The Augsburg Podcast

Ankita Deka: My goal is to create these critical pedagogical experiences for the students where they master these concepts and learn to develop skills, but more importantly, where there is also some critical...

Lori Brandt Hale: Pay attention is one of those phrases in my class, so by the end of the semester people start to roll their eyes just a little bit because I've said so many times, "Pay ...

Jill Dawe: I seem to still go back to this idea that there is a simple way to connect with people and to believe in the multifaceted dimensions of individuals and their creative possibility and their talent ...

Vivian Feng: I consider myself always a learner, learning new things always excite me. I am really at the bench learning with my students because we're doing things that I don't have the right answer for and I'm reading papers together with them. I hope that by coming through my classes, my students would actually have a newfound curiosity to the natural world.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educate students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the President of Augsburg University, and it's my great privilege to present the Augsburg Podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of the Augsburg Podcast. And today I'm speaking with Vivian Feng, associate professor of chemistry and we're going to be talking a bit about the impact and importance of both research and experiential learning in the field of chemistry. Welcome, Vivian.

Vivian Feng: Thank you, Catherine.

Catherine Day: So happy you could make time for us today. Let's start by finding out a little bit about where you discovered your passion for the subject, the field of chemistry.

Vivian Feng: I actually wasn't one of those kids that had identified a passion in the natural sciences at a young age. Actually, in fact, I was more drawn to the liberal arts, to history, geography, arts and music. I grew up in China and studied the sciences and math when we separated in different branches in high school. Simply because my parents are both engineers, and then they basically convinced me that I'd have more options in career options down the world. So I was branched into the sciences and math and engineering branch.

The most transforming experience I've had in those days was when I was selected to go to the international school called the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, when I was a junior year in high school.

Jeremy Myers: How do we help our young people think about God as moving in our world, working in our world? How do we teach our young people to be in our world, partnering with God in the redeeming work that God's doing in our world? So how do we teach them how to listen, engage, seek out places of brokenness courageously, hopefully be in those places to hear those stories, to be changed by their neighbors stories and then learn how to enter into God's story while they're carrying their neighbor's story with them? And by carrying their neighbor's story with them into God's story, it's going to change the way they hear God's story. Just like God's story will change the way they hear their neighbor's story.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the president of Augsburg University, and it's my great privilege to present the Augsburg podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of the Augsburg podcast. We're speaking today with Jeremy Myers, associate professor of religion, and director of the theology and public leadership program, among other roles he plays at Augsburg. Welcome Jeremy.

Jeremy Myers: Thank you, it's good to be here.

Catherine Day: I want to explore several aspects of your work and your passions and I wondered if you'd be willing to start with where you grew up and what you wanted to be.

Jeremy Myers: I grew up in the Chicago area. I was born out in Maryland. We moved to Chicago when I was three. My father was a Lutheran pastor, and my mother stayed home and raised myself and my sister. And it was a great place to grow up and be a kid. There were abandoned railroad tracks behind our house, which offered lots of places to disappear from your parents, and build forts, and explore, and be imaginative.

Catherine Day: So when you say Chicago, you weren't really right in the city?

Jeremy Myers: Not in the city, no. We were about 45 minutes out south of Chicago in a town called Madison, Illinois. And I have vivid memories of loving ... As I said my father was a pastor, and I loved being around the church. I would be given special jobs during certain services. On Good Friday my job was to dial the lights back as the service progressed so the sanctuary got gradually darker, and darker, and darker. And I loved the mystery of that. I remember being a little boy and just loving going to church at nighttime. So there was a mystery about what we did as a religious community that was appealing to me. There was a mystery about that space and the way it smelled, and the way it felt, and the way it looked. And it was a supportive community for me growing up. So the earliest thing I can remember wanting to be was a pastor, and I remember planning little services for my family and setting up an alter, and planning an order of worship, and writing a sermon, and having the family come together and do these little worship services together. And these were not ...

I also spent a lot of time pretending I was Han Solo and that was play. And when I was doing these services with my family it felt quite different. It wasn't play. I wasn't pretending to fly the millennium falcon, I was actually leading worship for them. It felt very different for me. And so early on I think,

Jennifer Forsthoefel: I think it is important to establish a writing culture on campus, really starting out with thinking what is the culture of writing on our campus currently, and what do we want it to be ...

