The Augustana: Winter/Spring 2013

AUGUSTANA

The

VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 2

THE MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF AUGUSTANA COLLEGE

Connections

Winter/Spring 2013

VIEW FROM SUMMIT AVENUE

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

— 1 Peter 4:10 (NIV) In this Lenten season, we are reminded of the suffering and death of the ultimate servant, Jesus Christ.

We are reminded of this special gift to humankind and celebrate the power God gives us to share our gifts in ways that connect us to others through word, thought and deed.

In this issue of The Augustana, we recognize those who are using their God-given gifts to stir the hearts and empower the minds of others through scientific research and the performing, visual and literary arts — and in doing so, are building the connections our world needs to develop ideas, find solutions and experience joy.

These special people are using their gifts to forge new frontiers in science and education; they offer us inspiration and wonder through visual works of art; allow us to experience different parts of the world via chapters in a book; entertain our minds and our senses on movie screens; and captivate our hearts through music and song.

By living out their God-given talents, they are helping to weave the fabric of our futures. When we discover our connection to science or art, or books, or film or music, our perspectives grow and the shape of our thoughts change.

As we developed this issue, we were reminded time and time again of the significance of God’s gifts. We’re certain you’ll be reminded as well as you learn about the chance meeting between our own Dr. Jenny Gubbels, an assistant professor of Biology, and 1982 alumnus Dan Roesler. Today, Jenny and Dan are working together to fight ovarian cancer.

You’ll meet artist Kiel Mutschelknaus, class of 2007, who is exploring ways to create art using technology; professional opera singer Lindsay Ammann, class of 2006, who is using her gifts to bring joy to others; rising filmmaker Andrew Kightlinger, class of 2008, whose passion for storytelling comes alive on the screen; literary scientist and Augustana’s Writer-in-Residence Dr. Patrick Hicks; and, you’ll meet the newest member of our Augustana family, Jerry Olszewski, the new Viking football coach who will use his gifts to impact the lives of young men, helping them become the best student-athletes they can be.

We hope you enjoy this collection of stories about a great group of people we feel blessed to be connected to. Enjoy this issue!

Rob Oliver President

CONTENTS

THE AUGUSTANA The Augustana is published three times per year for alumni and friends of Augustana College by the Office of Advancement.

Send correspondence, name changes and address corrections to: The Augustana, 2001 S. Summit Ave., Sioux Falls, S.D. 57197. Telephone: 605-274-4904.

Visit the magazine online at augie.edu/magazine. Find more news about Augustana at augie.edu.

Editor: Kelly Sprecher Class Notes: Jenny Meiners, Mary Toso, ‘90 Contributors: Rob Oliver, president Bob Preloger, vice president for Advancement Bruce Conley, Sports Information Allie Hjerpe ‘14, Photography Matt Addington ‘95, Photography TJ Nelson ‘05, Photography

OUR MISSION Inspired by Lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, Augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.

OUR VISION Augustana College aspires to become one of America’s premier church-related colleges.

CORE VALUES

DEPARTMENTS View from Summit Avenue

Notes from the Green News from the Huddle In the Spotlight Navy & Gold Alumni News In Celebration

Central to the Augustana experience are five core values. The community lives them and honors them, and they infuse the academic curriculum as well as student life: Christian, Liberal Arts, Excellence, Community and Service.

FEATURES 6. The Serendipity Experiment After a chance meeting inside the hallway of Gilbert Science Center last fall, Augustana’s Dr. Jenny Gubbels and alumnus Dan Roesler, class of 1982, are working together to find new ways to fight ovarian cancer. na 10. The Art Technologist Kiel Mutschelknaus, class of 2007, uses technology to give art a new voice.

14. The Gift of Song For professional opera singer Lindsay Ammann, class of 2006, her career is not about singing iconic roles in world-famous performance halls. It’s about using her God-given talent to tell stories that transport and inspire her audience.

16. Inside the Mind of a Filmmaker Meet Andrew Kightlinger, class of 2008.

Get to know him now, so you can say ‘you knew him when.’

CONNECT WITH US! Augustana is an affirmative action, Title IX, equal opportunity institution. © Augustana College 2013

ON THE COVER: Andrew Kightlinger (left), class of 2008, works with cinematographer Peter Wigand behind the camera on the set of Kightlinger’s latest film, “Dust of War.”

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J-Te rm Around

Sam Ogdie (Modern Foreign Languages) led the J-Term course, “Arab and Jewish Influence in Spain and Morocco.” Photo submitted by Sam Ogdie.

the World

In January, 165 Augustana students spent the month immersed in 32 countries on six continents throughout the globe for an intense, first-hand study of history, language and culture.

These real-world courses are part of Augustana’s January Interim, a three-week session designed for curricular exploration and enrichment. Dubbed J-Term, the session gives students the opportunity to study abroad and partake in special one-time topic courses.

The students completed their studies through various Augustana programs, the Upper Midwest Association for Intercultural Education (UMAIE) and independent studies. Among the countries students traveled to were: New Zealand, India, Ecuador, Norway, Costa Rica, Ireland, Haiti, Hong Kong, Spain, France, Italy, Rome, Greece, South Africa, Cuba, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Thailand and Australia. ”It’s no secret that our world is becoming a smaller place. At Augustana, we know and understand that in order to compete in a global economy, our students must experience different parts of the globe firsthand. It’s why we work hard to encourage them to explore, discover and learn about foreign places, different cultures and ancient histories. By doing so, they’ll acquire the perspective they need to make informed decisions and drive change in the future,” said Rob Oliver, president.

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AUSTRALIA: (LEFT AND ABOVE) Shelly Gardner (Business) led the J-Term course “Sport Management in Australia.” Photos submitted by Shelly Gardner.

INDIA: (LEFT AND ABOVE) Dr. Sandra Looney (English) and Dr. John Pennington (Music) led the J-Term course “Dharma: Life, Religion and Music in Contemporary India.” LEFT: Students saw one of the Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal of Agra, India, which features vast, white marble courtyards and pillars.

ABOVE TOP: Sophomore art major Aimee Fisher is decorated with a bindi, a Hindu marking of sacred awareness and the third eye, while in the village of Rishikesh, India. ABOVE: Dressed in decorated saris and punjabis, Augustana students and professors arrive at a red-carpet, contemporary wedding in Delhi, India. Photos by Allie Hjerpe, class of 2014.

EUROPE: The largest group to travel abroad during J-Term 2013 was The Augustana Choir, whose 54 members spent January performing in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland while studying under Choir Director Dr. Paul Nesheim, Dr. Michael Nitz (Communications), Dr. Scott Johnson (Music) and Brad Heegel ‘76 (Arts Marketing and Development).

ABOVE: The Choir performing at the Klementium Mirror Chapel in Prague.

ABOVE: The Choir performing at St Nicholas Church in Leipzig home of the “silent revolution” which led to the fall of the Wall.

Photos by Brad Heegel.

LEFT TO RIGHT: The Choir in Bratislava, Slovakia; in front of the Bach Memorial; and performing at St. Nikolaikirche Church in Potsdam, Germany, the Sister City to Sioux Falls.

THAILAND: (ABOVE AND BELOW) Dr. Reynold Nesiba (Economics) led the J-Term course “The Political Economy of Thailand.” Photos by Dr. Nesiba and Thad Titze, class of 2013.

CUBA: (ABOVE) Dr. Cory Conover (History) and Dr. Stephen Minister (Philosophy, Religion and Classics) taught the J-Term course “Inside the Revolution: Life in Socialist Cuba.” Photo by Ali Champine ‘13.

NEW ZEALAND (LEFT): Paige DePerno ‘15 was a member of the J-Term course led by Dr. Daniel Howard and Dr. Carrie Hall, “Explorations in Aotearoa II: The Biogeography and Culture of the New Zealand South Island.” Photo by Dr. Carrie Hall.

After a chance meeting inside the hallway of Gilbert Science Center last fall, Augustana’s Dr. Jenny Gubbels and alumnus Dan Roesler, class of 1982, are working together to find new ways to fight ovarian cancer.

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SERENDIPITY

EXPERIMENT Dr. Jenny Gubbels

They say serendipity is all about the unexpected collision of time and space and accidental discoveries.

So it’s safe to say that the chance meeting between Dan Roesler, class of 1982, and Dr. Jenny Gubbels, an assistant professor of Biology, on a Friday afternoon last fall was serendipity at work, aided, perhaps, by the gentle nudging of one very special angel.

It was late in the day on the Friday of Viking Days weekend when Gubbels, a specialist in physiology and cancer immunology whose research focuses on ovarian cancer, was searching for a piece of lab equipment. As she walked through the first floor hallway of Gilbert Science Center, she noticed a man quietly looking at a research poster hanging on the wall.

Roesler found himself on campus by chance. He wasn’t planning on attending his 30-year class reunion but, on his way back from Montana to his home in Iowa, he decided to stop on a whim, thinking it might be fun to see his former classmates.

wife — his best friend — had died from ovarian cancer in 2007. Gubbels’s poster illustrated the reasons how and why his wife first developed cancer, and how and why it had spread so ferociously.

“That poster ... it was Cindy. It brought back so many memories. It was so on-thespot. The poster checked off everything we went through. You know, when you’re going through it, it all happens so fast and the explanations aren’t always there about ‘how’ and ‘why,’” Roesler said.

Roesler and Gubbels talked for a while that afternoon. He learned a bit more about her research, and learned that Augustana students routinely work alongside Gubbels and her colleagues in the Natural Sciences division through the College’s Undergraduate Summer Research Program.

After their visit, Roesler headed off to see classmates before returning home to Iowa, to the house he once shared with Cindy.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the coincidence of meeting Dr. Gubbels.

metriosis, Cindy was 42 when doctors discovered a growth which, at first, they believed was a fibroid tumor. In 2002, after further testing, Cindy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Doctors gave her five years to live.

The diagnosis was devastating.

The couple vowed to fight the disease … together.

“We’re engineers,” Roesler said. “We wanted to figure it out. We wanted to figure out how to beat it.”

They opted for surgery to remove the tumor, which at the time was the size of a softball. Within a year, the tumor had grown back to the same size.

The couple searched frantically for new treatment options and second opinions.

They sought treatment from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to address the second tumor. Doctors there did surgery to remove it and gave Cindy an optimistic prognosis.

“The second tumor was removed very cleanly and by 2005, we thought we had it whipped,” Roseler said.

“Jenny’s work could uncover new treatments or new ways to raise awareness. It could save lives. This is what Augie stands for – using the intellectual power of faculty to involve students and make a difference.”

– Dan Roesler, Class of 1982

A physics and math major at Augustana, he recalled the many hours he’d spent inside GSC and decided to take a stroll through. He stopped first in the entryway to take in the natural habitat displays, then headed downstairs to walk through the math department — the area his wife, Cindy (Ballentine), class of 1983, studied as a math major.

The building, originally built in 1966, looked just as it did when Roesler was a student.

From the basement, he walked up GSC’s back stairway and found himself face-toface with a research poster on ovarian cancer.

He caught his breath, felt that familiar ache in his heart, and started reading.

Cindy.

The memories were almost crushing.

He heard footsteps and turned to see Gubbels walking down the hallway.

“Can you tell me who did this research?”

Roesler asked her.

Gubbels took an uncertain step forward.

She quickly realized the man was looking at her research poster — an illustration of the work she’d done the summer before on ovarian cancer.

“I did,” she told him.

The poster, Roesler told her, was the best explanation he’d ever seen of why his

A Love Story Dan Roesler met Cindy at Augustana in 1980. He’s a native of South Dakota and grew up near Spencer. She was a native of Glendive, Mont. After graduation, they married and Roesler went on to earn his master’s degree in physics from South Dakota State University. Cindy also earned her master’s in math and taught for a time in Brookings, S.D. Eventually, they both earned jobs at Rockwell Collins, an avionics company based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They spent their careers there — he in the engineering research group; she in the software group.

They never had children, but enjoyed spending time with their three black labs.

Together, they toured the Midwest on their motorcycles and were avid lovers of nature and the outdoors.

After years of struggling with endo-

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r oesle Dan R

Cindy Ro esler

Sadly, they were wrong.

In 2006, Cindy learned the cancer had metastasized in her lungs. The couple decided to take one last trip on their motorcycles, zig-zagging over Bear Tooth Path, on the edge of the mountains, just outside Red Lodge, Mont.

In early 2007, Cindy died. She was 47 years old.

“There are so few markers for ovarian cancer. It’s a nasty disease that takes women in the prime of their lives. When

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Cindy was struggling with endometriosis in her mid-20s, had we known that [the condition] can be a pre-cursor for ovarian cancer, we might have opted for a hysterectomy,” Roesler said.

“It’s so tragic that these young females in the prime of their lives get their lives cut short,” he said.

Maybe it was Cindy’s memory, or what they went through together, or all the “what-if’s” ... whatever it was, Roesler couldn’t stop thinking about that chance meeting with Dr. Gubbels.

“Cindy really believed in ‘the other side.’

She believed in angels,” Roesler said.

“I think she was the reason I made my way up that back staircase of GSC to find Jenny’s poster.”

“An ovarian tumor originates on the ovary, then, as it grows, clumps of tumor cells break off the main tumor and latch on to other organs within the abdominal cavity. The deadly part of ovarian cancer is that these cell clumps (metastases) can quickly reach these organs and eventually interfere with the function of the organ,” she explains. “Because the ovaries are so deep within the abdominal cavity, it’s hard to feel a tumor growing, so most women are not even aware they have cancer until it’s too late. Seventy percent of the cases are diagnosed at stage three or four.”

