obviously some significant division in this country, and so my guess is that they looked for where there are real divisions and then tried to make them deeper,” Aoki told the Star Tribune. “Because it’s a lot easier to stoke the fires that are already burning than to start new ones.”
Cory Hepola from Kare 11 spoke with Augsburg economics professor Keith Gilsdorf to discuss the country’s current unemployment rate, which is the lowest it has been since 2000. Unemployment topped out at 10 percent in October 2009, and ever since it has been on a steady decline.
“I don’t think that you can think of it as a permanent kind of place where the economy is going to continue that for a long period of time,” Gilsdorf said. “It’s a tight labor market and there’s going to be pressure for employers to try to attract workers to their business, and at some point they’re going to have to offer higher pay.”
KSTP spoke with Augsburg political science professor Andrew Aoki about Minnesota school districts that have teachers working with expired contracts. Teachers are strictly working their contract hours and are no longer staying late after school or grading papers and responding to emails at home, KSTP reported.
He says the pressures around organized labor is likely a concern for teachers unions.
“You only have to look to Wisconsin to see there are some real pressures on the unions,” Aoki said.
