Staff Senate

Congratulations to Katie (Koch) Code, Director of Alumni & Constituent Relations and Nathan Lind, Academic Liaison for Computing for receiving the April Auggie Pride Award. Their hard work and positive attitudes as they go above and beyond their expected duties are an inspiration to the community. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them both with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Katie Code

Nomination: Auggie pride personified is Katie Code. You probably expect that from our Alumni Director, but what Katie brings to her role at Augsburg is an infectious spirit that rallies Alumni locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally.

At this moment she is planning President Pribbenow’s trip to Norway in June, where the King of Norway will host key Norwegian, Lutheran colleges. That is one of the biggest opportunities imaginable for Augsburg, but there are smaller events happening all of the time that Katie throws heart and soul into—from the Auggie Alumni travel program to Canterbury Downs to Alumni awards to the dozens of affinity programs hosted by our Alumni Relations department each year.

Katie doesn’t just execute programs and events, she makes the events and programs connect with alumni and tie them back to Augsburg. Her Auggie spirit is so strong it connects all 60,000 alumni back to the institution. She is Auggie Spirit. She is called to encapsulate the spirit of Auggies every day. She is Katie Koch and she is deserving of this honor.

Nathan Lind

Nomination: Nathan Lind does a tremendous amount of work which is often often behind the scenes. He has worked through the process of finding the better videoconferencing setups between Minneapolis and Rochester, championed Zoom software (like Skype, only much better) which allowed more flexibility for students out-of-state to remotely attend a class and in doing-so put Augsburg on the cutting edge with premier technology.

Nathan’s awareness of the IT budget has realized significant cost savings. Zoom software is one example where we are now paying less for MORE functionality. Most recently, he discovered we were paying $7,000 annually for a video streaming service which was underutilized and devised a solution to move the videos to Google Drive so the money can now be used somewhere else. His attention towards stewardship supports the mission.

Nathan is an environmental advocate and advocates for a cleaner healthier campus environment by sharing his ideas. He actively provides feedback and looks for ways to move us forward.

Auggie Pride Awards will resume next fall with the semester. To nominate an Augsburg staff for this monthly award, email the name of the staff person and reason for your nomination to staffsenate@augsburg.edu.

Congratulations to Dianne Detloff, Administrative Assistant for the Center for Wellness and Counseling and Janet Lestock, Assistant Director of Graduate Admissions for receiving the March Auggie Pride Award. Their hard work and positive attitudes as they go above and beyond their expected duties are an inspiration to the community. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them both with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Dianne Detloff

Nomination: I want to nominate Dianne Detloff for linking the needs of the larger community for blood donations to the Augsburg community. She has expertly and selflessly taken on this responsibility by bringing the Memorial Blood Center to the Augsburg Campus and working with campus partners – like the Taylor Mattice and the Student Athlete Advisory Council to recruit blood donors on campus. From the March 29th, 2017 Blood Drive 105% of the goal for units of blood was met and many lives will be saved. Dianne is so successful doing this work over many years that the Memorial Blood Center arranged a site visit for a new MBC partner from New York to come and see “a good representation of a College Blood Drive.” This is only one reason to honor Dianne Detloff with the Auggie Pride Award.

Coordinated with Memorial Blood Bank the on-campus blood drive = hit 105% of our goal for the spring blood drive yon March 28. In addition, Augsburg was a site visit for a new partner to MBC from New York as they wanted to see a “good representation of a college blood drive” in operation. Collaborated with the Student Athlete Advisory Council and partnered in tabling, working at the canteen at the drive and recruiting student athletes for this drive. Not only was this an important community event, she did it in a collaborative way, engaging and involving students.

Janet Lestock

Nomination: In graduate and adult undergraduate admissions, we try to hold an information session once a term that is off campus. Besides her normal duties, Janet Lestock arranged an “In the City” event for us at Surly Brewing.

Surly is a hard location to get and Janet made sure that she secured the location by getting up very early one morning when the signups for the venue opened. The event was held yesterday, March 6th, and was well executed. Janet was careful to guard our event budget as she negotiated with the Surly coordinator. The excitement for Surly, the deluxe room and the catering all combined for a successful event. I believe we had nearly 110 RSVP’s for this event which is one of our best responses. We can follow up with the list of attendees and even those that did not show to promote our degree programs. There was a lot of excitement in the room for Augsburg due to Janet’s efforts!