Gubbels said the chance meeting with Roesler in the hallway that Friday afternoon made a significant impact on her.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the research – how the cells travel, what

of the training: communication. It’s also the chance to teach them, one-on-one, to use their hands and their minds. We teach them to be meticulous, to take good notes, to think logically about the experiment and to think about how to communicate the results. To teach someone in such an intimate way is really fun. That’s what teaching is really meant to be — an apprentice-mentor relationship.”

After learning more about Gubbels’ work, Roesler decided to make a gift to Augustana in support of her research. His pledge of more than $10,000 will help fund paid fellowships for students to work in Gubbels’ lab during the summers.

After learning of Roesler’s gift to the College, Cindy’s friends and parents also made gifts to the same fund.

“That is a big part of research — being able to talk about science so anyone can understand it.

When we take on research students, that is part of the training: communication.”

– Dr. Jenny Gubbels, Assistant Professor of Biology

Parallel Paths At the same time Cindy Roesler was battling cancer, Jenny Gubbels was completing her undergraduate degree at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and was preparing to begin her Ph.D. studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

It was in grad school that she began to focus her research on ovarian cancer.

She was driven she says, by the harshness of the disease.

According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2012 and more than 15,000 women died from the disease. Based on rates from 2007-2009, the office of Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results estimates that one in 72 women will be diagnosed with cancer of the ovary during their lifetime. While survival rates depend on the stage at diagnosis, ovarian cancer’s average five-year survival rate is 43.5 percent for white women and 36 percent for black women.

Gubbels describes the progression of the disease in an easy-to-understand way.

proteins are involved … all that stuff. In reality, sometimes you forget it’s a cell in someone’s body and that person has people who love them. Meeting Dan was such a stark reminder that what I’m doing has a purpose … that the work I do with students could lead to something bigger, something that could prevent people from dying,” she said.

Connecting the Dots At home in Iowa, Roesler reached out to Gubbels via email. He was interested in learning more about her research and he wanted to find out more about the opportunities for student-faculty research collaboration.

Gubbels connected the experience to her students.

“Meeting Dan made me realize how significant it is to convey to my students how important it is to communicate their science effectively. That is a big part of research — being able to talk about science so anyone can understand it. When we take on research students, that is part

“I’m completely humbled by this,” Gubbels said. “This gift is purely through his interest in this cause and his love for Augustana. He’s just so pleased that this type of research is going on here. I’ll keep him in the loop on my research, which is good motivation for me. I’m so excited to relay this story to the student who will be working with me and funded by Dan this summer. And, it’s really exciting to know that, in the future, this research will take place in a new, state-of-the art building.”

The experience was impactful for Roesler, as well.

“Meeting Jenny and learning about her work was a real sense of closure for me,” Roesler said.

“Cindy had some money tucked away and I was just looking for the right thing to do with it. This seemed like a perfect fit. Jenny’s work could uncover new treatments or new ways to raise awareness. It could save lives. This is what Augie stands for — using the intellectual power of faculty to involve students and make a difference. It’s such a wholesome project.”

NOTES FROM THE GREEN

Job Placement Report: 98 Percent of 2012 Augustana Grads Find Employment While a recent national study aimed at illustrating the depth of the Great Recession shows that one in two college graduates of the last five years remain without full time employment, Augustana’s recent job placement rates tell a much different story.

In February, the College reported that 98 percent of its 2012 graduates seeking employment have accepted a position related to their major or chosen field.

In addition, 28 percent are enrolled in, or are planning to attend, graduate school.

In the face of stark economic challenges and bucking the national trend, over the last five years more than 93 percent of Augustana graduates reported pursuing their desired course following graduation, on average.

According to a recent report by the Augustana Career Center, among the 360 recent graduates who pursued positions in nursing, human services and education, 100 percent report they are now working in those fields.

In education specifically – a sector plagued by constant budget cuts and restraint – 100 percent of Elementary/Special Education and Secondary Education majors report being employed in their field.

Augustana’s job placement rates for business-related majors was 97 percent.

Of the class of 2012, more than half of those accepting employment remained in South Dakota, with Sanford Health Systems, Avera McKennan Hospital, the Sioux Falls School District, the State of South Dakota and Wells Fargo Bank ranking among the top employers of Augustana graduates.

Among the 28 percent of 2012 graduates who are enrolled in, or are plan-

ning to attend graduate school, 29 percent are in a medical-related program; 16 percent are pursuing advanced study in the sciences, such as biology or chemistry; and 9 percent are in law school with the University of South Dakota, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, Creighton University, University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa ranking among the top destinations for graduate study.

“These numbers illustrate that an Augustana education remains one of the best investments young people can make in their futures,” said Rob Oliver, president. “Time and time again, local, national and international employers tell us that Augustana graduates are highly desirable as employees because they can think critically, reason analytically and communicate effectively. Results like these continue to drive home the fact that Augustana graduates are wellsuited to thrive in virtually any field, anywhere around the globe.”

“These results would not have been possible without the tireless dedication of our faculty who teach, nurture, empower, inspire and encourage our students to explore ideas and discover their potential; and our administrators and staff, who are committed to making sure our students succeed academically and socially.”

Augustana’s 98 percent job placement rate for 2012 graduates is an increase of 1 percent over the placement rates for May 2011 graduates.

Critical to graduate outcomes is the Augustana Career Center, which works with employers around the world to match students and soon-to-be graduates to internships

and open positions. The Center also helps students prepare for the transition from college to career by providing resume-building advice, interview coaching, workshops and the annual Career Symposium, which features panel discussions

by Augustana alumni in a variety of career fields.

In 2012, 639 students and alumni utilized services provided by the Career Center, including individual career counseling, resume building and mock job interviews. Over the year, nearly 2,100 job and internship opportunities were posted on the Career Center’s website.

“Employers continue to recognize our graduates as well-prepared and thoughtful leaders, creative thinkers and effective decision-makers who bring with them a global perspective and a passion for making the world a better place,” said Sandi Vietor, director of the Augustana Career Center.

The study, “Chasing the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession,” conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, surveyed college graduates from 2006 through 2011.

The study showed that among those surveyed, one in two college graduates were employed full time and another 26 percent were working part time.

One in five were attending graduate or professional school. Twelve percent were either unemployed or underemployed (working part time and seeking fulltime employment).

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Anonymous Gift Paves the Way for Study in Belgium In February, the Department of Modern Foreign Languages announced that 15 Augustana students studying French have been awarded scholarships to participate in “Topics in French: La Belgique: du Passé au Présent” (Belgium: From Past to Present), the 2013 spring break course in Belgium led by Dr. Scott Fish, associate professor of Modern Foreign Languages, and Florence Thompsen, instructor of French and a native of Belgium.

The course is designed to expose French language students to snapshots of some of the sites, monuments, artistic treasures, historical events and cultural traditions, and technological innovations that have contributed to Belgium’s historical development and rich artistry and political complexity.

Thanks to a generous anonymous donation, the 15 students will share a scholarship fund of $15,000. Individual awards were based on overall G.P.A., performance in French courses, and financial need.

Augustana Society of Physics Student Chapter Recognized The Augustana College Society of Physics Student Chapter has been recognized as an “Outstanding Chapter” by the national Society of Physics Students (SPS) for its participation in SPS programs, outreach efforts to the grades K-12 or the general public, participation in community service, contributions to student recruitment and retention, and interactions with the department’s alumni.

Augustana is included in SPS zone 11. Other institutions honored in zone 11 include Gustavus Adolphus College, the University of Minnesota — Twin Cities, and Coe College.

Dr. Drew Alton, associate professor of physics, serves as faculty sponsor for the Augustana chapter and Audrey Burkart, a junior from Monument, Colo., serves as associate zone councilor for region 11.

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ART the

Technologist

Kiel Mutschelknaus, class of 2007, uses technology to give art a new voice.

I

“Anatomy Lesson” by Kiel Mutschelknaus

nside the last drawing class Carl Grupp taught in the “old barracks,” the legendary, shaggy-haired art professor saw a roomful of young, hopeful students, including a freshfaced kid with brown hair and a long last name who had dreams of becoming an architect.

Kiel Mutschelknaus grew up in Brandon, S.D. As a kid, he played with LEGOS but never considered himself much of an artist. He was good at math and liked the idea of designing buildings.

Fifty minutes a few times a week with Grupp, the charismatic professor emeritus of Art who served Augustana from 1964 through 2004, changed that pretty quickly.

“He got me thinking about design. I realized I could develop this talent. He really got me started on this kick,” Mutschelknaus said.

By “kick,” Mutschelknaus is referring to his rising career as a nationally known graphic artist. After studying under Grupp and other members of the art department, including Tom Shields, Steve Thomas and Scott Parsons, Mutschelknaus graduated in 2007, launched his career, and quickly earned a reputation for creating art that combines drawing, graphic design and installation in a way that’s both playful and edgy.

After working as a designer at Fresh Produce, a Sioux Falls marketing and advertising company, Mutschelknaus was accepted at the acclaimed Cranbrook Academy of Art, the country’s top-ranked, graduate-only program in architecture, design and fine art located near Detroit, Mich.

Only 75 students are invited to Cranbrook each year to study and live at the Saarinen-designed campus that features private studios, workshops, an art museum and 300 acres of nature.

At Cranbrook, he says, he discovered how to push his own boundaries as an artist.

Mutschelknaus calls himself a “digitally driven” artist, which means the bulk of his work is created using a computer. He draws directly on a graphics tablet, then uses various programs to manipulate the images to create the desired effect.

“The drawing aspect is really key. I’m just drawing directly into the computer. In a less permanent way, it’s like drawing on paper. It is drawing using the traditional practice, but it’s digital,” he explains.

In addition to his tablet, he also carries a sketchbook with him and tries to dedicate at least 30 minutes each day to sketching on paper.

His for-contract work includes everything from company and rock band logos to posters promoting festivals and social movements.

His own work is more abstract and spans mediums, from vibrantly colored, motion-like graphic design, to chipboard cutouts, to the “Super Function Lamp,” a project he worked on with his brother that features a lamp programmed with 28 switches, all of which must be “switched” in order to turn it on or off.

His inspiration, he says, comes from each project he works on.

“I find myself inspired by the work I do, by the elements in the piece I’ve just done. There’s a lot of self-investigation that takes place. Whatever I’m working on always sprouts more ideas,” he said. “I think inspiration is constantly evolving. I’m always being inspired by artists around me, by my friends and their ways of thinking.”

What he hopes his work inspires in others, is another story.

“As far as some of the more art-driven pieces I’ve done, I think it becomes more interesting to know the viewer will have their own interpretation. Artwork can be so much more rich when it’s open to interpretations by the viewer. I have some ideas that I try to put into each piece but, at the end of the day, it’s more about creating this rich discussion and collaboration.”

That “collaboration” is why Mutschelknaus finds it hard to pin a label to himself as an artist.

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A Mutschelknaus design for the band Soulcrate.

“In reality, the art world and technology are becoming so much more accessible. The labels between a sculptor and a graphic designer and furniture designer are starting to disappear a bit more. Cranbrook is an advocate of the fact that designers aren’t just designers … they’re artists,” he said.

Dr. Lindsay Twa, assistant professor of art and director of Augustana’s Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, remembers Mutschelknaus well and has followed his career closely.

“I actually ‘met’ Kiel Mutschelknaus well before he enrolled in my Art History Seminar the spring of his senior year. I had been viewing his anonymous ‘rogue’ community artworks around campus since the start of the school year. These included life-size self-portraits in cellophane and packing tape that would randomly appear around campus — seated in a hallway reading Nietzsche, positioned on the roof-top of a classroom building, or created in ice and slowly melting away in front of the student center. I was struck by the quality of the work and its dedication to bringing artwork to the College community. This was all done anonymously, and outside the bounds of the already significant workload of his academic and studio assignments. (That he was the creator of these works was only revealed the year after he had graduated by co-

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Kiel Mutschelknaus

The “Super Function Lamp” by Kiel Mutschelknaus

“Artwork can be so much more rich when it’s open to interpretations by the viewer. I have ideas that I try to put into each piece, but at the end of the day, it’s more about creating this rich discussion and collaboration.”

– Kiel Mutschelknaus, Class of 2007 collaborator Kat Burdine, class of 2008.)

He has a relentless dedication, both to making art, and for facilitating creative dialogue in the communities where he finds himself,” Twa said. “I have been very impressed with each new body of work that he has produced — not just for his highly skilled technique, but also for the depth of ideas that he communicates.”

Post-Cranbrook, Mutschelknaus has served as an adjunct art instructor in Michigan, an experience he says he enjoyed.

“I love interacting with students. I hopefully get to inspire them and they inspire me.”

He recently moved with his wife, Erica ( Jorde, class of 2008), to Virginia where

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he’s planning to pursue more teacherscholar opportunities.

As he looks back at his time on campus, he never underestimates the effect the faculty here had on him, particularily Grupp.

“He was intense, but he inspired me.

I feel really lucky to have been part of the last class he taught. The great thing about Augie is that we learned graphic design with the idea that we weren’t just learning these programs to become software technicians or logo creators.

We were using these digital tools with the skills and ideas we’d honed through painting and drawing,” he said.

“For me, I love using technology as a voice for art.”

Learn more at kielm.com.

NEWS FROM THE HUDDLE

Former Student Named Rhodes Scholar

Moonlight by Gutzon Borglum, from the CWS Fine Art Collection.

45th Annual Dakota Conference to Focus on Hispanic/Latinos in Northern Plains The 45th annual Dakota Conference on Northern Plains History, Literature, Art and Archaeology, set for April 26-27 at the Center for Western Studies, will focus on Spanish exploration of, and Hispanic/Latino immigration to, the Northern Plains.

