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.
The Hastings Star Gazette newspaper recently interviewed Abby Schultz ’17, a member of the Augsburg Choir who performed with singer Barry Manilow at the Xcel Energy Center last month. In addition to singing in the choir, Schultz also serves as its manager.
“It’s an experience I will always remember, not only because I got to perform with Barry Manilow, but as the choir manager I got to be interviewed by KARE 11 and FOX 9,” Schultz said. “I’m glad it happened when I was in the choir, for sure.”
The article also notes that Schultz will be performing with a mixed choir in Italy this summer. “I don’t know when I’ll get another opportunity to do this,” she said of the trip.
Read Hastings’ Abby Schultz performed with Barry Manilow, Augsburg College Choir on the Hastings Star Gazette site.
The Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal recently published an article covering the revelation that a previously unidentified $10 million donation toward the naming of the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion had been given to Augsburg College by Norman and Evangeline Hagfors.
The donation originally was announced in early 2015, with the donors remaining unnamed until the recent groundbreaking ceremony. In a statement Evangeline Hagfors said, “Adding our name signals that we stand with Augsburg. We support the CSBR project and the many benefits it will provide faculty, students, and the Augsburg community.”
Spring 2016 undergraduate class is the most diverse in College’s history
The Augsburg College community on Saturday, April 30, will celebrate the success of students from its Minneapolis and Rochester campuses, including the traditional undergraduate class that is comprised of more than 42 percent students of color.
In the past 10 years, since Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow has led the institution, the College has more than tripled the percentage of persons of color in the full undergraduate student body – growing from 11 percent in 2006 to 33 percent in 2016.
“An Augsburg education is marked by broad and intentional diversity in which students learn at the intersections of academic disciplines, diverse viewpoints, rich faith traditions, socioeconomic backgrounds, gender expressions, military commitments, learning styles and more,” Pribbenow said.
“We know that in order to secure a vital and vibrant future for our cities, state, and region, we must be united in our drive for equity. Our location in the city – in one of the most diverse ZIP codes in the nation – allows Auggies the unique advantage of leveraging the richness and abundance that these many forms of diversity offer.”
Neal Karlen, a mentor in Augsburg College’s Master of Arts in Creative Writing program, described the unlikely friendship he developed with music icon Prince in a recent Star Tribune column. Karlen is among an elite group of writers granted in-depth interviews with Prince in the mid-1980s. Over time, discussions between the print writer and the songwriter developed into something akin to friendship, according Karlen.
“I always told Prince I knew he really didn’t consider me a friend, but as one of the few people in Minneapolis who was probably awake, like he always was, in the middle of the night, and was ‘Willing and Able,’ as my favorite song of his is titled, to talk about loneliness and death,” Karlen wrote.
“I even rubbed it in, in the opening of my second Rolling Stone cover story on Prince, published in 1990.
State-of-the-art Hagfors Center a living demonstration of College commitment to equity, diversity
MINNEAPOLIS — Groundbreaking for Augsburg College’s state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business and Religion is Friday.
More than 350 alumni, faculty, students, donors and friends of the College are expected to celebrate the groundbreaking for the Hagfors Center, designed to foster intersections among areas of study, support active learning, and connect the College to the community.
“The Hagfors Center is a living demonstration of the College’s dedication to interdisciplinary student learning, urban placemaking and thoughtful stewardship. Our commitment to equity and intentional diversity – our pledge to prepare students of academic ability to solve the most complex problems of our world – will be on view Saturday when we celebrate the success of students from Minneapolis and Rochester, including a traditional undergraduate class with more than 42 percent students of color,” said Augsburg College President Paul C. Pribbenow.
“The new Hagfors Center, which will create learning at the intersections of science, business and religion, is a commitment to our Lutheran heritage and identity. It’s also a promise to explore diverse viewpoints, rich faith traditions, socioeconomic backgrounds, gender expressions, military commitments, learning styles and more.”
In the 10 years since Pribbenow has led the institution, Augsburg has more than tripled the percentage of persons of color in the full undergraduate student body – growing from 11 percent in 2006 to 33 percent in 2016.
The Sun Current newspaper recently covered Augsburg Choir’s performance with Barry Manilow at the singer’s Xcel Energy Center concert on April 7. The article notes that Eden Prairie High School graduate Kaia Markovich ’17 was one of 30 choir members who joined Manilow on stage for his encore. Markovich is a chemistry major who sings alto in the choir.
Read Eden Prairie graduate performs with Barry Manilow on the Sun Current site. For more information about the performance, visit the News and Media blog.
Sports news site The Post Game recently included former Augsburg College basketball player and legendary coach Lute Olson ’56 in an article about notable athletes from North Dakota.
Olson was born and raised near the Minnesota-North Dakota border before attending Augsburg. After graduating, he went on to become the head coach of the University of Arizona men’s basketball team. As the article points out, Olson’s teams made it to the Final Four a total of five times, winning the national title in 1997.
Read 9 Notable Athletes From North Dakota: Carson Wentz, Phil Jackson And More on the Post Game site.
The Hudson Star-Observer, a newspaper in Hudson, Wis., recently interviewed Augsburg College student and choir member McKenna Selissen ’18 about her experience performing with the Augsburg Choir as they joined Barry Manilow at the Xcel Energy Center.
“It was unbelievable to share the stage with someone so well respected and well known in the music world,” Selissen said. “I am amazed how many hit songs he’s had and with all the commercial jingles he’s wrote; he is extremely talented.”
The students who performed with Manilow were each given a pair of complimentary tickets to the concert. Selissen, a music therapy major, happily gifted her tickets to two of her clients. One of the clients uses Manilow’s music extensively in his therapy sessions.
“He knows every song and all the words so it was such a coincidence when we were asked to do this. This client was beyond excited to not only go to his first concert, but to see his very favorite singer,” Selissen said.
Read HHS alum performs with Barry Manilow on the Hudson Star-Observer site.
St. Paul-area newspaper Lillie News recently profiled Koua Yang ’99, a social studies teacher and tennis coach at Harding High School. Yang was one of 11 finalists for the 2015 Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award.
Yang was assigned to Harding High School as a student teacher in 1999 while he was an education major at Augsburg College. He was so loved by his students that they petitioned the school’s principal and asked him to hire Yang. The principle told Yang that a job would be waiting for him the following school year.
Yang’s family immigrated to the U.S. in 1980 when he was 4 years old.
“I know what it was like to struggle as a student. I knew what it was like to not be proficient in a language — a foreign language,” Yang said. “Sharing that path, that navigation piece is absolutely crucial. It also gives them hope. Because then they realize, ‘Hey somebody went through it, too; somebody like me went through it and they were pretty successful at it. I can do it, too.'”
Read ‘I’m not afraid to be vulnerable’ on the Lillie News site.
A reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently was on campus to interview Diana Pierce ’16 MAL, a longtime Twin Cities news anchor whose retirement from KARE 11 News was announced Wednesday. Pierce completed her Master of Art in Leadership at Augsburg College in December, and she will participate in Augsburg’s 2016 Commencement ceremonies.
Although she will be retiring from KARE 11, Pierce has not finished her work of “helping shape stories that provide a voice for the underserved.” She will use her degree to move behind the camera and produce documentaries. “It’s a weird, wonderful transition,” she said.
Read ‘Pure class’: KARE’s Diana Pierce bows out the same way she rose to the top on the Star Tribune site.
The Hastings Star Gazette newspaper recently interviewed Abby Schultz ’17, a member of the Augsburg Choir who performed with singer Barry Manilow at the Xcel Energy Center last month. In addition to singing in the choir, Schultz also serves as its manager.
