Assistant Professor of Music Composition Reinaldo Moya was a recipient of an award in music announced by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Moya was awarded one of two $15,000 Charles Ives Fellowships.
Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 250 members of the Academy. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial in May.
WCCO featured an Augsburg faculty member in a story about the up side of the recent extreme cold.
Emily Schilling, who teaches biology at Augsburg University, says the hard freeze is good for our great bodies of water.
“It means the spring thaw will likely come later because we have more ice, it takes longer to melt, and that’s really good for our cold water fish species,” she told WCCO. “They like the water to stay cold.”
Mathematics professor Suzanne Dorée received the Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics at the Mathematical Association of America award ceremony on January 17, 2019. Dorée was recognized for her success in teaching effectiveness at Augsburg and for her national work with the Mathematical Association of America, the Charles A. Dana Center, and a number of presentations and workshops on campuses throughout the U.S.
The Star Tribune showcased Augsburg’s work to build an inclusive learning community as the student body has become increasingly diverse.
There is much challenging work underway, and we are grateful for the many student voices and perspectives helping shape Augsburg’s response to the very real issues of discrimination in our world.
Augsburg History Professor Bill Green was interviewed by Prairie Public about his new book “The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1860-1876.”
Green has published articles, op-ed pieces, and book chapters on history, law, and education, and he has previously published books on race and civil rights in Minnesota history. He also has served as a past president of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Augsburg University President Paul Pribbenow spoke with Marianne Combs of MPR News about the artwork in the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion.
Forecast Public Art connected Augsburg with a network of diverse artists, then helped create a selection process that would knit together the different disciplines taught at Augsburg.
“That was important to us because, at this point, Augsburg’s undergraduate population is almost 50 percent students of color, and so we want to reflect the communities they come from,” Pribbenow said.
During the interview with Combs, Pribbenow also pointed to the art across the glass windows, depicting Martin Luther’s handwritten version of ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God.’
See full article and a link to the audio at the MPR News website.
Learn about the artists.
Reinaldo Moya’s “The Way North” tells the story of a Central American migrant making a journey to the United States through Mexico, leaving everything behind. Moya is a Composition Assistant Professor at Augsburg University and was recently featured in a Star Tribune article about “The Way North,” the main work on Minneapolis pianist Matthew McCright’s new album.
“I got a grant from the State Arts Board. Reinaldo and I had been talking about what we might do for the project.” McCright said. “We came up with the idea of immigration — a very rough idea in the beginning, of a migrant journey to the United States.”
Read the complete Star Tribune story.
Augsburg Department of History Chair Michael Lansing was interviewed for Minnesota Experience’s first-ever episode of “Flour Power,” a new weekly history series from TPT – Twin Cities PBS.
The episode, which premiered September 17, explored the impact that Minnesota’s milling history had on the carbohydrates we consume every day worldwide.
Stream the full episode at the TPT – Twin Cities PBS website.
Earlier in September, Lansing was featured in “The Rise and Fall of the Nonpartisan League,” a documentary series from Prairie Public Television (North Dakota). In 2015, Lansing published his book Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics, then served as an advisor for the series.
Technology has become a powerful tool for many educators. Many agree it makes learning more fun and engaging, while other educators such as Augsburg University Professor of Sociology and Department Chair Diane Pike opt for a “tech free” classroom. Pike has restricted technology use in her classroom for 10 years now.
My goal is to have you not look at your phone for 70 minutes,” Pike told WCCO-TV. “The research is really clear that being on your phone in class is distracting.” Since implementing her tech-free zone, Pike has not had significant issues. She says her small class sizes, around 25 students, make it easier to manage.
The notable preference for STEM programs has negatively affected the number of English majors in the United States. Retired English professor Madelon Sprengnether from the University of Minnesota paid close attention to the numbers. Sprengnether reached out to her former student, professor Robert Cowgill, chair of the Department of English at Augsburg University to discuss why English (and other humanities disciplines) still hold appeal. “As I age, I see us all as a circle of writers and teachers in this city who have kept a certain flame of sensibility alive in our students,” Cowgill said. “I think we matter. What we keep alive matters.”