Katie Bishop: Every person at Augsburg is carrying something. Our students are carrying heavy burdens, some of them, many of them. And they have to share some of those burdens in order to be here in this space. That requires a lot of empathy and that costs something. There is a cost associated with that for people when a burden is shared, and we have to carry that.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the President of Augsburg University. It's my great privilege to present The Augsburg Podcast. One way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of The Augsburg Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Katie Bishop, chief student success officer for Augsburg. Welcome, Katie.

Katie Bishop: Thank you very much.

Catherine Day: I'd love to start with how you found your way to where you are, because it wasn't a direct path. And it's probably useful to start off by simply saying it wasn't even a job that existed, as recently as three years ago. In fact, I'm wondering, how many other people in the United States have that position that you're aware of, in private colleges?

Katie Bishop: The role at Augsburg is relatively new, a little less then three years old. Across the nation, it's becoming increasingly common to see a role like that. It isn't always titled exactly like that. But there is an increasing, an urgent focus on student success, particularly related to making sure that students graduate from college, unpacking issues around retention, and on student progress to degree.

Three years ago, when the role started to be talked about, it was not very common at all. As I travel and research, the role is becoming actually quite common.

Catherine Day: That's such an important idea, because of a number of pressures. Anything beyond four years to completion, the costs grow higher and higher if they don't complete. They still might have the burden of their debt or responsibilities. But no, nothing to show for it and so forth. But are those some of the reasons behind?

Katie Bishop: Yeah, absolutely. I think the higher education model in the United States is really designed, was designed, particularly in the '50s and '60s, around this assumption that students attending higher ed would be middle class or upper middle class. And primarily, white students.

They would be aged 18, they would take four years, they would come in with social capital, and assumptions already built in around what it means to be in college, what it means to get a job after college, how you navigate the college system.

There were assumptions built into the model around family socioeconomic status, and affordability, and how you paid for college. Increasingly, as the United States has grown to understand, rightly so, that higher ed needs to serve all of our population, and all academically ready students.

The entire higher ed system has seen growth in diversity of students, whether that's diversity around race and ethnicity, diversity in socioeconomic status, diversity in first-generation students,

Katie Bishop: Every person at Augsburg is carrying something. Our students are carrying heavy burdens, some of them, many of them. And they have to share some of those burdens in order to be here in this space. That requires a lot of empathy and that costs something. There is a cost associated with that for people when a burden is shared, and we have to carry that.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the President of Augsburg University. It's my great privilege to present The Augsburg Podcast. One way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of The Augsburg Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Katie Bishop, chief student success officer for Augsburg. Welcome, Katie.

Katie Bishop: Thank you very much.

Catherine Day: I'd love to start with how you found your way to where you are, because it wasn't a direct path. And it's probably useful to start off by simply saying it wasn't even a job that existed, as recently as three years ago. In fact, I'm wondering, how many other people in the United States have that position that you're aware of, in private colleges?

Katie Bishop: The role at Augsburg is relatively new, a little less then three years old. Across the nation, it's becoming increasingly common to see a role like that. It isn't always titled exactly like that. But there is an increasing, an urgent focus on student success, particularly related to making sure that students graduate from college, unpacking issues around retention, and on student progress to degree.

Three years ago, when the role started to be talked about, it was not very common at all. As I travel and research, the role is becoming actually quite common.

Catherine Day: That's such an important idea, because of a number of pressures. Anything beyond four years to completion, the costs grow higher and higher if they don't complete. They still might have the burden of their debt or responsibilities. But no, nothing to show for it and so forth. But are those some of the reasons behind?

Katie Bishop: Yeah, absolutely. I think the higher education model in the United States is really designed, was designed, particularly in the '50s and '60s, around this assumption that students attending higher ed would be middle class or upper middle class. And primarily, white students.

They would be aged 18, they would take four years, they would come in with social capital, and assumptions already built in around what it means to be in college, what it means to get a job after college, how you navigate the college system.

There were assumptions built into the model around family socioeconomic status, and affordability, and how you paid for college. Increasingly, as the United States has grown to understand, rightly so, that higher ed needs to serve all of our population, and all academically ready students.

The entire higher ed system has seen growth in diversity of students, whether that's diversity around race and ethnicity, diversity in socioeconomic status, diversity in first-generation students,

Doug Green: As a teacher of literature, as long as students can ground what they're saying in the text, I'm happy. It's rich stuff, so you can pull a lot of different things out of it. Probably the thing they most take away from my class is what's exciting about literature because I can't help myself, I get excited about it too.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the president of Augsburg University. And it's my great privilege to present The Augsburg Podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of The Augsburg Podcast. We're speaking today with Doug Green, Professor of English at Augsburg. Welcome.

