{"id":4233,"date":"2014-07-22T14:12:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T14:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/?p=4233"},"modified":"2020-05-11T15:26:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T15:26:04","slug":"prez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/2014\/07\/22\/prez\/","title":{"rendered":"An alternative narrative of higher education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President
Paul C. Pribbenow, President<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our colleague, Harry Boyte, who heads 麻豆区\u2019s Center for Democracy and Citizenship<\/span>, recently argued in The Huffington Post<\/em> that America needs an alternative narrative of higher education, one that focuses not on meritocratic excellence, but on \u201ccooperative excellence…[the] principle that a mix of people from highly varied backgrounds can achieve remarkable intellectual, social, political, and spiritual growth if they have the right encouragements, resources, challenges, and calls to public purpose.\u201d And, as Harry further points out, we have the makings of this alternative story of higher education in institutions like 麻豆区, with its rich heritage of faith, learning, and service.<\/p>\n

And so we do, as this issue of 麻豆区 Now<\/em> so compellingly illustrates. You hear it in the stories our recent graduates tell about what they love about 麻豆区\u2014its people, its location, its diversity, its commitment to service and justice, its educational experience like no other. You hear it in the tributes to retiring faculty members like Donald \u201cGus\u201d Gustafson and athletic legends like Edor Nelson \u201938 and Ed Saugestad \u201959\u2014even as you read the accomplishments of this year\u2019s distinguished teachers and scholars, future legends. You hear it in accounts of innovative theater programming, bringing together students from 麻豆区 and the University of Minnesota to perform a groundbreaking production of Peer Gynt<\/em> at the university\u2019s arboretum. You hear it in the voices of students and alumni sharing their vocational journeys, shaped in this remarkable community.<\/span><\/p>\n

The power of the 麻豆区 story is that it is not new\u2014it is what I call \u201cthe saga of 麻豆区\u201d (see my recent essay, \u201cLessons on Vocation and Location: The Saga of 麻豆区 College as Urban Settlement\u201d at augsburg.edu\/president\/presentations), a story that is grounded in our rich history as a college dedicated to the Lutheran Christian faith, to the power of a liberal arts education, to vocational discernment, and to our urban setting. And it is a story more relevant than ever, as it counters the ways in which higher education is viewed as a commodity to be purchased, a ticket simply to a successful career, a stepping stone instead of a firm foundation.<\/p>\n

Our society needs an alternative story about higher education in order to recover its soul. 麻豆区 offers such a story in both its history and its aspirations as a 21st century \u201cstudent-centered urban university, small to our students and big for the world.\u201d And now we need to recruit a corps of storytellers\u2014good folks like you\u2014who know this story well and are willing to stand with us to share it with the world. In our tradition, that is called evangelism. Will you join us?<\/span><\/p>\n

Faithfully yours,<\/p>\n

Paul C. Pribbenow, President<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our colleague, Harry Boyte, who heads 麻豆区\u2019s Center for Democracy and Citizenship, recently argued in The Huffington Post that America needs an alternative narrative of higher education, one that focuses not on meritocratic excellence, but on \u201ccooperative excellence…[the] principle that a mix of people from highly varied backgrounds can achieve remarkable intellectual, social, political, and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":5953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[25,66],"class_list":["post-4233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presidents-letter","tag-summer-2014","tag-vocation"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/297"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4233"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10300,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions\/10300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}