“The Spanish were the first Europeans to explore and establish settlements on the Great Plains. Searching for the fabled cities of gold, Coronado pushed as far north as central Kansas in the 1540s. Two hundred years later, Villasur reached the Platte River in central Nebraska. At its zenith, in 1795, New Spain constituted most of the American West. Spanish fur trader Manuel Lisa established posts throughout the Northern Plains in the early 1800s. Today, large Hispanic/Latino populations live in the Northern Plains, especially in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado.

In metropolitan Sioux Falls, for example, the Hispanic/ Latino population is now the largest minority, with more than 22,000 residents,

the majority of whom come from Central America,” said Dr. Harry Thompson, executive director of the Center.

Thompson is working with Juan Bonilla, president of LaVoz Hispana TV and chair of the Sioux Falls Diversity Council, to develop sessions on the Hispanic/ Latino community in the region. Bonilla will give the keynote address on the Hispanic/Latino community in the Sioux Falls area.

Others speaking on the theme of “The Spanish Northern Plains” include Derek Everett, Metropolitan State University in Denver; Pablo Rangel, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Juan Gonzalez, Northern State University; Thomas Simmons, a Rapid City attorney; and Michael Olsen, a leading authority on the Santa Fe Trail.

As usual, many topics in addition to the conference theme will also be addressed.

A session on former South Dakota Senator James Abdnor, with panelists Michael Saba, Herbert Sundall, Philip Hogen, and Richard Doubrava, will be chaired

by Vance Goldammer.

A panel on the past 30 years of political reporting in South Dakota will be chaired by Jonathan Ellis (Argus Leader) and will include Chet Brokaw (Associated Press), Noel Hamiel (Yankton Press & Dakotan), Tom Lawrence (Mitchell Daily Republic), and Kevin Woster (Rapid City Journal).

A session focusing on South Dakota immigrant groups (1880-1920) will be chaired by Jon Lauck and will feature Michael Funchion (Irish), Stephen Cusulos (Greeks), Richard Melton (Jews), and Lori Lahlum (Norwegians).

Former Augustana history professor Jeffrey Johnson, now teaching at Providence College, Rhode Island, will speak about the 1916 San Francisco bombing; and Virginia writer Stew Magnuson will speak about his new book on Wounded Knee 1973. An autograph party will also be held in conjunction with the conference on Saturday.

Learn more about the Dakota Conference online at www.augie.edu/cws.

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An Augustana alumnus has been named the 2013 Rhodes Scholar for Pakistan.

Rafiullah (Rafi) Kakar, a native of Pakistan, attended Augustana in 2010 as a fellow of the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD), an initiative administered

by IREX on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

The Rhodes Scholarships are postgraduate awards supporting outstanding students for study at the Rafi University of Oxford. EstabKakar lished in 1903 under the will of Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes is the oldest and among the most prestigious international graduate scholarship programs in the world. A class of 83 Scholars is selected each year from countries including Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica and Commonwealth Caribbean, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, Southern Africa (including South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, and Swaziland), the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Only one Rhodes Scholarship is awarded in Pakistan each year.

When awarding scholars, Rhodes Scholarship selection committees seek young women and men of outstanding intellect, character, leadership, and commitment to service. The Rhodes Scholarships support students who demonstrate a strong propensity to emerge as “leaders for the world’s future.”

As a student at Augustana, Kakar studied under Dr. Joe Dondelinger, professor and chair of the Government and International Affairs/Political Science Department. Kakar said he considers Dondelinger an important mentor.

“I am deeply indebted to my teachers, family and friends for their support and encouragement. In particular, I would like to give due credit, as I did in my Rhodes interview, to Augustana College for helping me reach this stage. Though my stay at Augie was brief, nevertheless, it was very significant in terms of impact on my life.

This brief, but rich, experience was life-altering in terms of values, outlook, and way of living.

Augie definitely played a key role in my eventual selection for the Rhodes Scholarship. In particular, I am extremely grateful to Dr. Dondelinger for his incredibly forthcoming and encouraging attitude. His guidance and counseling was really instrumental in the whole process.”

A Rhodes Scholarship covers all university and college fees, a personal stipend and one economy class airfare to Oxford at the start of the scholarship, as well as an economy flight back to the student’s home country at the conclusion of the scholarship.

13

For professional opera singer Lindsay Ammann, class of 2006, her career is not about singing iconic roles in world-famous performance halls.

It’s about using her God-given talent to tell stories that transport and inspire her audience.

The Giftof

Song

Lindsay Ammann started singing even before she could speak.

As a baby, sitting at the piano on her mother’s lap, Ammann would hum the notes her mom played.

She’s been singing ever since.

Today, at just 29 years old, she is considered one of professional opera’s most upand-coming voices. Now living in Stuttgart, Germany, and singing for the Stuttgart Opera, Ammann has performed at many of the world’s premier opera houses including the house — New York’s esteemed Metropolitan Opera.

By all accounts, her life as a kid from South Dakota who once dreamed of becoming an archeologist, who played the trumpet and marched with the Lincoln High School Marching Band, and who eventually went on to sing at the Met, reads like a fairy tale.

But for her story, Ammann says, she’s not the writer.

“I know I didn’t choose this career. I believe that God chose it for me. Everything that has happened in my life has come with a strong gut reaction and a great feeling of clarity from God. I really feel that my voice is not mine. It’s something that has been given to me, that I’m supposed to use in the right way.”

Lindsay Ammann in “The Rape of Lucretia.”

the very first note she ever wrote down about me. It said ‘this girl’s going to be an opera singer.’”

Under Koch, Ammann realized that her voice, with its mezzo-soprano sound, was suited for opera. Together, they began her training with that direction in mind.

“I basically learned that this is what my

ball started forming.”

“Once I was there, I made a point to track down the person who I’d been told was the best voice teacher there. I told her I had to study with her and I ended up being in her studio.”

At IU, Ammann got the chance to combine her singing with character performances.

“Everything that has happened in my life has come with a strong gut reaction and a great feeling of clarity from God.” – Lindsay Ammann, Class of 2006 Music in the House The daughter of Augustana’s Dr. Bruce Ammann, professor of music and Band director, and MelaDee Ammann, a pianist and music teacher at Laura B. Anderson Elementary School in Sioux Falls, Ammann remembers her childhood home as one always filled with music.

“Growing up in our household, we all played instruments. In fourth grade I played the cello and in fifth grade I started the trumpet. I was in all of the choirs, every band, every ensemble that I could be in through elementary school, middle school and high school.”

While she loved music, Ammann says she was also reserved.

“I wasn’t a flamboyant, out-there, crazy kind of kid. I really was quiet and enjoyed observing people and situations. I’ve always been more of an observer.”

Ammann was just 13 years old when she met her first voice teacher, Cheryl Koch, a voice instructor at Augustana, during a summer music camp on campus.

“I knew I wanted to sing. I think the closest idea I had was Broadway. I could visualize doing that. Nobody in my family had been an opera singer. The thought of opera was a bit foreign. So I told Cheryl I wanted to sing on Broadway. I still have

voice is, it’s made for opera, so that’s the route we went.”

When she began her undergraduate studies at Augustana in 2002, she continued to study with Koch. “[Working with Cheryl] was very much like how opera singers were trained in the past — when they would have a maestro and they would be the apprentice and they would actually live with their voice teachers and be with them constantly. That was one of the greatest benefits to my staying in Sioux Falls and being at Augie, that I got to spend so much time with my voice teacher.”

The two formed a close bond.

“There have been many ups and downs that have been shared with her because she was my voice teacher. When you’re dealing with something as intimate as your voice, you really do have to connect with the person that you trust on a deeper level beyond just a teacher,” she said.

“We both said that we went from student-teacher, to friends, to teacher-student.

With where I am now, I’ve been able to help teach her about some other things in the opera world.”

After Augustana, Ammann went on to pursue her master’s degree at Indiana University where, she says, her “giant snow-

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“I had done a couple of small summer programs while I was at Augie where I had the chance to be in opera choruses, and I played Ruth in “Pirates of Penzance.”

But, when I was at IU, I felt for the first time what it’s like to learn your role and rehearse and figure out what works and what doesn’t in order to put it all on the stage. I did four shows and had four big roles. It was a chance for me to really be on the stage; it’s where I really learned my lessons.”

By lessons, Ammann is referring to her roles as Dame Doleful in IU’s “Too Many Sopranos,” Maddalena in “Rigoletto,” Nettie Sloan/Aunt Bea in William Bolcom’s “A Wedding,” and Cornelia in “Giulio Cesare.”

She says playing the role of “Cornelia,” a woman terrified that her son will be torn away from her, in the production of “Giulio Cesare” helped her see the powerful way in which opera tells a story.

“Up until that point, I’d been doing a lot of comedy. I love performing comedy and I still do. But Cornelia is the first tragic character that I really got to delve into.

There’s this glorious duet between Cornelia and her son. Every time I would sing it, I’d be on the verge of crying.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

15

INSIDE THE MIND OF A

FILMMAKER

Meet Andrew Kightlinger, class of 2008.

Get to know him now, so you can say ‘you knew him when.’

There are filmmakers.

Then there are the filmmakers. Hitchcock, Scorsese, Spielberg, Eastwood, Coppola, Bigelow.

They are the ones who’ve taken us to the unforgettable places: The Bates Motel, the front seat of a gangster’s Ford on a dimly lit street in Brooklyn, N.Y., President Lincoln’s White House, and the tense and dusty underground of the Iraq War. In the dark of the theater, we spend an afternoon or an evening watching their work. We laugh, we cry, we scowl, scream, snort, sigh, grimace, gulp, cheer and jeer, and when the credits start to roll, we discover that we’re just a little different than the way we were two hours earlier. *** This is the story of a spirited kid who grew up in Madagascar, who fell in love with movies after seeing “E.T.,” and who today is driven to tell stories that “stick with people.”

This is the story of Andrew Kightlinger, the world’s next great filmmaker, who simply says it like it is: “As long as I’m not living destitute, I’ll be happy.”

Kightlinger and actor Tony Todd on location filming “Dust of War.”

“My job is to pull good performances out of actors.

Actors are largely responsible for how an audience connects to a story.”

– Andrew Kightlinger, Class of 2008 Connections Kightlinger was five years old when he knew he wanted his life to be connected to the movies.

“I saw the movie ‘E.T.’ and it was filled with love and imagination. This idea that something from outer space could come down and befriend a kid on Earth really connected with me — it stayed with me.

The fact that I was living in Madagascar and was watching and relating to a film made 8,000 miles away was really significant for me,” he remembers.

Initially, Kightlinger said he wanted to be an actor.

“We were in Madagascar and my dad was working on his Ph.D. It was me and my mom and my dad and a bunch of scientists in the jungle. For entertainment, I’d find a corner somewhere and make up my own movies. My parents called it ‘jumping around.’”

In 1998, Kightlinger and his parents moved to Pierre, S.D. The move, he said, had a significant impact on his life.

“I moved to the U.S. in middle school.

I was the strange kid from Africa. It was hard for me to make friends. The arts were a good way for me to find an outlet to

focus my attention.”

In high school, he saw “Lord of the Rings” and transitioned from wanting to be an actor to wanting to be a director.

“I loved the idea of having control over how the story is told. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to be a film director because I have a love for telling stories.”

His parents bought him a video camera and he started by making documentaries.

“My first movie was an 88-minute feature length documentary about my junior year as a cross country runner. We edited it on a VHS tape. It was called ‘The Pierre Cross Country Documentary.’ I made a sequel to it my senior year, but it was banned because of some suggestive content,” he says, laughing.

When it came time to choose a college, Kightlinger considered schools that specialize in filmmaking but decided on Augustana, he said, “because I wanted to get a really well-rounded education.”

He started out as a Theatre major, but eventually switched to Political Science/ Government and International Affairs.

Dr. Peter Schotten was his adviser.

“What I ended up discovering is that government is all about human interaction.

In a way, that’s what filmmaking is. As a

The AUGUSTANA

director, you’re leading a crew, delegating tasks, talking to people in the right way, showing humility here, showing your guns there and, ultimately, sticking to your instincts. It’s really all about how you relate to people. To this day, I use all the skills I learned in my government major in my current job,” Kightlinger said.

“The Government faculty really did nurture me. Even though they knew I wanted to be an artist, they believed that I could still be passionate about politics. In the end, they let me bring the two together.”

Kightlinger is referring to his 65-page senior thesis, “How I Learned to Love the Bomb,” which explored the depiction of suicide bombers in film.

“I watched everything I could about suicide bombers and wrote about what compels someone to give their life in such a violent way, and how that process is depicted in film.”

During his time at Augustana, Kightlinger said his hunger for filmmaking grew.

“I made a video for Viking Varieties that featured [former] President Bruce Halverson. After that, people started approaching me about doing other videos. I also started making my own short films.”

19

Carpe Diem Before his senior year, his life took an unexpected turn when his mother died after succumbing to heart disease. She was 59 years old.

“It was kind of this ‘oh God, life is too short’ moment. The night before she passed away, she and I were talking about what was next for me. After she was gone, my dad and I agreed that I ‘needed to do what I needed to do’ because life really is too short. I spent my senior year prepping myself for the next step.”

After graduation, Kightlinger was one of 12 students selected from around the world for Boston University’s “Graduate Concentration in Film Production” program, the same training ground where some of Hollywood’s elite filmmakers, including Scott Rosenberg (“Gone in 60 Seconds” and “High Fidelity”), Lauren Shuler Donner (“X-Men” franchise) and Richard Gladstein (“The Cider House Rules” and “The Bourne Identity”) got their start.

