The creation of community exhibits openness, exemplifies openness, and enables openness. Without such a sense of community we will simply avoid talking about anything that really matters.
Tom Christenson, The Gift and Task of Lutheran Higher Education.
These activities are designed to help build a sense of community among faculty, staff, and leadership. Components include the Life of the Mind Retreat, Mindful Dialogues and Community Reading Circles, CTL Night at the Theater, the Hoversten Peace Seminar, and Well-Being Series. HR and ACFL are important partners in planning these programs.
The Convocation series, Nobel Peace Prize Forum, and Advent Vespers also serve to build a sense of community.
Life of the Mind Retreat
This year’s Life of the Mind Retreat will be held TBD. We hold an annual retreat to explore a topic of interest to us as global citizens – a topic that is informed by numerous disciplines and can best be addressed through a transdisciplinary approach. All faculty, staff, and administrators are invited to participate.
The 2011 retreat addressed the history of development on different continents, global economic disparities and their effects, oppression as reflected in theater, and confronting class in the classroom. In addition to readings, discussions, videos, poetry, spiritual exploration, and music; it also includes reflective time in a natural setting to think about how the discussions apply to our lives. It led to a Fighting Poverty task force that continues to explore how to address student poverty at Augsburg College. They recently opened up a Food Shelf for students.
Mindful Dialogues
Mindful Dialogues is a series of conversations, based on a book or set of readings, designed to collectively examine issues relevant to higher education. Each session includes a facilitated conversation about the reading and healthy snacks.
If you would like to propose a book or are willing to serve as a facilitator, please contact ctl@augsburg.edu. Last year, Doug Green led dialogues about Andrew Delbanco’s College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be.
Community Reading Circles
CTL also supports a number of learning circles or book groups on topics of interest to faculty and staff. Support for book groups is available through work culture grant applications on the CTL website.
Last year’s reading group - open to faculty, staff, and students – explored the following book:
Seth Godin’s Linchpin: An Unsettling Call to Be Indispensable, led by Ashok Kapoor
CTL Night at the Theater
During both fall and spring semesters, CTL buys tickets to an Augsburg theater production and offers them to faculty, staff, and their significant others. Theater offers a unique way of learning or knowing – from stories that touch our hearts and mind. Experiencing it together adds a social dimension that allows us to discover what the stories mean to others and what new possibilities they see. Through theater we can be healed and transformed, as well as entertained. In addition to the performance, participants engage in an informal reception and discussion with the director and cast. All productions are in the Tjornhom-Nelson Theater.
This year, we have reserved seats for: TBD. Reservations are taken on a first-come, first-served basis. If you would like to attend either or both of these productions, please contact ctl@augsburg.edu).
In 2012-13, we enjoyed Debt, developed by Sarah Myers, and Cabaret, directed by Darcey Engen.
Hoversten Peace Seminar
The next biennial Hoversten Peace Seminar will be held in 2014. This is an opportunity for faculty, staff, and students to experience a Center for Global Education (CGE) program together, at a subsidized cost. In June 2012, a group of faculty, staff, and students visited El Salvador.
Well-Being and Wellness
Your personal well-being is important to your physical and mental health, and ability to contribute effectively to the Augsburg community. To support faculty and staff, CTL, in conjunction with Human Resources, the Center for Counseling and Health Promotion, and the Department of Health and Physical Education, offers the following programs.
Well-Being Series
The Well-Being Series features conversations about a book related to happiness and well-being. CTL supports learning circles based on a book or topics of interest to faculty and staff through work culture grant applications on the CTL website.
In 2012-13, participants engaged in conversations about Shawn Achor”s The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles That Fuel Success and Performance at Work led by Melodie Lane
If you would like to propose a book or volunteer to facilitate, please contact ctl@augsburg.edu.
Wellness Incentive Program (sponsored by HPE)
The Wellness Incentive Program offers prizes for exercising a minimum of 30 minutes per day (1 point per day). More information about the program is available on the Fitness website at http://www.augsburg.edu/wellness For more information or to volunteer to lead other activities, contact Carol Enke (enke@augsburg.edu), the program coordinator.
Related Campus Programs
Convocation Series – Many Voices, Bold Visions
The 12th annual Augsburg convocation series represents another opportunity to join members of the campus community to explore how we can make the world a better place. This year’s schedule includes:
The Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium – Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core Founder and President
Town Hall Meeting – “Creating for Common Ground: Interfaith Work in the Arts and Worship”
Monday, September 17, 7:30 p.m., Marshall Room, Christensen Center
Convocation – “The Holiness of Common Ground”
Tuesday, September 18, 11 a.m., Hoversten Chapel, Foss Center
Center for Counseling and Health Promotion Convocation – Dr. Henry Emmons, Psychiatrist and author
Friday, October 19, 10 a.m. and Saturday, October 20, Noon – “Science of Hope”
The Humanities and Fine Arts Convocation – Dan Phillips, Designer, builder, and founder of The Phoenix Commotion
Wednesday, November 7, 10 a.m. – “Recycled Housing: Adventures in Human Sensibilities”
The Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation
Monday, January 21, 11 a.m.
The Batalden Seminar in Applied Ethics – Susan E. Pick, Professor of Psychology, National University of Mexico
Wednesday, February 20, 10 a.m. – “I want to, I can: Development Programs Step-by-Step Using the Human Capabilities Approach”
The Anne Pederson Women’s Resource Center Koryne Horbal Lecture
March 27
The Sverdrup Visiting Scientist Lecture – David Weitz, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Harvard University
Monday, April 8, 7 p.m. – “Physics of Cooking”
Tuesday, April 9, 11 a.m. – “Dripping, Jetting, Drops, and Wetting: The Magic of Microfluidics”
For more information, go to www.augsburg.edu/convo
The Nobel Peace Prize Forum
March 7–9
Hosted by Augsburg College in partnership with the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs
The Nobel Peace Prize Forum is a unique civic learning experience. Each year, this dynamic, global event brings Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, civic leaders, and scholars together with students and other citizens. As the Norwegian Nobel Institute’s only such program or academic affiliation outside of Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum has a special mission: to inspire and engage students and citizens to become full participants in peacemaking efforts around the world.
The Forum pays homage to Norway’s international peace efforts and offers opportunities for Nobel Peace Prize laureates, diplomats, scholars, and the general public to share in dialogue on the dynamics of peacemaking and the underlying causes of conflict and war. The Forum also features the annual Nobel Peace Prize Festival, a day of programming for youth
The Nobel Peace Prize Forum is a significant international event. This year it will feature Tawakkol Karman, who received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work for the rights and safety of women and children in Yemen. She is the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date, at the age of 32.
Bold and outspoken, Karman has been imprisoned on a number of occasions for her pro-democracy, pro-human rights protests. Amongst Yemen’s Youth movement, she is known as “Mother of the Revolution”, “The Iron Woman”, and more recently “The Lady of the Arab Spring.”
For more information, go to http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/