Doug Green: Hi. It's nice to be here.

Catherine Day: Where did you discover your passion for Shakespeare? When did that pop up in your life?

Doug Green: I always enjoyed reading him, even back in high school. I had very good high school English teachers. But I think the real passion came when I was at Amherst College in the '70s. A writer named Ben DeMott, who wrote regularly for The Atlantic, actually taught the Shakespeare course. And he was just the most fantastic lecturer. And he would read characters differently, three or four different ways. And that taught me a lot about drama and a lot about Shakespeare. And from there on, I was sold. Then I had a great teacher also, Elmer Blistein at Brown when I was there.

Catherine Day: Amherst was undergraduate and Brown was graduate school.

Doug Green: Graduate school.

Catherine Day: Okay. And you went on in English. That was what you were pursuing.

Doug Green: Yes. I was a classics major though also at Amherst. And my dissertation involved Latin, which I used to know.

Catherine Day: Where did you get this sort of pull for these classics do you think? Did that come earlier in your life?

Doug Green: That's a really good question. I'm not sure I know the answer to that. I started taking Greek in college because a roommate of mine said to me, "Wouldn't it be great to read Plato in the original?" And I thought, "Yeah, it would be." It turned out I didn't care that much about Plato, but I loved reading the tragedies in the original. And then I was just completely taken away. And I had a great professor there too, Rachel Kissinger, and we actually did two plays in Greek. And I played Tiresias in The Antigone in the second one, and Ajax's little brother in the first one, in The Ajax, both by Sophocles.

Catherine Day: What's the difference for you in reading the material and acting the material?

Doug Green: I would actually say that there isn't a difference for me. And some of this is just realizing that when you're reading drama, you actually have to hear it. You actually have to hear voices. And so when I read drama, if I'm skimming it, I'm not getting it. If I'm reading it silently, I'm not getting it. I have to stop regularly and read speeches that call out to be read, is the way I would put it,

Kwame-Ross: As an African American coming from Chicago or African American living in Minneapolis, versus a white teacher who teaches in Minneapolis, but comes from Minnetonka, you have a discrepancy of knowledge. How do you get white teachers who grew up differently, who have different experiences, in other words, have different knowledge sets to teach a group of kids with a whole different knowledge set?

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the president of Augsburg University, and it's my great privilege to present The Augsburg Podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of The Augsburg podcast. Today we're speaking with Terrance Kwame-Ross, associate professor of education, and we're going to touch on a number of topics about the crucial nature of education. Welcome.

Kwame-Ross: Thank you.

Catherine Day: I'd love to start with where you came from, what your origins were.

Kwame-Ross: I grew up in Chicago, Illinois on the south side. The way I describe it is I had a wonderful childhood related to the geography. The place that I grew up at, it was close to the Museum of Science and Industry at University of Chicago, Jackson Park, so it was a place that was an environment for constant learning. Even though financially we didn't have a lot of financial means. But I feel as though that particular geographical place that I grew up was rich with resources, and I really think that that was foreshadowing how I think about learning. That it happens all the time, everywhere, in many different places. Chicago was that place.

When people think of Chicago, they probably think of this big scary place, which sometimes it is. I've learned when things are scary in some places, how do we still survive and still learn? My roots from Chicago, and still they are. My mom still live there, my family live there, so I go back there. 62nd and Stony was my stomping grounds, as they say.

Catherine Day: Your stomping grounds, yeah. For anyone who has been to the University of Chicago or the Museum of Science and Industry ... and I think so many people ... I went there probably in fifth grade on the train or something-

Kwame-Ross: Yes. Exactly.

Catherine Day: ... it's an amazing ... as you say, it's just a rich learning environment. In what ways do you think place continues to inform the way you're thinking about educating?

Kwame-Ross: There's this idea called ... well, people call it context. I like to think about it as an ecology. That there's different places, and we know it, it's a fact that there's places inside of ourselves that we have conversations with about morality or our ethics, what we're seeing in the world. There's ecological places in terms of our families and our homes that knowledge come from and we learn. There's neighborhoods and communities and society and laws. I think that place, the physical place that you grew up or that you're currently at or live in is a fertile ground for knowledge and learning.

I believe that place, geographical,