As part of its year-end coverage, Minnesota Public Radio published a compilation of 45 favorite photos of 2014 — three of which featured the Augsburg College community. The story offered a glimpse into the people, places, and events that helped shape life in Minnesota in 2014, such as the College’s annual Powwow and the Tibetan New Year celebration with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama held in Augsburg’s Si Melby gymnasium. A photo of alumna Rebecca Stewart ’10 MSW also was featured and came from a story on the ways in which yoga can help students control their emotions. To see the images, visit the MPR website.
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.
“Companies need responsive, innovative thinkers and problem-solvers,” wrote Dave Conrad, Augsburg College’s assistant director of the Rochester MBA program, in his latest column for the Rochester Post-Bulletin. A problem exists, though, that companies often do not invest in the training and development of their employees, which leads to an under-engaged workforce. Read Conrad’s column, “The best managers develop their employees” to learn why staff development is crucial for business success. Members of the Augsburg College community were featured in more than 220 international, national, and statewide media stories in 2014. Faculty, students, alumni, friends, and staff shared expertise on scholarship and pedagogy, experience as Auggies, and insight on current and special events. Here we take a look at a very small fraction of the many times Auggies made the news during the year. Thanks to all those who shared their time and stories and helped put Augsburg at the table on so many topics. John Zobitz talks to International Business Times: Associate Professor of Mathematics and environmental science researcher John Zobitz helped to answer the question posed by many in the wake of a recent record-setting snowfall in the Buffalo, N.Y. area — Why is it so cold and snowy in November? The reason is global warming, according to Zobitz and other scientists studying the Earth’s climate. Read more about how changes in the Earth’s temperature influence weather patterns on the International Business Times website. Phil Adamo on KARE 11: Associate professor of history and director of Medieval Studies at Augsburg College, Phil Adamo, was a guest on KARE 11 on Halloween to talk about the origins of the holiday. Adamo shared with Diana Pierce and viewers how Halloween started as a Celtic festival that celebrated the final harvest and eventually was incorporated into Christian traditions to lure non-Christians into the Church. He also discussed the origins of the bonfire, jack-o-lanterns, and Halloween candy. Watch the segment “Halloween History 101” on KARE. For more faculty featured in the news, search the Faculty category on the News and Media blog. StepUP supporters speak with MinnPost: Kevin and Polly Hart, mentors for Augsburg’s StepUP Program, were honored at the annual StepUP Gala for their avid support of the program. The Harts, who have volunteered with StepUP for several years and are in recovery from addiction, were presented the Toby Piper LaBelle Award for their dedication to serving students in recovery. Kevin Hart spoke about the honor and his work with the recovery community in “Sobriety champion Kevin Hart offers financial and emotional support to people in recovery.” Amineh Safi ’14 in Star Tribune: Star Tribune columnist Gail Rosenblum featured Augsburg College student Amineh Safi ’14 in a recent story examining news coverage of Muslims. In the column, Safi described findings from her research on the portrayal of Muslims in the media and her experiences with diversity in college. Safi’s research opportunity was offered through the McNair Scholars program at Augsburg and conducted under the mentorship of Diane Pike, sociology professor, who also was quoted in the column. Read “Time to look at news coverage of Muslims” on the Star Tribune website. “We are pleased that so many accomplished poets entrusted their manuscripts to us. It means that Howling Bird Press, one of the few graduate student-run publishing houses in the country, is recognized as a significant literary home for writers’ work,” said Cass Dalglish, director of Augsburg’s MFA program. Dalglish described Vogel’s work as careful, confident and intriguing. “Everything counts in Marci Vogel’s poems – image, metaphor, silence, punctuation,” Dalglish said. “Marci’s clear, poetic voice will resonate at the core of students’ work this year as we design, layout and publish her book.” Vogel, a native of Los Angeles, will have her book “At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody” published next summer and will receive $1,000. The collection will be edited, designed and marketed by students in the MFA’s Career Concentration in Publishing. Vogel is a Provost’s Fellow in the Ph.D. program in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California where she teaches in the honors writing program. She is a long-time writer of prose who began writing poetry in her forties. Vogel’s work has been published in many journals and her work has earned prestigious national nominations including for the Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, the “Best New Poets” anthology, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Journals Project and the Pushcart Prize. Vogel’s translation from French into English of Andrée Chedid’s 1956 poetry sequence, “In the Noon of Contradictions,” was selected for the 2014 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. Augsburg College’s MFA program, sponsor of the national literary award, is a two-year, low-residency program that offers tracks in creative nonfiction, fiction, playwriting, poetry and screenwriting. Concentrations are available in publishing, teaching and translation. Learn more about the program at www.augsburg.edu/mfa. Augsburg College is set in a vibrant Minneapolis neighborhood in the heart of the Twin Cities and offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and nine graduate degrees to nearly 4,000 students of diverse backgrounds. The trademark of an Augsburg education is its emphasis on direct, personal experience. Guided by the faith and values of the Lutheran church, Augsburg educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. ### Augsburg was the only Minnesota college or university named a finalist on the Corporation