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Augsburg Nursing Faculty Focus on Infant Health Through MDH Grant

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A woman holds a baby at Health Commons. Both are wearing winter hats and jackets.
Health Commons visitors

Augsburg University Assistant Professor of Nursing Katie Martin is the recipient of a $160,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Health to support infant health in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Martin is a certified midwife who has been providing care to expecting mothers in the area for over 20 years. Since beginning her academic tenure at Augsburg in 2021, she has become a coordinator at the Health Commons and the director of the BSN-completion program in addition to her teaching responsibilities.

“I have been honored to work at the Health Commons in Cedar Riverside over this past year and am so excited that this generous grant allows us to be able to expand the work we do,” Martin says. “We’ll restart programs that were happening pre-pandemic centered on maternal and infant health through community-led programming and community-based research.”

The funds from this grant will support new projects at the Health Commons in Cedar-Riverside, a health-focused drop-in center that is offered through a decade-long partnership between Augsburg, M Health Fairview, and the East Africa Health Project. Aligned with the grant program’s goal to reduce infant mortality in Minnesota, Martin and the Health Commons team are focused on three objectives: 

  1. Infants in the Cedar-Riverside community are born at term and at a healthy weight.
  2. Infants in the Cedar-Riverside community survive and thrive in their first year of life.
  3. East African Immigrants trust and feel safe with their health care providers in the Minneapolis metropolitan area.

This grant-funded work will be led by an Infant Health Advisory Committee organized by Martin. Much of the activities of the grant include offering infant health educational courses, distributing safe cribs, increasing safe sleep messaging and prenatal care, and hosting monthly birth celebrations at the Health Commons in Cedar-Riverside. Additionally, graduate students will be able to complete a paid internship through this grant and assist in a research project. This grant will also support ongoing programming and health services currently offered at the Health Commons, such as blood pressure checks and movement and mindfulness classes.

“This grant was extremely competitive and is a tribute to Dr. Martin’s expertise in infant health, health equity, and her relationships in Cedar-Riverside,” said Associate Professor Katie Clark, chair of Augsburg’s department of nursing and executive director of the Health Commons.  “Congratulations, Dr. Martin!”

Learn more about Augsburg’s Health Commons locations, range of services, and operating hours.

Central Corridor Anchor Institutions Share Lessons From 10 Years of Partnership Along the Green Line

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Central Corridor Anchor Partnership logoThis month, the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership (CCAP) will celebrate 10 years of local place-making investments along the Green Line corridor with an Anchor Summit featuring Dr. David Maurrasse, leader of the national Anchor Institutions Task Force. 

Since 2012, CCAP members organizations—including colleges, universities, health systems, and other partner organizations—have sustained a commitment to the shared health, prosperity, and growth of Central Corridor neighborhoods. Anchor institutions are defined as stable, enduring organizations that are rooted in their localities, whose resources can be leveraged as agents of community and economic development. The CCAP anchor partner capacity comprises 16 ZIP codes, 60,000 employees, and 112,000 students with $2.5 billion in annual spending. Through CCAP, these “eds and meds” have focused on procurement spending, workforce development, and transit use in the ZIP codes along the Green Line in Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

Augsburg University was a founding member of CCAP, which is chaired by President Paul Pribbenow. Examples of Augsburg’s commitment to neighborhood vitality in recent years include:

  • The Cedar-Riverside Health Commons drop-in center, which opened in 2011 in collaboration with CCAP partner M Health Fairview, the East Africa Health Project, and People’s Center Health Services.
  • Urban Scrubs Camp, an annual summer camp for metro students to get hands-on exposure to health care careers and experience a college campus.
  • Augsburg Local, an initiative to leverage Augsburg’s institutional and individual purchasing power to support local businesses.
  • Inclusionary contracting in the construction of the Hagfors Center for Business, Science, and Religion, including over $3 million to Twin City Glass Contractors, a woman-owned business located in the Central Corridor geography.

“These strategies not only make our organization stronger, but they contribute to more prosperity for the Central Corridor and the whole Twin Cities region,” said Pribbenow.

The Anchor Summit will be held from 8–10:30 a.m. on November 16 at the Fairview Community Health & Wellness Hub in St. Paul. David Maurrasse will deliver a keynote on the power and potential of anchor partnerships, followed by a panel discussion on creating shared value and community health and safety in the central corridor. For more information, visit centralcorridoranchorpartnership.org/anchor-summit.

Augsburg Health Commons Receives $50,000 Award to Advance Health Equity Through Nursing

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A volunteer wearing gray scrubs and a face mask provides a blood pressure check for a guest at the Augsburg Central Health Commons.For 30 years, the Augsburg Health Commons have advanced a model of nursing practice rooted in accompaniment, social justice, and transcultural nursing practice. In early January, the program received a $50,000 Health Equity Innovation Fund grant from AARP and the Center to Champion Nursing in America, a joint initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to deepen and expand this work.

“We are moved beyond words to be selected for this opportunity,” said Katie Clark, associate professor of nursing and executive director of the Health Commons. “These funds will not only help relieve some of the suffering people are forced to endure in the immediate term, but will also help cultivate ideas and solutions for the long term in caring for people who experience marginalization.” 

The first Augsburg Health Commons drop-in center opened at Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis in 1992. Most people seeking care at the Central location live without a permanent residence or are marginally housed. In 2011, a second location in Cedar-Riverside opened in response to a need for accessible, no-cost health care services identified by members of the East African immigrant community located near Augsburg’s campus. Both locations center community voices and are led and organized by nursing faculty members, nursing and physician assistant volunteers, students, and community members.