Congratulations to  Mike Bloomberg, Systems/Circulation Librarian and Natalie Dinki, Academic Affairs Coordinator for receiving the January Auggie Pride Award. Their hard work and positive attitudes as they took on new projects have made a huge impact. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them both with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Mike Bloomberg

Nomination: Mike almost single-handedly managed the Library’s migration from our old online catalog to our new one which was phased in beginning January 3, and “went public” in February. Our new system, WMS (WorldShare

Management System) is more than just a catalog of books that the library owns – it’s the discovery system by which our students and faculty search all of the library’s resources (books, databases, e-journals, videos, digital collections, microforms – you name it!). That means Mike had to work with all the library staff members to customize the system for their particular part of the library operation and make sure they were fully trained to do their work once the system went live. Any system migration of this size and complexity will undoubtedly encounter a few bumps in the road. Our case is no different: we have 21,000 records that will need to be reviewed one by one and corrected or deleted. Mike already has a plan worked out with Rebecca Ganzel, our cataloger extraordinaire, to review these records and correct them within a 6-month period.

Natalie Dinki

Nomination: Natalie is the academic affairs coordinator in the provost’s office. She is responsible for a number of intersecting operational elements focused on faculty, faculty compensation, CTL travel and grant reimbursements, and course assignments, the last of which she just took on in the last couple months.

I am nominating Natalie for this January in particular because, not only did she manage everything that she was already doing, but she also took on room assignments for courses for the first time. During the first week of the term, there are always last-minute requests for room accommodations, occasional conflicts, and changes that require sorting through a “house of cards” to try to find available rooms, especially during peak times. It’s complicated, time-consuming, and can try the patience of faculty and students, but Natalie assumed this huge responsibility with a calm, steady approach, and a positive attitude. Not once did she suggest that she couldn’t successfully handle the work, nor did she ever seem like she was flustered or confounded by any problem that arose. She just worked until the problems were resolved.

She quietly goes about her work, and gets it done. I’m grateful for her work all the time, but this spring she’s been especially critical, and deserves recognition beyond my personal thanks and gratitude.

To nominate an Augsburg staff for this monthly award, email the name of the staff person and reason for your nomination to staffsenate@augsburg.edu.

Congratulations to Cathy Knutson, Coordinator of Fine Arts and Music and Joe Mann, Web Manager for receiving the December Auggie Pride Award. Their hard work and positive attitudes through large projects that go beyond campus have made a huge impact. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them both with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Cathy Knutson

Nomination: Advent Vespers is arguably one of the most visible events in Augsburg’s year. Over 10,000 Alumni, Family, and Friends of the College gather at Central Lutheran Church to worship with our students, faculty and staff and at the center of it acting as air traffic controller is Cathy.  I watched Cathy arrange seating, give instructions to volunteers, mitigate issues, make sure people were being fed and did it all with grace and calmness. On top of

it all this year there were new ensemble directors, no dedicated vespers student assistant and new leadership at Central making this entire event even slightly more tricky, yet no one on the outside was the wiser. 

Joe Mann

Nomination: Joe has spearheaded two important projects for the College in recent months. First, Accessibility Training: Augsburg is deeply committed to providing an accessible environment for our students, faculty, staff, and guests…. Joe developed that training and delivered it in person at multiple well-received

sessions throughout the semester, furthering this important goal in line with the values of the institution. Second, A-mail Updates: Joe took on the effort to update the systems used to submit, publish, and read A-mail using more modern methods.

The two projects are above and beyond the normal day-to-day work of his role, and will both make a very substantial positive impact for the Augsburg community.   

To nominate an Augsburg staff for this monthly award, email the name of the staff person and reason for your nomination to staffsenate@augsburg.edu.

Nomination: Allison has not even been at Augsburg for one year, and has already made a huge mark. Allison worked tirelessly to create a sold-out, highest-ever attendance at the annual StepUP Gala on October 29, raising nearly

$500,000 for StepUP. She significantly increased the number of table sponsorships, attendees, and dollars raised and worked with Patrice Salmeri, Sarah Cash-Darvell, the StepUP Board, and many others to create an incredibly special event.

Kris Hogan

Nomination: Kris works in the business office as a Senior Accountant. However, since the end of July, Kris has done her own work as well as the accounts payable duties. Work that requires a depth of knowledge that had not been on her plate previously and not an easy position to just pick up, but Kris has done it with

patience and with the tremendous attention to detail that the work requires. And the work itself is not exactly as interesting as Kris’s usual job responsibilities, but she took on the role for the betterment of the business office team. I point out Kris because I think she’s taken on the toughest duty and the one that has the potential to rise to a high frustration level at any given moment. I admire the way Kris has handled the extra duties.

To nominate an Augsburg staff for this monthly award, email the name of the staff person and reason for your nomination to staffsenate@augsburg.edu.