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 Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article covering World Hijab Day events at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota.
The article featured photos of Augsburg College students who hosted the Hijab Fashion Show at Augsburg. Students at Normandale and Augsburg hosted events in support of Muslim students and were joined by non-Muslim students in a show of solidarity.
Photos of Augsburg College students featured in the paper included Aisha Barre, Anisa Ahmed, Nahili Abdulahi and Juweria Hassan, who participated in the fashion show. Similar events have been taking place across the country in reaction to divisive rhetoric and anti-Muslim sentiment, the article notes.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article covering the life of Koryne Horbal, political activist and former United Nations ambassador for women. Horbal co-founded the Minnesota DFL’s feminist caucus and was an early champion of still-debated issues such as the Equal Rights Amendment, sexual slavery, reproductive choice, and workplace equity.
The article notes Augsburg’s Koryne Horbal Lecture Series in which the College welcomes prominent feminist speakers including Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Winona LaDuke, and The Guerilla Girls. Horbal has been a consultant for the Women’s Resource Center at Augsburg and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the College in 2008.
This year, the lecture will take place on March 9 and feature Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP. More information on the event is available on the Convocation Series website.
The Jerusalem Post website recently published an article by Julian Kritz ’16, Interfaith Scholar and vice president of Students Supporting Israel at Augsburg College. In the piece, Kritz discussed his experience traveling to Israel with a diverse delegation of Minnesota legislators and community leaders.
He remembered the diversity of the group — which was bipartisan, interfaith and intergenerational — as being particularly impactful as they toured sites of importance to Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
“As a Jew, seeing Israel through the eyes of the Christian members of our delegation was a moving experience which greatly added to my understanding of why so many people care about this small piece of land,” he explained.
Kritz was selected for the trip due to his work as an intern with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC) and his travel was sponsored by a grant from the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. The JCRC was asked to plan the trip, which included meetings with key figures in Israeli and Palestinian politics and tours of religious sites, centers of business, and locations of political importance.
The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder recently included comments from Jennifer Jacobs, assistant athletic director at Augsburg College, and student athlete Rob Harper ’16 in an article on the struggle to increase the diversity of coaching and administrative staff at NCAA schools. The article is a response to pro-diversity resolutions passed at the league’s annual conference last month.
In the article, Jacobs acknowledged that the drive for inclusion and diversity must start at the top. “Athletic directors and assistant athletic directors can’t feel empowered unless it comes from the presidents,” she said.
Jacobs added that “…people in general will hire people that look like them. The only way to counteract that is [that] you have to be intentional in your hiring practice.”
Harper, a sociology major and member of the Student Athlete Advisory Council, discussed his experience attending the conference and interest in observing the league’s voting process.
Augsburg College President Paul Pribbenow was one of the high-profile Minnesotans recently included on a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry as “un-Minnesotan.”
Others who added their support to the campaign include Gov. Mark Dayton, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and the CEOs of prominent Minnesota businesses such as Best Buy, General Mills, and Cargill.
The ad was a joint effort between Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management. It states that although Minnesotans, “may be a soft-spoken bunch, we know better than to be silent or still in the face of bigotry shown to Muslims. Our fellow Minnesotans.”
Several media outlets have reported on the ad, including:
Augsburg College staff members Lori York, associate registrar, and Leah Spinosa de Vega, director of global initiatives and off-campus study, were quoted in an article for International Educator — a bi-monthly magazine published by NAFSA: the Association of International Educators.
The article focuses on the specific challenges faced by veterans who wish to study abroad and how schools can better facilitate global education opportunities this group of students.
To help navigate the nuances of veterans’ benefits, “I would encourage the study abroad office to tap into the expertise of the School Certifying Official on their campus,” York said in the article.
As part of an ongoing conversation about democracy in education, Harry Boyte, senior scholar in public work philosophy for Augsburg’s Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently contributed an article to Education Week in which he argued in favor of free spaces–“places where people find it easy and enjoyable to swap stories, plan adventures, and discuss and argue politics.”
In the article, Boyte draws on his experiences with Sabo Center colleague Dennis Donovan, national organizer for Public Achievement, to articulate the importance of providing places for challenging yet compassionate dialog.
The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead recently published an article on North Dakota’s short-lived presidential primary and its return to the current caucus system. Included in the article were statements by Michael Lansing, author and associate professor of history at Augsburg College.
Lansing said that since North Dakota returned to the caucus system in 1935, the state “has even less of a role in primary races than ever.”
He added, “The same is true of many Upper Midwest states.”
The Minnesota chapter of Campus Compact, an organization that supports civic engagement and democratic renewal across college campuses, recently published an article about Augsburg College’s proactive approach to supporting Muslim students and the local Muslim community.
Following inflammatory statements made by high-profile politicians and presidential candidates about the Muslim community, the Augsburg College faculty passed a resolution declaring their “deep support, love and friendship for the Muslim members of our campus, community and world.” The Campus Compact article states that, “Faculty and staff at the college make this commitment real through myriad practices and partnerships.”
Included in those partnerships is the work that the College has done with Sisterhood Boutique, a “second-hand clothing store and youth social entrepreneurship program developed by young women, a majority East African and Muslim, living in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis.” Augsburg faculty members — such as Assistant Professor of Business Marc Isaacson — have engaged their students in projects to support the boutique.
Read: In Word and Deed: Augsburg College in Support of Muslim Students, Colleagues, Neighbors on the Campus Compact site.
WCCO recently sought counsel from Andy Aoki, professor and department chair of political science at Augsburg College, to answer a viewer’s question about the timing of the New Hampshire Primary and the Iowa Caucus.
“Why do Iowa and New Hampshire vote first?” was the focus of the recent Good Question segment.
Aoki provided a straightforward answer.
“Today, they’re first because they want to be,” he said before explaining the history of the events in more detail. The segment goes on to explain how the advent of television turned the previously ignored New Hampshire primary into a nation-wide media spectacle. This prompted the state to pass a law requiring that they remain the first to select a candidate.
How did Iowa end up voting earlier? “Technically, New Hampshire is the first primary and Iowa is the first caucus, so they’ve worked out a little agreement,” Aoki explained.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently published an article covering World Hijab Day events at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota.