The people who come to the Health Commons are from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Everyone is welcome, and all services are provided free of charge. Health concerns might include nutrition, medication, stress management, respiratory conditions, injuries, skin problems, and chronic disease such as diabetes and hypertension. Frequently, people experiencing these problems come to Health Commons locations for their easy access, supportive environment, and assistance with connecting to other health care resources.

Going forward, the Health Equity Innovation Fund grant project will focus on three interconnected goals.

  • Continuing and expanding care for marginalized communities.
  • Deepening the focus on health equity, systemic racism, and structural inequities in nursing education. 
  • Disseminating knowledge to influence the nursing profession towards greater inclusiveness.

The Health Commons will continue providing opportunities for the most marginalized communities of Minneapolis to live healthier lives as they are cared for in local context. In addition to existing sites at Central Lutheran Church and Cedar Riverside and work with local encampments, the grant will allow staff and volunteers to explore new partnerships at other locations, including in North Minneapolis in collaboration with Augsburg’s physician assistant program. 

By providing paid research and practice internships for graduate nursing students, the grant will also support the educational mission of the Health Commons. Students in Augsburg’s BSN, Master’s, and DNP programs will continue to learn to decode systems of oppression that are embedded within systems and social norms, and to promote health equity by connecting with others through shared humanity. The project will fund dissemination of research by Augsburg faculty and students through conferences and publishing. In so doing, it aims to create pathways for developing inclusiveness within the nursing profession, both in practice and in the academy. 

“Our Augsburg nursing faculty are excited to be able to dig deeper into naming systemic and structural racism in partnership with people with lived experience in an effort to begin creating needed change in healthcare and the discipline of nursing,” said Clark.

Augsburg Health Commons is one of 16 organizations nationally to receive a Health Equity Innovations Fund award for 2022. The awards through the AARP Center for Health Equity through NursingSM and the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, an initiative of AARP Foundation, AARP, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, are for projects offering promising solutions aimed at eliminating structural inequities, particularly structural racism, within the nursing profession, health systems, or community, and for projects that help improve access to care and services for those most disproportionately impacted by health disparities. Projects also support the advancement of one or more of the recommendations in the National Academy of Medicine report, “The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity.”

Find out more about the projects or visit the Augsburg Health Commons website.

Advisory: Augsburg officially becomes ‘Augsburg University,’ welcomes most diverse class in 148-year history

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University’s first-year undergraduate class more than 53 percent persons of color

(MINNEAPOLIS) — As Augsburg celebrates becoming “Augsburg University” on Sept. 5, it also welcomes an incoming first-year undergraduate class of more than 53 percent persons of color.

“As ‘Augsburg University,’ we embrace our leadership role as a university at the forefront of intentional diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Augsburg University President Paul C. Pribbenow.

“We are proud and grateful to welcome to our community the Class of 2021, made up of students of academic ability from an array of diverse backgrounds — including ethnicity, faith, socioeconomic status, gender identity, and more. We know that learning in a diverse community prepares young people to become engaged, thoughtful citizens, and problem solvers.”

The Augsburg University celebration at the Minneapolis campus includes food stations and opportunities for getting an Augsburg University logo T-shirt screen printed on-site, participating in a photo booth, assembling hygiene kits for the Augsburg Health Commons, which serves unsheltered persons who live in Minneapolis, and more. On Sept. 18, the Augsburg University teaching site in Rochester, Minn., will host a special ribbon-cutting to celebrate more than 20 years of providing graduate and undergraduate programs in that community.

PROGRAM and PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES

  • 9:20 a.m.: Faculty and staff line up along 22nd Avenue South to applaud students as they process into Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center, for the Opening Convocation.
  • 9:30 a.m.: Opening Convocation in Hoversten
  • 10:30 a.m.: Kick-Off Celebration and Lunch in the Quadrangle
  • 11:30 a.m.:  Augsburg University President Paul Pribbenow formally launches Augsburg University
  • 12:30 – 1 p.m.: First-Year Students Begin Service Projects

ADDITIONAL FACTS

  • Augsburg measures diversity beyond ethnicity and culture and welcomes persons in our community of diverse faiths, gender identities, socioeconomic backgrounds, learning styles, and military commitments. Nearly 10 percent of students self-identify as Muslim. More than 11 percent self-identify as LGBTQIA.
  • On Sept. 5, the Class of 2021 will donate nearly $35,000 in service work at more than 20 locations in Minneapolis.

ABOUT AUGSBURG UNIVERSITY

Augsburg University offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and nine graduate degrees to nearly 3,600 students of diverse backgrounds at its campus in the vibrant center of the Twin Cities and the Rochester site. 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.

Graphic design students’ exhibit features Augsburg Health Commons

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sock_exhibit
Bee Vang ’15 and Vince Undis ’14 hang the prints, which were created by the Graphic Design I and II students, in the exhibit. Photo by Stephen Geffre.

In addition to learning about the Pantone system and font rendering, students in Augsburg’s fall semester graphic design classes gained knowledge about three things: the Augsburg Health Commons, socks, and what it’s like to work in a professional design situation.

“We learned how to work together and to take criticism,” said Vince Undis ’14, a mass communications major. “And that deadlines are no joke,” added Patrick Werle ’13, a creative writing major.

Students in Graphic Design I and II spent the fall semester researching the history, philosophy, and practice of the Augsburg Central Health Commons and the Health Commons at Dar Ul-Quba. Continue reading “Graphic design students’ exhibit features Augsburg Health Commons” →