for National and Community Service’s 2014 Interfaith Community Service Honor Roll as well as on the Corporation’s General Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction. Augsburg is one of only four colleges nationwide to be named a finalist in the interfaith category, an honor that recognizes institutions of higher education that support exemplary community service programs and raise the visibility of effective practices in campus community partnerships. There are four categories for the honor roll: general community service, interfaith community service, economic opportunity, and education. Only four higher education institutions are named recipients of the general President’s Award — a distinction Augsburg held in 2010 — and 16 other schools are named finalists, four in each category. The Honor Roll recognizes more than 750 colleges and universities for exemplary, innovative, and effective community service programs. Honorees are chosen based on a series of selection factors including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses. The interfaith community service category recognized Augsburg for its institution-wide shift toward greater interfaith cooperation and interfaith service. Three project examples connected with this effort include the College’s collaboration with the Interfaith Youth Corps, a group devoted to building the interfaith movement on college campuses; the work of the Augsburg College Interfaith Scholars, of group of Augsburg students who are interested in exploring the religious diversity of the College’s student body, the wider Twin Cities community, and the United States through interreligious dialogue; and an Inclusiveness Reading Circle, a group that supported interfaith intergroup dialogue. Find additional information on eligibility and the full list of Honor Roll awardees at nationalservice.gov/HonorRoll. Christine Dawson ’13 MSW was featured on the cover of the Regions Hospital Foundation Newsletter for her outstanding work with the HeroCare Program for veterans at Regions Hospital. Dawson, who is herself a veteran, coordinates services and advocates for patients in Regions Hospital’s mental health programs. Read about Dawson’s role on the Regions Hospital website. Learn more about Dawson’s experiences as an Augsburg student by reading “Launching a new mission,” an article from the fall 2013 Augsburg Now alumni magazine. Alex Friedrich, Minnesota Public Radio’s higher education reporter, visited Augsburg College’s campus to experience a day in the life of an Auggie. Friedrich spent Dec. 5 blogging about his experiences and found that Augsburg College has a wide variety of traditions and experiences to offer to its students, faculty, staff and alumni, and also to its neighboring communities, as well. Read and watch his posts on the “On Campus” blog here: Michael Lansing, Augsburg College associate professor and History Department chair, was featured in a video production by Prairie Public Broadcasting titled, “A.C. Townley and the Rise of the Nonpartisan League.” In the video, Lansing discusses A.C. Townley, founder of the Nonpartisan League, and the inception of the organization. Prairie Public Broadcasting is a television station serving North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota that produces documentaries, web-series and other media, centered on local life and culture. Watch the video on Prairie Public’s YouTube channel. The store — aptly named Sisterhood Boutique — is nestled in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis and features donated fashions at affordable prices. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarf received funding for their startup venture from several Twin Cities organizations including Fairview Health Services and the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, as well as support from Augsburg. To read the article, visit the MinnPost news site.
Dave Conrad: The best managers develop their employees
Auggies in 2014 nab international, national, state media spotlight
Top 21 news stories featuring Augsburg faculty, staff, students, alumni
International Stories
National Stories
State Stories
Stories Featuring Faculty
Joyce P. Miller in OR Today: Joyce Miller, an assistant professor of nursing, was profiled in OR Today about her nearly 40-year career as a nurse, transition to the classroom, and work in diverse communities through the Health Commons projects. Miller, DNP, RN, shares in the story her perspective on transcultural nursing, actively listening to the needs of patients, the complexity of healthcare, and the importance of establishing rapport and trust with patients. Read “Spotlight On: Joyce P. Miller, DNP, RN” in the online edition of OR Today.Stories Featuring Alumni and Friends
California poet wins national book award from Augsburg College
Howling Bird Press Literary Prize draws 60-plus manuscripts from across nation
(MINNEAPOLIS) – California poet Marci Vogel was selected as recipient of the inaugural national literary prize from Augsburg College’s Howling Bird Press, the publishing arm of the College’s Master of Fine Arts program. Vogel’s book-length collection of poetry – selected through blind reviews from a field of more than 60 manuscripts from across the nation – explores American life, art, history and culture through a range of eclectic voices, forms, images and styles.Augsburg earns dual national community service honors
Christine Dawson ’13 MSW shines as coordinator for HeroCare
Harry Boyte discusses public work on Huffington Post
In his recent article for The Huffington Post, Harry Boyte — Augsburg’s Sabo Senior Fellow — discusses the role Augsburg College and other universities can play in helping students address problems, meet challenges, and build a more democratic society using the public work approach. Read the article, Colleges as Agents of Change — The Public Work Approach, to learn more about Augsburg’s “down-to-earth quality wedding liberal arts education to career training grounded in practical experience.”MPR offers readers a glimpse into Augsburg College life
Michael Lansing talks with Prairie Public Broadcasting
Augsburg-connected startup highlighted by MinnPost
MinnPost news featured students and staff from Augsburg College and other local universities who collaborated on a startup organization, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Scarf, which opened a women’s clothing and accessory store.