“I really learned a lot from BU. The program is more interested in the artist rather than the filmmaker. They look for the innate talent, rather than the body of work, and encourage experimental filmmaking.”

In addition to learning about the art of filmmaking and honing his skills behind the camera, Kightlinger says his time at BU also taught him a lot about the kind of artist he wanted to be.

“I was interested in more than just exploring my own art. I also wanted to make movies that appeal to people. I’m interested in classical movie-making.”

His first short film, “You Don’t Know Bertha Constantine,” is the award-winning story of a wife who defies both law and convention by burying her dead husband in the Badlands of South Dakota. The film was named Best New Screenplay at the Newport International Film Festival in Wales and Best Original Screenplay at the Honolulu International Film Festival.

Kightlinger wrote the screenplay and directed the film, he says, as a way to deal with the grief of losing his mother.

Behind the Lens As a director, Kightlinger says his role is to protect the story.

“My job is to pull good performances out of actors. Actors are largely responsible for how an audience connects to a story. Rehearse them. Block them. And make sure they are serving the story.”

His latest film, “Dust of War,” was filmed on the South Dakota prairie. It’s the story of a “lone soldier on the post-apocalyptic American Frontier battling a brutal warmonger to rescue a girl fated as the savior of humanity.”

“A lot of the themes I’m drawn to are those that give us hope and make us believe in something — the ‘in-betweens’ in life. For ‘Dust of War,’ I wasn’t really interested in making a movie about a guy who has to save a girl in a post-apocalyptic world. I was in interested in making a movie about the crisis of faith.”

Kightlinger, 26, says he’s drawn to South

20

Kightlinger filming “Dust of War.”

Dakota as a canvas for his films because of the state’s rugged beauty.

“I’m really interested in the elemental aspects of storytelling, as in, the elements.

Ninety-nine percent of ‘Dust of War’ takes place outside.”

Currently, “Dust of War” is being screened at the European Film Market in Berlin to gauge international interest. From there, Kightlinger will bring it back to the U.S. for screenings at various independent film festivals.

Looking ahead, Kightlinger says he’s interested in exploring how to bring Ole Rolvaag’s iconic “Giants in the Earth,” the heartbreaking story of Norwegian pioneers who struggle against the harshness of an untamed prairie and utter isolation, to the screen.

“Think of ‘Per Hansa’ in that book, think of what he went through. The idea of wanting something that much really resonates with me.”

In a perfect world, if he had the chance to pick any movie star to work with, Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage comes to mind.

“He’s so fearless – and never dull. I think he’s capable of a lot of subtlety. But, I also love it when he goes over the top. You can always count on him to do something interesting,” Kightlinger says.

The Power of Movies Movies, and the theaters they’re shown in, have the power to break down barriers, Kightlinger said.

“The great thing about a movie theater is the darkness. In the dark, everyone in the audience is the same — there’s no white, black or brown about it. I saw ‘Avatar’ in IMAX 3-D in L.A. and I sat next to an 85-year-old woman who just loved it. I never would’ve expected an 85-yearold woman to love ‘Avatar’ as much as the 24-year-old guy sitting next to her, but she did.”

That ‘Avatar’ experience, Kightlinger says, is one example of why he is so passionate about filmmaking.

“People see movies to escape; they go to see a different perspective on life, whether

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or not they agree. Maybe my movies will cause a reaction in someone and they’ll change something about themselves for the better. Ultimately, I want to entertain people. From there, I want to evoke something — to stir up something. Even if people don’t like a film of mine, if they talk about it, if it causes them to think and to discuss — to have human interaction — well, then that’s it. That’s what living is all about,” he said.

“Film taps into a smorgasbord of emotions — sound, sight, feeling. From those emotions, movies create conversation.

Even in the Facebook era, people connect over movies. I hope people take away some sort of catharsis — personal or external. At the end of it all, when the credits are rolling, I hope what they saw sticks with them a day later.”

Today, Kightlinger is living in Pierre, S.D., where he’s managing the production, marketing and distribution aspects of launching “Dust of War.” In his spare time, he still works part-time at the same local movie theater he worked at during high school.

Looking ahead, he plans to move to Los Angeles to pursue the next step in his career.

“My main goal is to get an agent or a manager so I can keep working in a career that allows me to make-believe. I’d like to follow a career path that gives me the means to balance different ideas — films that illustrate the artistry of filmmaking and films that are made for entertainment.”

Kightlinger knows the odds. He knows that countless people trek to Hollywood every day with dreams of making movies.

The difference, Kightlinger says, is that for him, it’s never been just a dream.

“I’ve always seen it as a goal. I’ve always thought it was attainable. My parents always taught me to work hard and go after what you want. By the age of 35, I’d like to be directing something under the guise of a Hollywood studio.”

Odds are, he will be.

Next time you’re at the movie theater, keep your eye on the credits.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Faculty Tenure, Promotions Announced Four Named to Board of Trustees The following faculty members have been granted tenure and have been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, effective Sept.1, 2013:

Dr. Stephen Minister (Religion/Philosphy/Classics) Dr. Minister teaches courses in ethics, continental philosophy, modern philosophy, and philosophy of religion, as well as study-abroad courses on global poverty and the ethics of development.

His research engages the continental tradition, especially the writings of Emmanuel Levinas, and focuses on the relationship between reason and responsibility, the role of commitment in ethics and religion, and practical issues such as human rights and global poverty. He received bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and mathematics at Seattle Pacific University and his Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham University.

Dr. Darcie Rives-East (English/Journalism) Dr. Rives-East teaches the survey course in American literature as well as upper-level seminars on early American literature and modern American literature. She also teaches literary criticism and theory, in addition to foundational composition and literature courses. Further, she has taught the Civitas course “Race and Justice in America: 1600-Present,” and is faculty advisor to the Augustana Women’s Association. Her interests include women’s and ethnic studies and popular culture, with a particular emphasis on speculative and Gothic literature and film. Dr. Rives-East earned her B.A. from Grinnell College, her M.A. from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and her Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska.

Dr. Lindsay Twa (Art, director of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery) Dr. Twa teaches the Introduction to World Art History courses, an Artafter-1945 seminar, and a capstone class on race and representation with Dr. Mark Larson of the Biology department. She also leads art history travel courses to London and New York City during the spring breaks. Her research focuses on the black diaspora and exchanges between AfricanAmerican artists and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. Dr. Twa also directs the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, where she organizes and curates seven exhibitions each year and oversees a permanent art collection of more than 3,500 art objects. She received her bachelor’s degree in studio art and music from Concordia College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Anne Zell (Psychology) Dr. Zell has a variety of research interests that include social comparison and appeasement, humility and self control. She has established a history of publications, conference talks, posters and invited talks.

She teaches courses in Social Psychology, Positive Psychology and Psychology and Christianity, and General Psychology. Dr. Zell earned her B.A. from Gordon College, her M.A. from Case Western Reserve University, and her Ph.D. from Florida State University.

The following faculty members have been promoted to the rank of Professor, effective Sept. 1, 2013: Dr. Steven Matzner (Biology) Dr. Matzner teaches Introductory Biology, Environmental Science, Plant Ecology and Plant Physiology, and an interdisciplinary capstone class entitled “Is Globalization Sustainable?” His research is focused on the ability of plants to adjust their water-conducting systems in response to the environment (termed hydraulic acclimation). He is the faculty advisor to GREEN, the Augustana student environmental awareness group, and he is the pre-optometry advisor. He received his B.A. from Augustana College and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis. Dr. Matzner worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Dr. Jeffrey Miller (English/Journalism, director of Civitas) Dr. Miller teaches courses in journalism as well as foundational courses in composition and literature. He also teaches American film and the capstone course “Cinema, Character and Culture,” in addition to the “Reading Augustana” course in the Civitas program. His areas of interest include transnational television and film, and American media history. He is the author of “Something Completely Different: British Television and American Culture” (University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Dr. Miller earned his B.A. from Grinnell College, his M.A. from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in American Studies from Michigan State University.

Dr. Reynold Nesiba (Economics) An award-winning teacher, textbook author, published scholar, and experienced leader of study abroad courses, Dr. Nesiba received his B.A. in economics from the University of Denver in 1989, and his M.A. (1991) and a Ph.D. (1995) in economics from the University of Notre Dame. He is the recipient of both the Augustana Student Association (ASA) Faculty Recognition Award and the Vernon and Mildred Niebuhr Faculty Excellence Award for his teaching. His two co-authored textbooks, “An Introduction to Financial Markets and Institutions,” and “Economics: An Introduction to Traditional and Progressive Views,” are published by and available from M.E. Sharpe. His current research interests include mortgage foreclosures, the history of money, and evaluating undergraduate political economy curricula. At Augustana, Nesiba regularly teaches Principles of Economics I & II, and Money, Banking, and Financial Institutions.

Following meetings by the Augustana College Association and the Augustana Board of Trustees in December, new Board members who have been elected for three-year terms that began in January 2013 are: Jordan Dalton, class of 2010 (Young Trustee) An Accounting and Sport Management major, Dalton was a member of the men’s basketball team from 2006-2010 where he was a three-time member of the NSIC All-Academic team. After graduation, he worked for Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Bobcats. He moved back to Sioux Falls in 2010 and currently serves as a financial advisor representative and Princor registered representative for The Dakotas Business Center.

He volunteers for South Dakota Make-A-Wish, the Sioux Empire Boys & Girls Club, and serves as VP for Augustana’s GOLD committee.

Patrick J. McAdaragh, class of 1981 An Accounting major, McAdaragh has served Midcontinent Communications for more than three decades. In 2007, he was named president and CEO of Midcontinent Media and Midcontinent Communications. During his time with the company, McAdaragh has been instrumental in transforming more than 340 stand-alone cable systems into an interconnected fiber optic network spanning nearly 6,000 miles and serving more than 295,000 homes and businesses. He also serves as director on the boards of CableLabs and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

Ronald M. Moquist Moquist served as chief executive officer and president of Raven Industries from 2000 to August 2010. He joined Raven in 1975 as Sales and Marketing manager and served as the executive vice president from 1985 to 2000.

He has served as a trustee of the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science and Sanford Health System, where he served as Board chair from 2009-2011. Moquist also served as a director of the National Association of Manufacturers, Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, South Dakota Junior Achievement, and as a director of Xcel Energy, Inc. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota.

Debby VanderWoude An active civic volunteer, VanderWoude was appointed to complete the term of her late husband, Dr. John VanderWoude Jr., Augustana class of 1974 and a member of the Board since 2002, who passed away in July following a recurring battle with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

VIKING FOOTBALL MOVING FORWARD

“To create a strong culture of brotherhood and tradition for Augustana football.”

— New Head Coach Jerry Olszewski

NAVY & GOLD

O

n December 12, 2012, Jerry Olszewski was named Augustana’s 21st head football

coach.

He comes to Augustana after five seasons as the head coach at St. Olaf College, where he compiled a 32-18 record. A highlight of his stint with the Oles was defeating the University of St. Thomas in an NCAA Division III record six overtimes.

With a whirlwind, but successful recruiting campaign behind him, the coach is concentrating on settling his family in Sioux Falls, becoming acquainted with the community, and preparing the Vikings for the 2013 season.

Olszewski (pronounced O-SHESH-KEY) and his wife, Deana, are parents of a son, Jett, and two daughters, Jersey and J.J. Q. What are your primary objectives for spring practice?

A. To assess talent of our current roster, create competition, implement new schemes for our program, and create a strong culture of brotherhood and tradition for Augustana football.

Q. What can Augustana fans expect when the Vikings open the 2013 season Sept. 7 vs. MSU-Moorhead?

A. I believe Augustana fans can expect to see a team that competes on every snap.

We will be a disciplined football team that plays physical and with an emotional sense of urgency respecting all but fearing none.

Q. You have been an offensive, defensive, and special teams coordinator. How have those experiences impacted your role as a head coach?

A. I have been blessed in my career to have been all three. My time as a coordinator in the different phases has allowed me to see the game in a more holistic manner. I believe there is great strength in knowing why teams do what they do and how they attack various schemes.

As a head coach, it also allows me to be a thorough leader of the coaches in my program to ensure that we are constantly placing our young men in a position to be successful on the field regardless of an opponent’s scheme.

Q. Have you always wanted to coach football?

A. I knew at age 14 that I wanted to be a coach. I didn’t realize I wanted to be a football coach until I was a collegiate player myself. I was blessed to have incredible mentors throughout my playing days as well as during my career in coaching. I knew my philosophy would

Olszewski was introduced to the campus community and local media at a news conference in December.

The Olszewski File Experience: Head coach at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. His five-year record of 32-18 with the Oles includes a 15-5 mark over the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Defensive coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (2006-2008).

Two terms on the staff at Minnesota State-Mankato (1993-1997 and 1999-2002).

Offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator for the Green Bay Bombers of the Indoor Football League.

Defensive line coach at California Lutheran University (1997-98).

be one that included player buy-in and an environment that encouraged them to be their personal best.

Q. Twice you were drawn away from coaching. What brought you back?

A. I truly only left coaching one time. The first time I was coaching coaches as the athletic director for a 6-12 grade school district in Wisconsin, while serving as the offensive coordinator/special teams coach for the Green Bay Bombers arena football team. The second time was when I was CEO of the Mankato Family YMCA. Though that was a valuable learning experience, I missed the day-to-day interaction with building young men into better people. I believe God has a plan for me and that plan is to serve others. Service to my God, my family, and my players is what called me back to this incredibly gratifying career.

The AUGUSTANA

Education: Bachelor’s degree from Wisconsin-Stevens Point (1993); master’s degree from Minnesota State Mankato (1995).

