Inside Gustavus March 10, 2011 | Volume 43, Number 24

 

President's Cabinet Summary

The President’s Cabinet met on Tuesday, March 8. The following items were discussed:

• Discussion was held concerning recognizing/observing religious holidays in a more concrete way. Broader conversations with other campus constituents regarding this issue will be held in the near future.
• A Career Center replacement position was approved (Internship Director).
• An Athletics replacement position was approved (football defensive coordinator).
• The following College holidays were approved.
  Good Friday — Friday, April 22, 2011
  Memorial Day — Monday, May 30, 2011
  Fourth of July  — Monday, July 4, 2011
  Thanksgiving Day — Thursday, November 24, 2011
  Day after Thanksgiving — Friday, November 25, 2011
  Christmas Day — Monday, December 26, 2011
  Floating Holiday — Tuesday, December 27, 2011
  Floating Holiday — Wednesday, December 28, 2011
  Floating Holiday — Thursday, December 29, 2011
  Floating Holiday — Friday, December 30, 2011
  New Year’s Day — Monday, January 2, 2012

 

News & Announcements

New VPs Announced... President Jack Ohle has announced the appointment of two individuals already familiar to many in the Gustavus community to fill leadership positions in the Gustavus administration. Mark Braun, Ph.D., currently senior vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., has been named provost and dean of the college, and JoNes Van Hecke, Ph.D., currently vice president for student development and dean of student life at Central College in Pella, Iowa, has been named vice president for student life and dean of students. Braun had previously served Gustavus for 17 years (1990-2007), first as a faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies and later as associate dean of the college. Van Hecke, a 1988 graduate of Gustavus, was with the Gustavus administrative staff from 1994 to 2003 as director of student activities and then assistant dean of students. Both will assume their new posts on June 15, 2011.

Sexual Misconduct Prevention Training... The insurer that covers sexual misconduct liability risks for Gustavus, Educational and Institutional Insurance Administrators, Inc. (EIIA), has seen a recent increase in preventable claims on the campuses it insures. This increase in preventable claims is rapidly escalating insurance premiums. Fortunately, EIIA has offered to stabilize deductibles and premiums for Gustavus if the College institutes sexual misconduct prevention training for all staff and faculty. Without this training, the Gustavus insurance deductible would double from $25,000 to $50,000 per claim and the College would be charged a 10 percent surcharge. Please join with other community members on March 28 or 29 at 9 a.m. or 2:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Heritage Room to learn how you can help prevent costly sexual misconduct claims on our campus.

Women's Self-Defense Classes Scheduled... Korean ho sin sul and other self-defense techniques for women will be demonstrated and taught in Alumni Hall on Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:20 p.m. Classes will be held on March 15 and 22, April 5 and 12, and May 3 and 10. Women are invited to attend some or all of the classes; no sign-up is necessary. The classes, which are sponsored by the Dean of Students Office and the Womyn’s Awareness Center, will be led by Karen Larson (anthropology, independent studies), a 3rd degree black belt, and student assistants. Come in comfortable clothes, ready to move.

Vacation Donations Being Accepted... Employees who would like to donate vacation hours for a Gustavus employee who will be on an approved FMLA leave and will run out of paid-time benefits should complete and sign a request for transfer of vacation hours available at the Office of Human Resources (x7304).

Gold Award... Gustavus has received a Gold Award in the direct mail category of the 26th annual Educational Advertising Awards. The award is for the Admission Office's "Count Series," a sequence of 17 postcards that describe everything from the College's rankings to traditions to what we mean when saying "Make Your Life Count." The Admission and Marketing offices along with the College's branding consultants, BD&E, developed the content and design of the postcards, and the Admission Office created a matching set of e-mails and a website, which you can view here. The Higher Educational Advertising Awards are the largest educational advertising awards competition in the country, receiving over 2,500 entries from more than 1,000 colleges and universities.

