网曝吃瓜

I teach the Honors Senior Seminar each spring, which is always a highlight of my year, and one of the class sessions introduces students to the history and practice of improvisation.

I invite members of our theater faculty and local improv performers to come to class to help us understand why improv is so important to places like Chicago (think Second City) and Minneapolis (think Dudley Riggs鈥� Brave New Workshop). Then the fun begins.

The improv artists invite us to the front of the classroom where we are taught some basic improv skills. Embarrassment aside, these sessions are full of life lessons. My favorite exercise goes like this: one student makes a statement related to an assigned topic. Perhaps the topic is the weather, and the student proclaims, 鈥淲ow, is it hot.鈥� The next student then answers, 鈥淵es, and … I鈥檓 sweating like a faucet.鈥� The next student continues, 鈥淵es, and … my faucets often leak.鈥�

You get the point. No one is allowed to say 鈥淣o鈥� or even 鈥淵es, but 鈥� 鈥濃�攊t鈥檚 always 鈥淵es, and 鈥� .鈥� That鈥檚 how improv works, and I believe that鈥檚 how Augsburg works when we are at our best.

We live in a 鈥淣o鈥� and 鈥淵es, but 鈥� 鈥� world鈥攁 world of scarcity that keeps us from risking ourselves in relation to others. Improv teaches us the way of abundance, a way that finds we are better together. 鈥淵es, and 鈥� 鈥� builds upon the gifts of others to help us live healthier, more just and compassionate lives together.

The anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson offers this helpful word: 鈥淚mprovisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond.鈥�

This issue of Augsburg Now is full of stories of 鈥淵es, and 鈥� 鈥濃�攊ncluding highlights of our planning for next year鈥檚 sesquicentennial celebration, Augsburg鈥檚 150th anniversary. What a grand celebration it will be, as we recall the abundance of our founding in 1869, the decades of educating students for lives of meaning and purpose, and the promise of Augsburg鈥檚 mission in the years ahead.

Yes, and … it will be good!

Faithfully yours,

, President