Civic Involvement: An active member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for more than 20 years, Olszewski’s community service also includes Special Olympics, YMCA volunteer, church youth leader, MS Walk coordinator, and school district volunteer.

Family: He and his wife, Deana, are the parents of one son Jett, and two daughters, Jersey and J.J.

Q. What attracted you and your family to Augustana and Sioux Falls.

A. My wife and I have always considered Sioux Falls a fantastic community as it has everything we are looking for in a place to raise our children. Augustana is a college that has intrigued me since my days coaching against the Vikings while I was at Minnesota State-Mankato.

A Christian college with high academic standards, an administration that is supportive and visionary to the values that collegiate competition adds to the college, and a community and alumni base that backs the program. I feel blessed for this opportunity and look forward to a steady rise of success in the Viking football program. We will create a culture of pride in our student-athletes and alumni that will stay with them for the remainder of their lives.”

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ALUMNI NEWS Visit www.augielink.com for daily updates and photos.

THE

2010s

Class of 2012 Amy Konietzko married Kyle Barker on Dec. 28, 2012.

Christopher Borchardt and Kayla Davis were married on Dec. 22, 2012.

Brittany Brown is working as a registered nurse at the Avera Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls.

Bryce Flaherty is a field sales consultant for Mutual of Omaha.

Jared Goplen married Marissa Kern ‘11 on Aug. 4, 2012. Jared is pursuing a master’s degree in agronomy at the University of Minnesota.

Mychal Hadrich passed the National Interpreter Certification test.

Brittney Swanson married Jared Jansen ‘10 on July 21, 2012.

Molly Johnson is a registered nurse at the Mayo Clinic, St. Mary’s Hospital, in Rochester, Minn.

Jared Soundy started his own company, Soundy Analytics, in Sioux Falls.

ON THE ROAD: Alumni Events in Your Area March 23: The 49th annual Friends of Augustana Scholarship Breakfast, featuring a special program by Julie Clark ‘00, author of the national award-winning book, “Inspirational Coffee Breaks for Women,” will be held at 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 23, in the 3-in-1 Room of the Morrison Commons.

Learn more at www.augielink.com.

April 12: Thought Leader Forum featuring Hannah Miller, class of 2012, discussing “The Dirty Little Secret: Human Trafficking in South Dakota.”

11: 30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Callaway’s Event Center in Sioux Falls.

Tickets at www.augietickets.com

Class of 2011 Marissa Kern married Jared Goplen ‘12 on Aug. 4, 2012. Marissa is attending dental school at the University of Minnesota.

2000s

Class of 2007 Maren (Gilbertson) Bahler is a reading specialist for New Prague Public Schools.

Rev. Kennen Barber-Ensz and her husband, Chad, serve as co-pastors at the First Presbyterian Church in Estherville, Iowa. Kennen graduated in May 2012 from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Maggie (Hauswald) DeKoster and her husband, Jon, welcomed their son Jude Michael on Sept. 20, 2012.

Jackie (Leach) Glade is a first grade teacher at Omaha Nation Public School in Macy, Neb., on the Omaha Reservation.

Stephanie Johnson and Ryan Anderson were married July 7, 2012.

Regan Tekavec married Tyler McAthie on July 28, 2012. The couple lives in Welch, Minn.

Ella Bresson is attending St. Cloud State University pursuing her graduate degree in College Counseling and Student Development.

She is also teaching in Browerville, Minn.

Class of 2008 Carol Hassebroek is a speech-language pathologist at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea, Minn.

Sarah Lambert married Travis Frink on Sept.

22, 2012. Sarah is a residence hall director at Doane College.

Lynn Kogel married Travis Lape on Nov. 24, 2012. She is a second-third grade teacher in Harrisburg, S.D.

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Jason Whiting and Emily (Korthals) Whiting ’02 welcomed their daughter, Paige Schuyler, into the world on Nov. 28, 2012.

Class of 2006 Dr. William Buchanan and his wife, Abigail, welcomed their son George Buchanan on July 2, 2012. William completed his Ph.D. at Syracuse University in 2010 and is doing postdoctoral research at the University of Notre Dame.

Ian Malloy’s second book detailing work funded by NASA and conducted at Augustana with the late Dr. Swets was published by the International publishing house, Lambert Academic Press.

Class of 2009 Dane Bloch is the volunteer and development coordinator for the Community Outreach in Sioux Falls.

Jacquelyn Strey is completing her Ph.D. in Sociology of Religion at King’s College in London. Her research investigates the relationship between Hindu nationalist political ideologies and the lived experiences of Indian lesbian women. She continues her fieldwork in India.

Elizabeth (DeVries) Steven and husband, Brent, welcomed daughter Hailey Ann on Nov. 17, 2012.

Jared Jansen married Brittney Swanson ‘12 on July 21, 2012. Jared teaches math and coaches boys basketball at Lincoln High School.

THE

Nathan Sletten was presented with the Golden Apple award for the month of November by WHO-TV 13 and Allied Insurance in Des Moines, Iowa. He is a band instructor at Earlham Community School in Earlham, Iowa.

Grant Fifield is attending graduate school at Bethel Seminary in Arden Hills, Minn.

Jennie Yarrow married Benjamin Espelund on Sept. 15, 2012.

Melanie Henry married Maxwell Zell on Sept.

30, 2012.

Joshua Schoenfelder is an account executive at Sharp Communications.

Kelli (Johnson) Cloutier and David Cloutier were married on Aug. 4, 2012, in Minneapolis, Minn. They live in Oakdale, Minn. Kelli is a CPA with Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C.

Class of 2010 Catherine Beddow is an English language arts teacher at Holcomb Middle School and Holcomb High School in Holcomb, Kan.

Kristin Johannsen married Clint Whitley on June 2, 2012. Kristin is working for Valley View Hospital where she is the athletic trainer for Basalt High School.

Christie (Schneider) Ness and Stuart Ness ‘06 welcomed their first baby boy, Travis Wayne Ness, on March 24, 2012.

The AUGUSTANA

Stuart Ness and Christie (Schneider) Ness ‘04 welcomed their first baby boy, Travis Wayne Ness, into the world on March 24, 2012.

Class of 2005 Gregory Asplund is an instructional coach project facilitator for the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nev., where he has been living since 2006.

Lacey Ann Nordsiden married Brian Gregory Collins on Nov. 24, 2012, at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church. They live in Norfolk, Va., where Lacey works as the head athletic trainer at Maury High School.

Sarah Harrold married Adam Erickson on Nov. 3, 2012. She earned her master of divinity degree from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.

Adam and Sarah live in Kansas City, Mo., where Sarah is a pastor of Hosanna! Lutheran Church.

ALUMNI NEWS Jill Adams married Aaron Johnson on Oct. 6, 2012, in Spicer, Minn. They live in Arvada, Colo., where Jill is a victim/family advocate at Ralston House, a child advocacy center.

Joshua ‘03 and Kara (Kann) Kayser welcomed Wolfgang Joshua into their family on Nov. 27, 2012.

Casey Phillips is the owner of RedPrint Strategy media firm. He was recently featured in Roll Call magazine.

LeeAnna (Stacy) Rabine and husband, Rusty, welcomed daughter, Brooklyn Joyce, on Nov. 3, 2012.

Class of 2004 Carissa (Butterfield) Dice and her husband, Matthew, welcomed daughter, Alivia Grace, to the family on Nov. 7, 2012.

Dr. Leah (Swanson) Khan and Michael Khan ’03 moved to Minneapolis, Minn., in July. Leah graduated from her pediatric residency at the University of Chicago and is working as a pediatrician for Park Nicollet Health Systems in Chanhassen, Minn.

Dr. Robert Towner Lapp married Elizabeth Rizzi on Sept. 22, 2012. He graduated from USD Medical School and is currently a Gastroenterology Fellow at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Kimberly (Digerness) Metzger and Nathan Metzger ’02 welcomed Isaiah Lee Metzger to the world on July 27, 2012.

David Olson and Amy (Neary) Olson ‘03 live in Madison, Wis., with their two daughters, Caroline and Johannah. They both work at James Madison Memorial High School.

Marisa (Arens) Reed was married on July 30, 2011, to Matthew Reed in Durham, N.H. Their daughter, Elianna Joy, was born on Sept.

25, 2012. Marisa is working at Portsmouth Christian Academy in Dover, N.H., teaching third grade.

Shelli (Van Stelton) Rens and her husband, Andrew, welcomed baby boy Garrett Martin to their family on Sept. 22, 2012.

Class of 2003 Janet (Eisfeld) Caven and husband, John, welcomed daughter, Amelia Grace, on Dec. 28, 2012.

Christa Gerrietts married Michael Olson on Dec. 29, 2012. They reside in Minneapolis, Minn.

Joshua and Kara (Kann) Kayser ‘05 welcomed Wolfgang Joshua into their family on Nov. 27, 2012.

Amy (Neary) Olson and David Olson ‘04 live in Madison, Wis., with their two daughters, Caroline and Johannah. They both work at James Madison Memorial High School.

Miranda (Gasow) Roberts is the international programs manager for the University of Michigan, College of Engineering.

Richard Van Dam and Leah (Kooren) Van Dam welcomed daughter, Marie Henrietta, on Nov. 28, 2012.

Andrea Vee-Treptow and her husband, Eric Treptow, welcomed baby boy John David on March 11, 2012.

Class of 2002 Christopher Erickson and Carrie (Leber) Erickson have opened Integrated Rehab Physical Therapy in Omaha, Nebr. They will be providing physical therapy and chiropractic services.

Gretchen (Spars) McKee and her husband, Edward, welcomed daughter, Lena Erinmarie, on Nov. 8, 2012.

Rev. Nathan Metzger and Kimberly (Digerness) Metzger ‘04 welcomed Isaiah Lee Metzger to the world on July 27, 2012.

Kelly (Bourne) Tufto and husband, Steve, welcomed Connor Jay on Nov. 27, 2012.

Emily (Korthals) Whiting and Jason Whiting ‘08 welcomed their daughter, Paige Schuyler, on Nov. 28, 2012.

Class of 2001 Kevin Breidenbach and wife, Rachel, welcomed their daughter Tenley Ann on Aug. 8, 2012.

Sherry (Hotchkiss) Olson and Cory Olson ‘95 welcomed their daughter Taya Renae on Jan. 9, 2013.

Chris Swanson married Jennifer Smith on Nov. 3, 2012.

Class of 2000 Bjorn Arneson is a research analyst with Minnesota Senate Counsel, Research, and Fiscal Analysis in St. Paul, Minn.

Lori (Beuerman) Aguirre and husband, Oscar, welcomed Joshua David to their family on Nov. 8, 2012. Oscar and Lori live in Quito, Ecuador.

Lori works as a family nurse practitioner and helps run a ministry founded by her husband, Pan de Vida (www.pandevida.org.ec).

Stephanie (Farries) Judson is the president of the South Dakota Community Foundation.

Cory Olson and Sherry (Hotchkiss) Olson ‘01 welcomed daughter Taya Renae on Jan. 9, 2013.

Class of 1994 Christina (Barber) Teskey is the food service director at the Faribault County Jail through A’viands Food Mangament and Services.

Class of 1992 Rev. Kristin Langstraat moved to Columbus, Ohio, where she is serving as the system director for Faith Community Relations with the OhioHealth health system. She is also a certified CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) supervisor.

Class of 1991 Stacey (Egdorf) Lottman and husband, Mark, welcomed a son, Bennett Alan, on Oct. 23, 2012.

Dale Nothdurft, owner of Tires Tires Tires in Sioux Falls, received a national humanitarian award for its contributions to a program that provides vehicles to families in need of transportation and to another effort to support troops and their families.

Amy Ostrem married John Vanden Hoek on May 23, 2012. They live in Rock Rapids, Iowa, with Amy’s son Samuel.

Emily (Lu) Rohr Hamner and Nathan Hamner welcomed a daughter, Katherine Sanna, to their family in July 2009 and a son, Jonah Jeffrey, in November 2011. Emily is currently teaching fourth grade in Mount Vernon, Wash.

Class of 1990 Martha (Graetzer) Henze is teaching at Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colo., and works for Boulder Parks and Recreation teaching tennis and nutrition classes.

Class of 1999 Sonja (Dean) Ferrell and her husband, John Ferrell, welcomed a daughter, Eleanora Mae Ferrell, on Sept. 19, 2012. Sonja is the director at the Ottumwa Public Library in Ottumwa, Iowa, and they reside on a farm near Hedrick, Iowa.

Chuck Lanham received his M.B.A. from the University of Idaho where he is currently the senior technology director.

THE

1990s

Adam Heinitz and Sandra (Zwach) Heinitz ‘97 welcomed a son, Drew John, on Nov. 10, 2012.

Class of 1987 Bob Fitch is the owner of Cain Consulting Group, a firm serving non-profit organizations across North America with board training, publications and strategic plan facilitation.

Class of 1998 Tara (Sydnes) Camp is an ops product coordinator at Capital One.

Kristine (Youngs) Paulson recently moved to Switzerland from Venezuela, with her family.

She is working as a school counselor.

Class of 1997 Sandra (Zwach) Heinitz and Adam Heinitz ‘99 welcomed a son, Drew John, on Nov. 10, 2012.

Matt Schneringer is the CEO of the Boonslick Heartland YMCA in Missouri. Matt and his wife, Jennifer (Pederson) Schneringer ‘96, are the parents of Adam, Kate, and Caleb.

Class of 1995 Gretchen Gubbrud and husband, Chris Hammer, finalized the adoption of Adam Hupa Olaf Hammer in the fall of 2011.

