As of fall 2025, news and media updates have been integrated with the Augsburg Now alumni publication. This site archives news stories from before September 16, 2025. Please visit augsburg.edu/now or select "Augsburg Now" from the left navigation for current news.
The Tri-State Neighbor newspaper recently sought expert input from Kristin Anderson, archivist and professor of art history at Augsburg College, for an article about the history of Singsaas Lutheran Church, a historic Norwegian church in Brookings, South Dakota. The article points out many of the church’s historical connections, including its聽1884 altar painting.
Occupying the central panel of the Gothic altar, the image was painted by artist Sarah Kirkeberg Raugland, who’s work Anderson has studied. Among the few women who were creating altar paintings during the period, 鈥淩augland really stood out for both quantity and quality of her work,鈥� Anderson said. The altar was one of the few furnishings retained when the church was rebuilt in 1921.
KARE 11 television聽recently interviewed a group of 5th graders who created a multicultural cookbook as a way to promote diversity and tolerance. The students are part Public Achievement, an Augsburg College program designed to teach democracy and citizenship through service projects.
The segment also featured program director Dennis Donovan. 鈥淭here are a lot of issues in the world, and we need people to come together and solve these problems,鈥� he said. 鈥淗aving young people participate in public achievement gives them a skill-set and process that normally they would not have.鈥�
Augsburg College History Professor Phil Adamo appears on set with Diana Pierce at KARE 11.
Longtime KARE 11 news anchor Diana Pierce ’16 MAL recently announced her retirement from聽broadcasting in the聽Twin Cities market after more than 30 years on air. In a story on the KARE 11 website, Pierce said, “The timing is excellent,” for the change because she will graduate from Augsburg College’s聽Master of Arts in Leadership program this spring and will pursue new opportunities with her master’s degree. To learn more about Pierce’s award-winning journalism career, read the following stories:
KARE 11:聽
Bring Me The News: Newscaster Diana Pierce retiring after 32 years at KARE
Minnesota Public Radio:聽KARE 11 anchor Diana Pierce retires
Star Tribune:聽KARE 11’s Diana Pierce calls it a career after 32 years
Three Augsburg College students and a recent alumnus sat down with KARE 11 reporter聽Adrienne Broaddus to discuss “bathroom bills” that are popping up across the U.S. concerning transgender rights.聽In Minnesota, proposed legislation would define which restrooms transgender people could legally use.
Jens Pinther ’15 and Duina Hernandez ’16 expressed the importance of gender-neutral bathrooms, and the story described Augsburg’s intentionality in offering these facilities on campus.
Harry Boyte, senior fellow at the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently published an article for Education Week about democracy in education. The article is part of a conversational series between Boyte and Deborah Meier, senior scholar at New York University鈥檚 Steinhardt School of Education.
Boyte argues that we should view democracy as “an empowering way of life,” and not merely a decision-making process. “We need to combine the ‘head,’ which makes decisions, the ‘heart,’ moral imagination and emotion, and the ‘hand,’ civic muscles that power action in the world,” he writes.
In regards to education, Boyte offers an antidote to a culture that separates the hard sciences, the arts and the professional or vocational fields, parallels to the “head”, “heart” and “hand” metaphor. He argues in favor of Cooperative Education, “a method that combines academic study and classroom learning with practical work experience for which students can receive academic credit.”
Read聽the article, which also was published on the site.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently interviewed former Augsburg College basketball player and retired NBA star Devean George ’99 about the upcoming retirement of legendary Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant. George, who retired in 2011, played his first seven seasons in the NBA alongside Bryant.
George said that he knows Bryant is ready to retire from professional sports because he has seen familiar signs from his own retirement. “What I鈥檝e seen him go through this year, you can see the flame is not there and he knows it鈥檚 time,” he said. “It鈥檚 the old clich茅: Father Time, no one can beat it. There comes a time where no one wins. Basketball is a young man鈥檚 sport. It鈥檚 that simple.”
Read George: When it’s time, it’s time on the Star Tribune site.
The Minnesota Daily recently covered the Cedar Riverside Community Traveling Basketball program, which provides coaching, practice, and competition for six teams of local boys and girls ranging from sixth to 10th grade.
The program was founded by Augsburg College alumna Jennifer Weber ’11, who recognized a need for such programs. “The kids here in the neighborhood need more quality programming,” she said. “The kids want it. They go to open gym all the time.”
Another need Weber recognized dealt with a聽lack of functional athletic attire that was culturally acceptable for the many Muslim girls in the program.
Luckily, design students from the University of Minnesota had already been working to solve that problem. Working with the players and other partners, the students designed uniforms with adjustable hijabs, knee-length skirts and breathable leggings. A grant from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station provided funding to donate the completed uniforms to the program.
The article concludes with a statement from coach and co-founder Muna Mohamed ’16, an exercise science senior at Augsburg who grew up in the neighborhood.
“These girls are getting an opportunity to have culturally appropriate clothing, at the same time … [as] enjoying sports,” she said. “They don鈥檛 have to worry about fixing their scarves. They don鈥檛 have to worry about ‘How can I play basketball and also respect my culture?'”
Auggies sing with Barry Manilow on his well known hit, 鈥淐opacabana (At the Copa).鈥�
Members of the Augsburg Choir sang backup for Barry Manilow during the Grammy-award winning performer’s farewell tour.聽The choir sang three encore songs with Manilow including “I Write the Songs,” “Miracle,” and “Copacabana (At the Copa).”
The Augsburg Choir was selected to perform by Barry Manilow’s choir director, Doug Hollenback.聽The ensemble is recognized for its high level of musicianship and performs a聽diverse repertoire under the direction of聽Peter Hendrickson聽’76.
The performance by the students drew media attention from Twin Cities media outlets including:
The St. Paul Pioneer Press recently published an article about real estate leader Ted Bigos ’74聽and the current climate of urban living in downtown St. Paul. Bigos owns five buildings in the area and many others across the state.
“I put a lot of my back into those buildings,” Bigos said. With the help of his father, Bigos began purchasing, renovating, and reselling apartment buildings at age 19 while he was a student at Augsburg College. Eventually, he retained some of the renewed properties and began renting them to tenants himself.
About the current state of the downtown area, which has seen many development projects in recent years, he said, “In all the years I鈥檝e been in St. Paul, it鈥檚 never felt as good as it feels today.”
The Pioneer Press reports that St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman has appointed Erik Skold, leader of the North Star Worker Fellowship at the Minnesota Department of Education and the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College, as director of Sprockets, the city’s network of after-school programs.
Skold has been serving as the program’s interim director since the departure of previous director. Skold holds a master鈥檚 degree in youth development leadership from the University of Minnesota.