Guild of St. Lucia Seeks Nominations... The Guild of St. Lucia was established in 1958 to honor women who have achieved academic success, displayed leadership qualities, and provided service to the College and others. Fifteen juniors are elected in the spring of each year to be a part of the following year’s Guild. Please send names of nominations, with a brief explanation of your nomination, to Barb Larson Taylor at btaylor@gustavus.edu by March 25 (before spring break).

Peace Studies Awards Information Night... Please encourage students to apply for the annual Peace Studies Awards. An information night for students will be held on Monday, March 21, 5:30-6:15 p.m. Students will learn about applying for the awards and hear from past award recipients Kareen Getfield, Annabel Landaverde, and Joelle Paulson. A taco bar dinner will be served. Applications may also be obtained from Mimi Gerstbauer (political science, peace studies); they are due April 15.

Free Childcare on March 18... Need a night out with your special someone or some friends, or just some time to run some errands? Alpha Phi Omega, the College's service organization, is offering childcare to the Gustavus community! The service is being offered Friday, March 18, from 5:30 to 10 p.m. in the Dive for children ages 2-12. APO volunteers will have fun activities for the kids to do all night, including movies (Despicable Me, How to Train Your Dragon, Finding Nemo, and Kung Fu Panda), crafts, games, and air hockey. Snacks (popcorn and lemonade) will be provided. Send an e-mail to Kate Mathison (kmathiso@gustavus.edu) to indicate your interest and the number of children that you plan to drop off. (Please be sure that your child has had dinner, as that will not be provided.)

 

Campus Happenings

Chapel Schedule... All are invited to the worship services at 10 a.m. weekdays and 10:30 a.m. Sundays in Christ Chapel. The upcoming schedule is as follows.

• Friday, March 11 - Building Bridges
• Sunday, March 13 - Chaplain Rachel Larson; the Gustavus Choir, Timothy O'Brien, conductor
• Monday, March 14 - Healing Service
• Tuesday, March 15 - Florence Amamoto (English)
• Wednesday, March 16 - Lenten Liturgy
• Thursday, March 17 - Bob Neuman (admission)
• Friday, March 18 - Inter-religious Observance: John Cha (religion)

Rezmerski to Read from New Book... Poet John Rezmerski (English, emeritus) will return to campus for a poetry reading tonight (Thursday, March 10). He will be reading from his new book of poetry, Breaking the Rules, at 7 p.m. in the Melva Lind Interpretive Center. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Phil Bryant (English) at prez@gustavus.edu or 507-933-7393.

First of Three Colloquia on Community to Be Held on March 11... The first of three interrelated colloquia on Community: Concept & Reality" is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday, March 11). The lead-off session, titled “What’s ‘the global community,’ and who belongs to it?" will be held in the Board Room of the Jackson Campus Center, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Panelists Kristian Braekkan (E/M), Mimi Gerstbauer (political science and peace studies), and David Obermiller (history) will each make a brief presentation, to be followed by small-group discussion of issues raised and a plenary for further questions, responses, and further discussion. Colloquia focusing on “What’s ‘the scientific community,’ and who belongs to it?” and “What’s ‘the campus (or the Gustavus) community,’ and who belongs to it?”—each featuring three panelists from the faculty—will be held in April and May, respectively. This program is sponsored by the Department of Religion. For more information, contact Mary Solberg at x7470 or msolberg@gustavus.edu.

Gustavus Faculty Jazz Welcomes Guest Pianist... The Gustavus Faculty Jazz and the Department of Music welcome jazz pianist Jim Whitman for a special evening of jazz on Friday, March 11, in Jussi Björling Recital Hall. The quintet performance begins at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Friday's performance includes an combination of jazz standards and contemporary compositions. On the program are such well-known works as "Days of Wine and Roses," "All the Things You Are," "Girl from Ipanema, and "Take the A Train" and newer works such as "I Can't Get Started" and "Night and Day." Guest pianist Jim Whitman has been performing in Minnesota since the early '80s. Before coming to Minnesota, he played clubs along the Sunset Strip in Hollywood and performed for several years at the Sands in Las Vegas, where he backed up, on occasion, Nat Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bobby Darrin. The Gustavus Faculty Jazz comprises music faculty members Steve Wright (trumpet & flugelhorn), James McGuire (guitar), and Rick Orpen (bass) and senior student Andrew Evans (drums).