The AUGUSTANA

THE

1980s

Ronald Riedel, 61, died on Jan. 14, 2013.

Class of 1986 Lee Erickson, MA, is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in private practice in Saint Paul, Minn.

Class of 1985 Rikki Goede has been appointed as the Piedmont police chief in California.

Kevin Houle directed “The Promised Land” by David Meyers, a short play about bipartisanship in Congress for the Box Wine Theatre’s

25

ALUMNI NEWS Raucous Caucus III political play festival in Minneapolis in January 2013.

Michael Kullbom, 58, died unexpectedly from a fall on Dec. 5, 2012, in Wiota, Iowa.

Miriam (Forbord) Lindblad is a public health nurse with Countryside Public Health, as the Women Infant and Children’s program coordinator. She is also a certified lactation specialist.

Steve Wolf is the author of the book “Comet’s Tale,” an amazingly true story about himself and how he went from being a successful trial lawyer to losing it all AND a greyhound dog that goes from being abandoned and abused in the greyhound racing industry to being the first greyhound service dog in the United States.

Learn more at www.cometstale.com.

Class of 1983 David Doerr, 52, died on Nov. 3, 2012, in Webster City, Iowa.

Carole (Ahlers) Joyce, a staff member of Good Shepherd Lutheran in Plainview, Minn., was awarded the 2012 Educator of the Year by the Lutheran Association of Christian Educators.

Amy (Jackson) Protexter is the VP of Marketing for Education2020, a leading-edge digital learning organization that partners with schools to offer blended learning models.

Kevin Rapp relocated with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage to West Palm Beach, Fla. Class of 1982 Linda (Beck) Halliburton chaired the 2012 Conference on Management and Executive Development Programs.

Richard Rice, 56, died on Dec. 2, 2012 in Lennox, S.D. Brad Twedt is a field office director of International Justice Mission’s office in Guatemala.

Class of 1981 Anne (Jacobsen) Clausen completed her biggest painting: a 15’ by 18’ on a local water tower.

It is an old apple box label from the 1950s.

Class of 1980 Marilyn (Borseth) Fialkowski, 84, died on Nov. 29, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1979 Martin Sieverding was elected president of the South Dakota Society for Technology in Education. He continues his work as a teacher in the Menno School District.

THE

1970s

Class of 1975 Daniel Vigness, 59, died on Jan. 28, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1974 Dean Bunkowske lives in Spokane, Wash., and has worked as a physical therapist on the Traumatic Brain Injury Unit at St Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute for the past 31 years.

Rev. Dr. Maxwell E. Johnson, professor of Theology (Liturgical Studies) in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, was elected Vice-President of The North American Academy of Liturgy.

Karen (Lovald) Leuning, 61, died on Dec. 9, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Dayle Olson was honored with the Distinguished Service Award from the Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities for his work as President and CEO of Brevard Achievement Center, the highest honor given by this awarding agency.

Jay Werth is managing a fundraising campaign for the Yankton Area Progressive Growth organization.

Darlys Willer is semi-retired and working part time as a clinical social worker in her own private practice in Salina, Kan. Class of 1973 Deborah Hanson-Hauck-Williams, 62, died on Jan. 30, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Ken Morken, 65, died on Dec. 25, 2012, in Seattle, Wash.

Class of 1978 David Fryxell has published his fifth book, “Good Old Days, My Ass: 665 Funny History Facts & Terrifying Truths About Yesteryear.”

David Fryxell and Lisa (Forman) Fryxell ‘78 live in Silver City, N.M.

Gary Rollag, 61, died on Oct. 21, 2012, in Owatonna, Minn.

Class of 1977 Dr. Margaret (Smith) Devick is working in the outpatient clinic at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1971 LaDonna (Block) King, 63, died on Nov. 19, 2012, at her home in Harrisburg, Pa.

Pamela (Arlt) Gengler, 57, died on Jan. 8, 2013 in Saint Paul, Minn.

John Ohrlund is executive director of the Skokie Park District, Skokie, Ill. Class of 1976 Dave Eitland is the development and gift planning director for the Grand Traverse Pavilions, a community committed to enhancing the quality of life for aging adults and caregivers.

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Class of 1972 Julie (Risa) Hard, 62, died on Jan. 11, 2013, in Alexandria, Minn.

Dr. David Olson is heading an international team of medical researchers to develop a drug to prevent preterm births.

Class of 1970 Capt. Gary Berg, 64, died on Nov. 8, 2012, in Yelm, Wash.

Terry Elgethun died on Nov. 17, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Carl Miller is enjoying retirement. He has retired from the pastoral ministry and as Senior Chaplain at Tamms Supermax prison in Illinois.

The AUGUSTANA

THE

1960s

Class of 1969 Marguerite (Lems) Moen, 80, died on Jan. 31, 2013, in Inwood, Iowa.

Class of 1968 Peter Gugisberg and his wife, Ellen Gugisberg ’70, moved to St. Augustine, Fla. Class of 1967 David Behrens, 66, died on Nov. 6, 2012, in Pittsburgh, Pa. Class of 1965 Craig Kittelson is working as a consultant/ facilitator for his business Collaborative Solutions, LLC. He is a retired professional school counselor.

Class of 1964 Samuel Wang received the South Carolina Governor’s Elizabeth O’Neill Verner award for contribution to the arts in May 2012. He was the sole representative from the U.S. participating at the International Symposium on Higher Ed Photography in Harbin, China, June 2012.

Class of 1963 Rosemary (Hill) Stordahl, 70, died on Nov. 8, 2012, in Wentworth, S.D. Class of 1962 Cheryll (Rentschler) Boysen, 72, died on Dec. 15, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1961 Linda (Serck) Barnes, 73, died on Oct. 10, 2012, in Cyrus, Calif.

LaVonne (Poulsen) Polzien, 72, died on June 21, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Pr. Ardis Ruth (Thoreson) Wright won her age group (Women 70-74) in the Sioux Falls Half Marathon on Sept. 9, 2012.

Class of 1960 Cory (Duis) Harman, 74, died on Oct. 25, 2012, at her daughter’s home in Olathe, Kan. George Loudenslager, 75, died on Jan. 25, 2013, at his winter home in Safety Harbor, Fla.

THE

1950s

Class of 1959 Eldon Beukelman, 77, died on Jan. 17, 2013.

Rev. Gary Clark, 81, died on Oct. 31, 2012, in Fargo, N.D. Connie (Olson) Legler, 75, died on Jan. 4, 2013, in Grand Island, Neb. Gerald Wangsness, 75, died on Jan. 12, 2013.

Class of 1958 Ann (Leverson) Kieffer published her first whole collection of poetry in a collaborative effort with her son, Daniel Kieffer, an artist in Raleigh, N.C. Merton Lund, 77, died on Jan. 15, 2013, at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

Class of 1956 Janice (Johnson) Kuehl, 78, died on April 8, 2012, in Westbrook, Minn.

ALUMNI NEWS Norman Lewison, 80, died on Jan. 28, 2013, in Sioux City, Iowa.

Jeanne (O’Banion) Olson, 78, died on Dec. 22, 2012, in Cave Creek, Ariz.

Class of 1954 Donna (Hoellwarth) Boesch, 79, died on Oct. 27, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1953 Rev. Marlow Engberg, 87, passed away Nov. 16, 2012, in Gresham, Ore. Vendella Peterson died on Dec. 6, 2012, in Wheat Ridge, Colo.

Class of 1952 Virginia (Kneip) Berdahl, 82, died on Dec. 17, 2012, in Brookings, S.D. Rev. Victor Priebe died on Oct. 18, 2012.

Arlene (Satre) Stenberg, 82, died on Jan. 4, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Class of 1951 Murlene (Berg) Collins, 83, died on Jan. 15, 2013.

Class of 1950 Donald Bensen, 85, died on Dec. 14, 2012, in Alcester, S.D. LeRoy Kelley, 87, died on Nov. 1, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Carmi Odegaard, 87, died on Jan. 18, 2013, in Rapid City, S.D. Dr. Peter H. Wierenga, 88, died on Dec. 15, 2012, in Charlottesville, Va.

THE

1940s

Class of 1949 Evelyn (Erickson) Anderson died on Nov. 10, 2012, in Dawson, Minn.

Selmer “Sam” Anderson, 89, died on Jan. 21, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Arnold Bauer, 89, died on Dec. 3, 2012, in Sioux Falls.

Amy (Christensen) Isaak, 90, died on Nov. 25, 2012, in Soldotna, Alaska.

Naomi (Seim) Linnell, 85, died on Jan. 21, 2013, in Hastings, Minn.

Rev. Levern Nielsen, 85, died on Oct. 14, 2012, in Racine, Wis. Class of 1948 Audrey (Anderson) Van Bemmel, 86, died on Oct. 31, 2012, in Estelline, S.D. Class of 1947 Dr. Inman Hesla, 90, died on Feb. 6, 2013, in Rochester, Minn.

Class of 1945 Mildred (Dybvig) Anderson died on Nov. 16, 2012, in Roscoe, Ill. Lois (Brandt) Kohlbecker, 89, died on Dec. 17, 2012.

Class of 1944 Gladys (Schlund) Scott, 89, died on Nov. 13, 2012, in Mitchell, S.D. Class of 1943 Quindrid (Frahm) Albert, 91, died on Oct. 9, 2012, in Newcastle, Wyo.

IN MEMORIAM Joyce Steinbach Hagen, Augustana class of 1939 and a former member of the Board of Trustees, died on Jan. 18, 2013.

She studied piano and organ at Augustana and went on to teach music and English in Jasper, Minn.; Armour, S.D.; and Wessington Springs, S.D. She is survived by her husband, Clarence, her brother, Christopher Steinbach; and her children: Christopher (Carol) Hagen, Louise (Janet Alexander) Hagen, Jean E. Hagen Jonas, and Jonathan (Joy) Hagen.

Annette (Endahl) Lepthien, 90, died on Oct. 28, 2012, in Wheat Ridge, Colo.

Rev. Percival Lovseth, 89 died on May 10, 2011, in Seattle, Wash.

Class of 1942 Roland Arlton, 92, died on Feb. 3, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Rev. Richard Nelson and Deloris (Hanson) Nelson celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary on Feb. 14, 2013.

Dr. Kristen Solberg, 95, died on Nov. 28, 2012, in Ellensburg, Wash.

Class of 1940 Margaret (Vercoe) Gelhaus, 94, died on Jan. 2, 2013, in Pierre, S.D.

Viking Voyage: Germany

Lois (Sougstad) Mehus, 94, died on Oct. 4, 2012, in Missoula, Mont.

Lorraine (Johnson) Rasmussen, 98, died on Nov. 24, 2012, in Viborg, S.D.

THE

1930s

Class of 1939 Avis (Thompt) Cole, 97, died on Jan. 4, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Joyce (Steinbach) Hagen, 95, died on Jan. 18, 2013.

Class of 1938 Mary Alice (Mallory) Lintvedt, 94, died on Jan. 18, 2013.

Class of 1937 Shirley (Gillman) Early, 97, died on Jan. 28, 2013, in Sioux Falls.

Agnes (Larson) Lokke, 96, died on Feb. 8, 2012.

Class of 1936 Eunice (Schiager) Lee, 99, died on Jan. 30, 2013, in Brandon, S.D. Class of 1935 Kaia Emily (Elvestrom) Halvorson, 98, died on Nov. 17, 2012, in Minneapolis, Minn.

Class of 1934 Maurice Kochenderfer, 100, died on Dec. 19, 2012, in California.

Class of 1931 Agnes (Rodvold) Ronneberg, 103, died on Jan. 9, 2013.

Alumni and friends are invited to join Augustana’s Dr. Chris Croghan, Luther Scholar and Director of the Luther House of Studies, to explore “The Roots of a Revolution,” a study of Martin Luther’s life and times.

The 2014 tour is scheduled to depart June 5 and return June 15.

A full itinerary is available at www.augie.edu/travel.

Please contact Mary Toso, director of Alumni Relations, to express your interest. mary.toso@augie.edu or 605.274.5530.

The AUGUSTANA

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Literary

SCIENTIST Step into Dr. Patrick Hicks’ laboratory and you won’t find Bunsen burners, beakers or test tubes. What you will find is a scientist of life, knee-deep in the research of emotion, senses and landscape, testing hypothesis after hypothesis until finally, magic happens.

Early in the morning, in-between his courses on the history of literature and the art of creative writing, and on weekends, you can find Dr. Patrick Hicks, Augustana’s Writer-in-Residence and chair of the English and Journalism department, writing in his self-dubbed “lab,” a room wallpapered in books and cluttered with papers inside the Humanities Center. Alternating between his two desks (one with a computer for writing fiction; the other an empty slate except for a pencil and a pink eraser with worn, rounded corners), he works to perfect the craft he fell in love with as a kid.

“From the word go, I always wanted to be a writer. I was that kid who was always writing short stories. At a young age, my parents got me this old, beat-up IBM typewriter, the kind with the ball that jumped all over the place. I was a voracious reader, too. I was always so mesmerized by the magic of it all — that I could open a book and could be transported somewhere else.

I just wanted to know how these writers could do that. Writing is like hypnosis. It’s like a magic trick. I wanted to know how you could perform this hypnotic magic trick on people.”

It’s safe to say, he’s figured it out.

Review, Natural Bridge and New Ohio Review. He has been nominated seven times for the prestigious Pushcart Prize, and was the recipient of a grant from the Bush Artist Foundation to support work on his first novel.

Dr. Harry Thompson, executive director of the Center for Western Studies, has worked with Hicks on numerous projects, including “A Harvest of Words.”

“As Augustana’s Writer-in-Residence, Patrick is a worthy successor to Herbert Krause, whose idea for a research center focused on the American West became the Center for Western Studies. Patrick is also a valued member of the Center’s Board of Directors and a participant in all of its programs,” Thompson said.

Hicks’ latest novel, “The Commandant of Lubizec,” is a book he just completed based on the Operation Reinhard death camps in Poland during the early 1940s.

To research the book, he read extensively on the Holocaust and traveled to Warsaw and Krakow to discover the kind of details that he says “make fiction real.”

“I knew what I was going to look for. It’s important as a fiction writer to actually go

Seeing the Details In the classroom, Hicks teaches his students about the importance of finding and seeing the details.

“Teaching creative writing is something I’m intentionally very serious about because writing is such a naked proposition to begin with. It takes a lot of bravery to write.

I feel my job is to nurture my students’ imaginations, and their bravery, to put themselves onto the page.”

He says he encourages his students to look beyond what they know and to explore the unknown.

“I tell my students ‘write what you don’t know.’ What I mean by that is, write a story about a firefighter. Go interview a firefighter and, by stepping into the boots of that person, I think you’re going to write a better story because you’re writing about something outside of yourself. And, I think that’s really important, especially for fiction.”

He uses his experience as a professional writer to offer his students another perspective on the art.

“I see creative writing as not just teaching someone how to be a better writer. It’s teaching them how to be a better thinker and how to be a better conveyor of ideas. I

“I see creative writing as not just teaching someone how to be a better writer.

It’s teaching them how to be a better thinker and how to be a better conveyor of ideas.”

– Dr. Patrick Hicks Writer-in-Residence and Chair of the English and Journalism Department Making Magic A native of Stillwater, Minn., Hicks earned his bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University, has lived in Northern Ireland, Germany, and Spain, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

It was as an undergraduate, he says, when he started thinking seriously about how he could fulfill his dream of writing and still make a living.

“That is the ultimate question you have to answer if you’re serious about being a writer. You have to figure out how you’re going to support yourself financially. When I was in college, it became more clear to me that the way to support myself as a writer was to teach writing,” he said.

Today, at 42, Hicks is doing just that. In addition to his teaching, he is the author of five poetry collections with a sixth, “Adoptable,” set to come out next year. His collections, “Finding the Gossamer” (2008) and “This London” (2010) are both from Ireland’s acclaimed press, Salmon Poetry. Most recently, he served as editor for “A Harvest of Words” (2010), published by the Center for Western Studies and partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. His work has appeared in some of the world’s premier literary journals including Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, The Missouri

to these places where history took place.

It’s one thing to study the Holocaust from a safe academic distance. It’s another thing to stand where these crimes took place. It becomes more real for you. It does something to you to be in these places and that just naturally affects you as an artist,” he said.

“Then there are all these other tiny things, like, how do the birds sound in Krakow? What do the buildings look like at sunrise?”

Hicks says the experience of writing “Lubizec,” a fictional death camp created as an aggregate of Operation Reinhard’s three camps, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, was an emotional one.

“I don’t think people really understand what happened in those three camps as well as they should. I’ve taken the stories from these three real places to tell the story of Operation Reinhard. Sometimes I think people haven’t approached these camps because they are so horrifying. I think fiction can offer a type of filter because you can read it and go, ‘oh well, this wasn’t a real prisoner.’ In the back of your mind though, you know it happened. There’s a kind of psychological buffer there. It was hard to write but, when I think about the stories you could focus on, really, there is no other story more important than the Holocaust.”

The AUGUSTANA

want my students to be able to accept and understand constructive criticism and take away what they can about the arc of a story or the development of a character. For me, it’s not just about the writing. It’s teaching them how to interpret and understand constructive criticism and how to give constructive criticism, as well.”

His students can also visit his “lab” to see, first-hand, a writer at work.

It’s there where he writes before classes begin in the morning, during the day if time allows, in the evenings and on weekends.

“I don’t believe in writer’s block. Sure, there are days it doesn’t go as well. But, I am committed to writing or re-writing 750 words a day. It takes about the same amount of time to write 750 fresh words as it does to edit 750 words. Poetry is different.

Sometimes I work for an hour on one line. I work until I get that sense of satisfaction.”

The difference between fiction and poetry is why, Hicks says, he has two desks.

“For me, poetry is very personal and immediate. Poetry is like taking a photograph of an emotion or a thought that you offer to someone. It’s why I write it using a pencil — I want to feel the words move onto the paper. A novel is more like a landscape or a movie. It’s moving pictures.”

“I really am intentional about making

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sure students understand that this is my laboratory. I think it helps students understand the creative process. There’s creation and frustration. Experiments go wrong. Sometimes they go right. To be honest, I don’t see a real difference between the creative arts and the sciences. They’re both creative in that you start with an idea, you test it, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

The Importance of Poetry “Adoptable,” Hicks’ latest collection of poetry, is a study of trans-racial and international adoption, a subject he holds close to his heart.

Three years ago, Hicks and his wife adopted their son, Sean Min-gyu from South Korea.

“I needed to write that book concurrent to writing the book about the Holocaust. I needed to write about wonderment and

joy and beauty while I was writing about these other things. It balanced me psychologically to write these books at the same time.”

To research the collection, he reached out to poets across the country who were adoptees to gain insights about what it’s like to be adopted.

When it comes to the power of poetry, Hicks admits he doesn’t mince words.

“We always turn to poetry in the most important moments in our life — a birth, a death, a marriage, graduation. And yet, it languishes in daily life. I’m perplexed as to why we turn to it in moments of great importance and we don’t care about it otherwise. This confuses me because we live in such a hyper-fast world. You’d think poetry would be perfect. It’s only a page long.”

“The reality is, poetry forces us to cope with our mortality and it forces us to cope with

“... he is passionate about writing; however, more profound is the care he displays for students’ work.”

– Jon Josten, Class of 2010 very difficult issues about what it means to be a human. Poetry doesn’t allow us to pretend those issues aren’t there. I really do believe that it takes a lot of bravery to read poetry.”

Rising playwright Jon Josten, class of 2010, had Hicks for two writing classes during his time as a student.

Josten, who was named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference last summer, says he counts Hicks among his mentors.

“You subject yourself to a certain level of insanity when you write creative work, and then, you give it to someone

else to read, and you begin to consider the nearest exit.

I became comforted that [Dr. Hicks] had been there, in the trenches, through all the excitement of a new idea, the torture of a critique, and the elation when somehow this idea resonated with someone,” Josten said. “In all, I took three classes with Patrick while at Augustana and two of them were writing classes. I know my writing grew under his direction, and I truly feel that is because Patrick has a true gift. Undoubtedly he is passionate about writing; however, more profound is the care he displays for students’ work.”

Spring Events March 23 & 24: Baseball vs. Minnesota Duluth, 12 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 13: Collegiate Chorale Concert, 3 p.m., Chapel of Reconciliation.

April 27: Viking 5k fun run, 7:30 a.m., Elmen Center.

Details at goaugie.com/funrun.

March 24: Passion of St. Mark, featuring The Augustana Choir, Augustana musicians and student actors, 3 p.m., Washington Pavilion.

April 13: “Saturdays at CWS” featuring Gene Smith on digital photography, 10-11 a.m. Free. Contact CWS at 605.274.4007 to register.

April 27: Softball vs. University of Mary, 12 p.m., Bowden Field.

March 26: Softball vs. Wayne State, 3 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 13: Softball vs. Minnesota Duluth, 12 p.m., Bowden Field.

March 27: Softball vs. Colorado Christian, 3 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 14: Softball vs. St. Cloud State, 12 p.m., Bowden Field.

March 29: Baseball vs. Southwest Minnesota State, 1:30 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 14: Joseph Alessi Recital, 2 p.m., Kresge.

April 2-27: The Art of New Guinea, Eide/Dalrymple Gallery. Opening Reception: 5-7 p.m. Friday, April 5.

April 2: Softball vs. Winona State, 3 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 2: All City Jazz Concert featuring the Northlanders Jazz Band, 7:30 p.m. Kresge Recital Hall.

April 3: Baseball vs. University of Sioux Falls, Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 5-6: Continuing Education Workshops: “Communicating in the 21st Century” and “Discipline with Love and Logic.”

Learn more: www.augie.edu/workshops.

April 10: Siouxland Trombone Festival.

April 10: Softball vs. University of Sioux Falls, 3 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 11: Spring Soiree, 5:30 p.m. Minnehaha Country Club.

April 12: “The Dirty Little Secret: Human Trafficking in SD,” Augustana Thought Leader Forum featuring Hannah Miller ‘12. 11:30 a.m., Callaways Event Center, Sioux Falls.

April 12-13: Continuing Education Workshops: “All Things Lear” & “Managing Stress at Home and Work.” Learn more: www.augie.edu/workshops.

April 16: Opera Theatre Selections, 7:30 p.m., Kresge Recital Hall.

April 17: Baseball vs. Upper Iowa, 3 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 18: The Augustana Band/College-Community Band Spring Concert, 7:30 p.m., Washington Pavilion.

April 18-19: Library Associates Books & More Sale, held in the Center for Western Studies.

April 19-20: Continuing Education Workshop: “Special Education in Today’s Classroom.”

Learn more: www.augie.edu/workshops.

April 20: Pennington/Consiglio Concert Event, 7:30 p.m., Kresge Recital Hall.

April 24: Baseball vs. Minot State, 1:30 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 24: Softball vs. Upper Iowa, 2 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 24: Percussion Ensemble Concert, 7:30 p.m., Kresge Recital Hall.

April 26-27: Dakota Conference, Center for Western Studies.

April 26-27: Lee Piano Competition. Concert featuring guest artist Dr. Steven Spooner, concert pianist and associate professor of Piano at the University of Kansas, 8 p.m. on Friday, April 26, in Kresge Recital Hall.

April 28: Softball vs. Minot State, 12 p.m., Bowden Field.

April 28: Baseball vs. Morningside, 2 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

April 28: Brass Ensembles/Brass Choir Concert, 4 p.m., Kresge Recital Hall.

May 2: Augustana Senior Art Show, Eide/Dalrymple Gallery. Gallery Reception set for 5-7 p.m. on Friday, May 3.

May 3-4: Continuing Education Workshop: “Communication is Key.” Learn more: www.augie.edu/workshops.

May 3: Baseball vs. Wayne State, 5 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

May 4: Baseball vs. Wayne State, 12 p.m., Ronken Field at Karras Park.

May 1-5: Theatre: “South Pacific,” Edith Mortenson Theatre.

May 7: Northlanders and Jazz Lab Band, 7:30 p.m., Kresge Recital Hall.

May 12: Choirs and Orchestra presenting Brahms “Requiem,” 3 p.m., Washington Pavilion.

May 16: The Augustana Band and the CollegeCommunity Band Concert, 7:30 p.m., Elmen Center.

May 25: Commencement, 2 p.m., Elmen Center.

June 21: Augustana/Sam Milanovich Golf Tourney, Willow Run Golf Course, Sioux Falls, Noon shotgun start.

June 9-14: Augustana Summer Music Camp for students grades 7-12. www.augie.edu/musiccamp.

Learn more and reserve tickets at www.augie.edu.

IN CELEBRATION

Planning Ahead Today Supporting Students Tomorrow

Paul ‘97 and Joni Krueger

M

eet Paul and Joni Krueger, a couple who are helping to support Augustana through an estate plan and through annual gifts to the Augustana Fund, the Center for Western Studies and the Augustana Athletic Club.

Remembering Augustana in an estate plan provides tax benefits and the satisfaction of helping ensure Augustana’s future excellence. Individuals who make planned gift arrangements become members of the Augustana Heritage Club.

Planned gifts include bequests through wills or living trusts, charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, gifts of life insurance, property deeded with life estate retained, charitable lead trusts and retirement assets. *** Q. How did you make the decision to include Augustana in your estate plans?

A. “Having both worked at Augustana right out of college, we included Augustana in our estate plan even before we had kids. We were some of the younger members of the Heritage Club at the time! We both believe in private Christian higher education so strongly and making a commitment like this was easy. The amount of the commitment wasn’t significant at the time, but the seriousness of it was.”

Q. What would you say to fellow supporters who may be considering a planned gift for Augustana?

A. “Many people think a planned gift means that you have to leave a six-figure or larger gift to Augustana. We look at planned giving as making a commitment. It is a commitment that we will deliberately include Augustana in our estate plan, no matter the amount of the gift. As the parents of three young kids, first and foremost, we are committed to taking care of them. However, we remain committed to including Augustana in our estate plan. As our lives change, we will adjust and change our estate plan, but Augustana will remain in it. We are hopeful the end result will be a significant gift.

So, we would encourage others to do the same, no matter what age you are or what amount you have to give.”

Q. You also support Augustana annually through the Augustana Fund.

Can you share your thoughts about the importance of annual gifts?

A. “We support the Augustana Fund each year because we believe strongly in the quality of education and experience that Augustana provides. We want to maintain that excellence for today’s students as well as future generations. Having both received scholarships and financial aid as students ourselves, we want to help others be able to attend, just like others helped us.”

The AUGUSTANA

“There is no way I would’ve been able to attend Augustana if it wasn’t for scholarships and the financial aid that Augie offered to me as a student. My Augustana experience was lifechanging and continues to shape me today. The least we can do is to help others have that same experience,” said Paul ‘97, president and CEO of Make-A-Wish South Dakota.

“As an administrator at Augustana, I see first-hand the students that our gifts are helping,” said Joni, Augustana’s registrar. “It’s rewarding to know that we play a small part in helping today’s students receive a quality Christian education.”