Faculty Saxophone Recital... John Engebretson (music, adjunct) will present a faculty saxophone recital on Saturday, March 12, in Jussi Björling Recital Hall, beginning at 3:30 p.m. On the program are works by Ravel, Lauba, Yoshimatsu, and Muczynski, as well as Bach's Suite No. 1 for 'cello, transcribed for saxophone by one of Engebretson's former teachers, Jean-Marie Londeix. He will be accompanied by pianist Beth Winterfeldt. The performance is free and open to the public.

Gustavus Orchestras in Concert Sunday... Both of the College's large string ensembles will appear on the Christ Chapel stage on Sunday, March 13, in a concert beginning at 1:30 p.m. The concert includes performances by the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra, under Conductor Ruth Lin, and the Gustavus Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Justin Knoepfel. The concert is free and open to the public. The performance opens with two works performed by the Philharmonic Orchestra, Felix Mendelssohn's Sinfonia II in D Major and Krzysztof Penderecki's Three Pieces in Baroque Style. Following intermission, the Gustavus Symphony comes to the stage to perform two works by Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky, the Romeo and Juliet Overture and the 1st and 3rd movements of his Symphony no. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, known as the "Little Russian."

'Building Bridges' Focuses on Slavery and Human Trafficking... Students at Gustavus will host their 16th annual Building Bridges Conference on Saturday, March 12. This year’s conference, titled “I’m Not For Sale: Slavery Past and Present,” provides an opportunity for attendees to engage in dialogue about the effects of the slave trade from a historical perspective as well as a modern-day one. Featured speakers are Joy DeGruy, Ph.D., author and assistant professor of social work at Portland State University, and Joy Friedman, a sex trafficking survivor who is women’s program manager for Minnesota-based Breaking Free, an organization whose mission is to educate and provide services to women and girls who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Workshop sessions and an action piece highlight the afternoon. The conference is open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets are $10 per person, but are complimentary for college and high school students with a valid student I.D. as well as for Gustavus employees. For more information and to register for the conference, visit the conference website at gustavus.edu/diversity/buildingbridges or contact the Gustavus Diversity Center at 507-933-7449.

Interactive Exhibition Chronicles 50 Years of Human Rights Struggles in Colombia... From March 14 to March 26, the College is hosting “Remember Me: Voices of the Silenced,” a traveling gallery of powerful interactive artwork from Colombia that testifies to the struggles of the victims of violence during the last 50 years in Colombia. The exhibition will be mounted in Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library (main floor, far side, to the right of the computer lab). On the opening night of the exhibition—March 14—there will be a lecture and reception. At 7 p.m. Nils Dybvig and Michele Braley will speak in Alumni Hall about their work with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia accompanying human rights workers. This will be followed by a reception and then the opening of the gallery at the library (at around 7:45 p.m.—following the lecture). The gallery, which is touring the country under the auspices of Lutheran World Relief, is sponsored at Gustavus by Peace Studies; the Office of the Chaplains; Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library; LALACS; Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; and Crossroads. Learn more about the gallery at http://remember.lwr.org/index.asp.

Ellis to Appear in Concert... Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Ellis will perform in the Dive at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16. A native of Texas, Ellis moved to Minneapolis at the age of 16, where she quickly built a local following that blossomed into a nationwide presence, with extensive touring and seven albums released in the last 16 years. In addition to selling more than 35,000 copies of her CDs independently, Ellis has accrued a wealth of accomplishments including national songwriting honors and performances at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Sisters Folk Festival, and the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival. Read more at www.ellis-music.com/bio/.

Guest Lecturer to Discuss Soviet Influence on Cuban Popular Culture... On Wednesday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in Confer Hall, Room 128, Professor Damaris Puñales-Alpízar, Ph.D., of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, will lecture on "Cuba: The Soviet Flavor of a Tropical Island" from the perspective of a visit 20 years later. Her talk, which is open to the public without charge, will center on Soviet influence on Cuban popular culture in the 1990s, particularly on the film industry. Her visit is sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and the Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies program.