Q. How does giving back to Augustana make you feel?

A. “It feels good knowing that we are able to help Augustana remain strong and competitive and that our support helps students receive an excellent education. We aren’t the largest donors, but we are faithful donors. We talk often about our giving priorities and Augustana remains near the top. We don’t think there is a better investment than in education. Supporting Augustana means hope for the future.”

To learn more about Planned Giving opportunities at Augustana, contact the Office of Advancement at 605.274.5521 or visit www.augiegiving.org.

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AMMANN: “Every day I work to make sure I’m using His gift in the right way.”

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 “What I learned is that my main job as a performer is not to feel the emotions myself, but to make sure that every single person sitting in the audience feels the emotion. It’s to make sure they’re feeling what I’m portraying. That’s a very powerful thing. It’s beautiful.”

She also learned the real magic of live performances.

“The reason someone should go to a live performance is because it’s alive. You never know what could happen. It changes for us, the performers, every single night. You never know what the ingredients will be that night that could totally change the show. We rehearse until we’re blue in the face, but every night’s a new opportunity to have a transcendent experience for someone in the audience. I love that.”

While still a student, Ammann also served as a young artist with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for two seasons where she performed the roles of Kate Pinkerton in “Madame Butterfly,” Page of Heriodas in “Salome,” and covered Samira in “The Ghosts of Versailles” and Antonia’s Mother in “The Tales of Hoffman.”

In 2009, Ammann began her Resident Artist program with the Pittsburgh Opera where she sang the roles of Olga in “Eugene Onegin,” Dame Quickly in “Falstaff,” Lucretia in “The Rape of Lucretia,” Marcellina in “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Alisa in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Goffredo in “Rinaldo,” and covered the title role of Carmen.

While in Pittsburgh, she got the call every hopeful opera singer dreams about.

“I got a phone call from the artistic director at the Pittsburgh Opera who said I was being released from the program in order to make my Met debut.”

At just 26, Ammann sang in Robert LePage’s “Ring Cycle” as Rossweisse in “Die Walküre” under the baton of Maestro James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

According to research done by the Met, when Ammann was a national semi-finalist in their competition in 2007, she was only the third South Dakotan to sing on the Met stage in its 128-year history.

The experience, she remembers, seemed surreal.

“I was the little kid at the Met. I was in a room with some of Opera’s biggest superstars. I got to sing the music that I love with people who are amazing.

That changed everything. It put everything on a totally different level.”

Ammann’s Met debut was chronicled on the “Die Walküre” DVD from the Metropolitan Opera’s “Ring Cycle” and the documentary DVD “Wagner’s Dream,” which has been shown nationally on PBS and around the world. The CD from the production, “Twilight of the Gods,” won a Grammy award last month.

The Language of Opera Ammann admits singing mostly in German, Russian and Italian is “a little crazy.”

“At any given time, I can be

working on an English piece, a German piece and a Russian piece. It’s not uncommon for three or four languages to be running through my head. It gets a little messy,” she says.

“I do have a French minor from Augie, so that helps a little. We’re learning German now that we live here. There are books out there that have phonetic transliterations of the text so I can know what sound I’m supposed to be creating. I also work with native-speaking coaches as well. I do get asked a lot, ‘do you know what you’re singing about?’”

“The answer is, ‘of course.’

It’s my job to make sure I know the story so I can portray the character accurately and send out the correct emotions and feelings for the audience.”

Whatever the language, Ammann admits that balancing life as a professional opera singer can be challenging.

“My job is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Part of my job is making sure I’m healthy all the time. If I’m not healthy, I can’t sing. Singing is my job.

Part of my job is learning new music, perfecting notes, learning new roles and perfecting existing roles. On a typical day of a show, I’ll end up at the opera house 90 minutes before the curtain opens. From there, I get my make-up done, get my wig fastened, find my costume, warm-up, do some stretches and focus my mind so I can really be there — be ready to sing all the right words, with all the right notes, portraying

all the right emotions for the audience.”

Looking Ahead Now 29, Ammann’s resume reads far beyond her years. In 2011, she was the Alto Soloist in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s fully staged production of “Handel’s Messiah” and covered the role of Goffredo in “Rinaldo” with Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called her voice “capable of sinister low chest tones and robust high notes that can express a gamut of emotions” while Opera News describes her stage presence as “a force to be dealt with.”

As for what her future holds, Ammann says right now, she’s enjoying her time living in Germany with her husband, Linas Tamulionis.

She’s singing Third Lady in “Die Zauberflöte” and Flosshilde in “Götterdämmerung”, while covering Waltraute in her debut with Stuttgart Opera. This spring, she’ll make her Casals Festival debut in Puerto Rico as Brangäne in a concert version of “Tristan und Isolde,” followed by a reprisal of her role with the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Rossweisse in “Die Walküre” under Maestro Fabio Luisi.

No matter what the future holds, Ammann says she’s confident her faith will guide her.

“All this ... it’s not about me.

My voice isn’t mine, it’s from God. Every day I work to make sure I’m using His gift in the right way.”

Cancer Research by Augustana Grad Featured in National Journal A study on therapeutic targets for breast cancer co-authored by an Augustana alumna is featured on the cover of a national scientific research journal.

The project, “Multiple Functions of Sushi Domain Containing 2 (SUSD2) in Breast Tumorigenesis,” part of the thesis project by Allison (Eslinger) Watson, class of 2007, is the cover story of the February 2013 issue of Molecular Cancer Research, a monthly journal published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

Watson, now a student at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine’s PhysicianScientist (MD/PhD) Program, says her interest in medical research was sparked during her time at Augustana as a Biology major.

“I owe much of my current success to the Biology department at Augustana. My interest in science and medicine was fueled by the enthusiasm and excitement for research I experienced while part of

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the Biology department. The devotion to development of student researchers at Augustana is absolutely unmatched. I had the opportunity to connect with world-class scientists [and] was encouraged and supported throughout my journey. I owe much of my success to many wonderful mentors in the Biology department. Dr. Maureen Diggins [professor emerita of Biology] played a large role in encouraging me, even as a young student, to explore options for scientific research in Sioux Falls through the Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN). After realizing my dreams for pursuing a career that would allow me to influence both clinical and research aspects of breast cancer, Dr. Paul Egland [associate professor of Biology and chief health professions adviser] and Dr. Michael Wanous [professor of Biology and associate academic Dean] helped me get into the Physician Scientist program at the Sanford School of Medicine,” Watson said. “The Biology department at Augustana has mastered the perfect balance between nurturing and pushing

The AUGUSTANA

students to succeed, which fosters the development of some outstanding young scientists that will inevitably remain emotionally and academically attached to the department for years!”

After graduating from Augustana in 2007, Watson entered the MD/PhD program at USD, a program in which students complete two years of medical school curriculum, followed by three years to complete a Ph.D. in the Basic Biomedical Science department. The final two years of the program are designated for completion of the third and fourth years of the medical school curriculum. Watson successfully defended her thesis dissertation in May of 2012 and then re-entered the medical school curriculum in Sioux Falls.

“My thesis focused on breast cancer, specifically the identification and characterization of a gene involved in the immune system’s recognition and response to breast tumors. I was under the direction of Dr. Kristi Egland of Sanford Research.”

“I feel very passionately about the impact the Augustana Biology department has had on my own development as a PhysicianScientist!”

Thank You!

The Augustana Community would like to thank the following generous individuals who have made leadership gifts or pledges of $1,000 or more in support of the Dr. Sven G. Froiland Science Center. To date, more than $6.2 million has been raised, bringing the total to more than $12.4 million, including the dollar-for-dollar match by Sanford Health.

Dean Anderson* Dennis ‘78 and Julie ‘79 Anderson Dr. Mary Auterman L.M. Baylor Rev. Daniel ‘56 and Marjorie ‘55 Bergeland Marlin ‘72 and JoAnn Berkland Dr. Jim and Susan Bies Richard Bland ‘68 Donald and Helen Boen Earl and Helen Bohlen Dr. Thomas ‘78 Braithwaite and Tacey ‘76 Eneboe-Braithwaite Ron ‘63 and Rebecca ‘65 Brakke Ronald ‘76 and Carol Brandenburg Dr. Verdayne ‘74 and Mary ‘74 Brandenburg Dr. John Bylsma Dewayne ‘85 and Sarah ‘82 Callies Henry and Eleanor Carlson Ray ‘69 and Alice ‘71 Christensen Ronald and Kathleen Christensen Nathan and Mary Dally Nancy Davidson Cara Davis ‘53 Thomas ‘83 and Leisa Davis Kirk and Stephanie Dean Dr. David ‘72 and Sharon Detert Dr. Tore ‘78 and Dr. Elizabeth ‘77 Detlie Altie Domsitz ‘36 Steven ‘80 and Brenda ‘81 Dronen Robert ‘52 and Rita Elmen Eugene ‘55 and Betty Erickson Estate of Lyle G. Christensen Michael and Sue Flynn Dr. Thomas ‘65 and Amy ‘66 Froiland James ‘70 and Marcia ‘74 Fry Michael and Susan Gardner Doris Gjervik ‘44 Ron ‘62 and Joan ‘62 Halverson Kathryn ‘75 and Dr. William Harris William Harvey ‘59 Dr. Susan and Dr. Ken Hasseler

* Deceased.

Rickard ‘83 and Monica Hedeby Eloise ‘64 and Ronald Hefty The Family of Ron Hoiberg* ‘71 Dr. Mark ‘77 and Ann Holm Tim ‘81 and Dr. Pamela ‘81 Homan Howard ‘50 and Eunice ‘50 Hovland Dr. Jacquelyn Howell Dr. Charles ‘57 and Patty Howlin Dr. Eugene ‘72 and Gloria ‘73 Hoyme Harriet Hybertson ‘45 Dr. Leland Johnson ‘59 Dr. R.C. ‘68 and Jane Nutter ‘69 Johnson Wilford and Jean Johnson George ‘65 and Gay ‘67 Kapplinger Dr. Elmer ‘67 and Annette Kasperson Barbara ‘61 and Basil Kilani Joe ‘75 and Jennifer ‘93 Kirby Darrell ‘63 and Aileen Knudson Dr. Delmar Knudson ‘56 Gilmore and Dorothy Koepsell Stanley ‘75 and Karen ‘77 Krebs Monte and Beverly ‘78 Krier Lowell ‘65 and Leslie Kruse Dr. Muriel Lamkee ‘49 Slade and Stephanie Larscheid Dr. Steven ‘79 Lillehaug and Dr. Tanya ‘82 Oyos Bill ‘82 and Lorrae ‘82 Lindquist Robert Locken Dr. Jonathan ‘97 and Dot McAreavey Dr. Robert ‘53 and Glennys ‘49 Meerdink Thomas and Marilyn Meyer Dr. Carole ‘79 and Ralph Miserendino Paul ‘72 and Julie Mohrman Donald ‘58 and Julie ‘60 Munson Dr. Jeffrey ‘78 and Mary Murray Dr. Carlyle ‘59 and Janet ‘57 Naessig Courtland ‘72 and Mitzi Nelson Dr. Dan ‘76 and Diana Nelson Rev. Richard ‘42 and Deloris ‘42 Nelson Dr. Verlyn and Lisa Nykamp Dr. James ‘72 and Carol ‘71 Oakland

Dr. David and Christina O’Hara Rob and Angela Oliver Dr. Michael ‘72 and Deborah ‘73 Olson Tory and Jackie ‘97 Payne Dr. Dale ‘60 and Camille ‘64 Peterson Dr. Craig ‘73 and Karen ‘73 Pfeifer Steven ‘82 and Dr. Gina ‘82 Pfeiffer Rev. Frank and Dr. Janet Philipp Bob and Barbara Preloger Laurel ‘77 Prieb and Wendy Selig-Prieb Dr. David ‘66 and Dr. Barbara Quissell Dr. Gayle ‘74 and T.J. Reardon Dr. John ‘75 and Penny Ritterbusch Sanford Health Mark Sather ‘79 Dr. Gregory ‘74 and Karen ‘75 Schultz Judith Schwerin ‘76 Allan ‘54 and Mary Severson Dr. Rayburn ‘59 and Ardell ‘61 Skoglund Rev. Howard ‘66 and Kristin Skulstad Melinda ‘89 Keith-Snell and Norman Snell David and Kelly Sprecher Dr. Erik ‘79 and Lisa Stene Lowell ‘80 and Debra ‘77 Stortz Lee ‘76 and John Thomas Dr. Jerel ‘71 and Nancy ‘74 Tieszen Dr. Reuben Tieszen Dr. Robert ‘72 and Marilyn ‘74 Van Demark Dr. Karel & Joyce Vander Lugt Dr. John* ‘74 and Deborah VanderWoude Dr. Arlen Viste Dr. Mark Viste ‘92 Robert ‘71 and Sandra Wagner Gerald ‘97 and Ann ‘77 Weflen Todd ‘83 and Mary Williams Dr. Charles ‘52 and Delores ‘51 Wright Rev. L. James ‘55 and Myrna ‘57 Wylie Steven ‘71 and Adele Yorde Jane ‘72 and Dr. Charles Zaloudek Gifts received as of March 1, 2013

To learn more about how you can support this project, contact Bob Preloger, vice president for Advancement, at 605.274.4922.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

PERMIT NO. 5 SIOUX FALLS, SD

2001 South Summit Avenue Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57197

The Langskip 5K!

The Game!

The Parade!

Save the Date!

Homecoming 2013: Oct. 18-20 See campus!

See friends!

See your old room!

Viking Varieties!

Viking Days Worship!

See Ole!

Learn more at www.augie.edu/vikingdays