Next Faculty Shop Talk Scheduled for March 18... Helena Karlsson (Scandinavian studies) will present the next Faculty Shop Talk of the 2010-11 academic year. Her talk, titled “Bertrand Besigye’s Poetry: An Aesthetics of Blackness in a White Society?” will be presented on Friday, March 18, at 4:30 p.m. in the Lind Interpretive Center. Feel free to arrive any time after 4:15 p.m. The abstract for this and future talks may be viewed at gustavus.edu/events/shoptalks/.

 

Congregational Outreach

Partners in Education... Partners in Education presenters for this week include Darrel Jodock (religion) and Jim Dontje (Johnson Center). Jodock will be speaking at Elim Lutheran Church in Robbinsdale, Minn., at 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 13. Dontje will be speaking to Minnesota River Conference Clergy of the SE Minnesota Synod at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 15, while the group is meeting on campus. He will be speaking on the topics of creation care, rogation, and stewardship of national resources, and he will be promoting a congregation "green team" for pastors. Partners in Education is a program coordinated by the Office of Church Relations in which participating faculty and staff members prepare topical presentations for adult forums, workshops, and seminars in congregations of the ELCA.

Preaching in Congregations... SW Minnesota Synod Bishop Jon Anderson will be preaching at Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Peter (511 S. 5th St.) on Sunday, March 13. He will give the sermon at the 8 and 10:45 a.m. services and lead the adult education forum at 9:30 a.m. discussing the restructuring of the ELCA.

Events... The topic of the winter series of Exploring Religious Questions is "God's Purpose and Our Role in the World." Darrell Jodock (religion) is leading the class, which meets every Monday night for four weeks, from 7 to 9 p.m. Remaining dates for the class are March 14, 21, and 28 (the last date a make-up for a weather-related postponement). The class meets in Olin Hall, Room 103. Exploring Religious Questions is a program sponsored by the Office of Church Relations that allows people from campus and the local community to learn about topics that are relevant to today's world. Those interested in attending the remaining sessions are asked to register through the Office of Church Relations (x7001).

Retreats... .This weekend there is a women's group coming to campus from All Saints Lutheran Church in Minnetonka, Minn. Also, there will be a day retreat on March 15 that involves the Minnesota River Conference clergy (see Partners entry, above).

Confirmation Retreats... This weekend there are two confirmation groups coming. They are from Trinity Lutheran Church, Sleepy Eye, Minn., and from Nokomis Heights Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The confirmation retreats program is coordinated by Church Relations.

Music in Worship... Any Gustavus music ensemble or soloist is welcome to perform in congregations. For more information, contact Marilyn Beyer (x7001).

Location Reminder... To pick up your keys for the retreat center or guest house, please come to the new Center for Servant Leadership, located in the Student Union where Linner Lounge used to be.

 

Plugs

Ski Certificate for Sale... Radio Auction certificate for Mt. Kato Ski Area, Adult Lift and Ski Rental, valid anytime holidays and weekends. Value $59; asking $40. Call Janine (x7548) if interested.

"Plugs" is maintained as a forum by which members of the Gustavus community may offer goods and/or services to others in the community, or seek the same from them. It is not meant to accommodate ads or announcements from area businesses such as real estate agents or retailers, although from time to time such announcements may be published when deemed to be of particular interest to the community.



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Inside Gustavus is a newsletter for Gustavus Adolphus College employees produced by the Office of Marketing and Communication. It is published weekly during the academic year (except during the week of Thanksgiving, the Christmas break, Touring Week, and the Spring and Easter breaks). Anyone may submit items by filling out an online submission form. While online submissions are preferred, items may also be submitted typewritten on a letter-sized sheet of paper. Send "snail mail" items to: Inside Gustavus, Office of Marketing and Communication. Items must reach the office no later than 4:30 p.m. on the Tuesday before publication. The week of Nobel Conference the deadline is 4:30 p.m. Monday. For more information, contact Steve Waldhauser (waldo@gustavus.edu or x6413).

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