Search Gustavus

The official hub for the Gustavus varsity women's track and field team. Discover information about the team, including the team’s roster, schedule, statistics, coaching staff, meet results, and news.

The official hub for the Gustavus varsity women's volleyball team. Discover information about the Gustavus volleyball team, including the team’s roster, schedule, statistics, coaching staff, game results, and news.

We offer support for women studying science, technology, engineering, and math. We work to help women succeed in school and prepare for careers, while creating a strong community of women in STEM fields.

Wren Heiman ’25 is a Junior theatre major with minors in religion and studio art from Northfield, Minnesota.

We offer students a chance to explore yoga, meditation, and mindfulness while building a supportive community focused on both physical and mental health. We welcome people of all experience levels and highlight the many benefits of practicing yoga.

Dr. Yumiko Oshima-Ryan began teaching at Gustavus in 2004. She enjoys teaching private piano lessons and establishing relationships with her students that focuses on trust and integrity. At her piano studio, students cultivate musical, technical, historical, and theoretical features of piano repertoire which they select to perform for their recital. Students focus on developing piano skills which are vital for artistic self-expression. Dr. Oshima-Ryan values mentoring students as they face their challenges, find new perspectives, and most of all, promote self-belief. All of these things ultimately provide deeper meaning and joy to their performance and creativity.

A native of Japan, Yumiko also teaches keyboard courses to students of all levels, including total beginners. Along with keyboard skills courses for music majors and minors, she offers courses on how to practice and prepare performances, as well as on wellness for musicians.

Dr. Oshima-Ryan believes musical performance is one of the most valuable opportunities students can have, and that it represents a core value in the music department of a liberal arts college. As an instructor, she also values sharing the experience of her own performances with students.

Her recordings, "Piano Works for the Left Hand - Takashi Yoshimatsu" and “From Afar,” are published by the Naxos Records label and available to stream on major digital platforms, including iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon. "Piano Works for the Left Hand" was selected as a special edition in the August 2022 issue of Record Geijutsu, a top music review magazine in Japan. Dr. Oshima-Ryan hopes this album inspires and encourages people rehabilitating after injury or fighting a major illness, such as cancer. The album includes pieces which were written for the composer’s respected friend, Izumi Tateno, who lost the use of his right hand after a cerebral hemorrhage. She wants the listeners to get past the idea of the left hand as the overlooked partner of the dominant right. She wants them to see, instead, that through courage, compassion, and creativity, the limitations of human frailty can be overcome.

Recently, Dr. Oshima-Ryan started collaborating with the Department of Theatre and Dance at Gustavus by creating original music for dance performances. Performances, recordings, and lectures are available online.

Yurie Hong is Professor of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies and affiliated faculty in the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies program. Her teaching and research explore how stories, myths, and social structures from ancient Greece can help us think more deeply about ourselves, our relationships, and the world we live in. She regularly teaches ancient Greek language at all levels, courses on ancient Greek myth, culture, and society, and courses connecting the ancient world to contemporary questions and experiences.

Hong’s research centers on women, gender, and representations of pregnancy and childbirth in ancient Greece—especially the ways ancient people understood reproduction, family relationships, and social roles. Her scholarship examines topics such as the maternal-fetal relationship in ancient medical texts, the use of pregnancy and birth as metaphors for creativity and critical thinking, and the experiences of citizen, immigrant, and enslaved mothers in classical Athens. She has also published and presented widely on inclusive pedagogy, teaching about sensitive subjects such as race and gender violence in antiquity, and the personal and political relevance of classical studies today.

More recently, her work has explored connections between ancient and modern experiences, including reflections on identity, family history, democracy, and civic life. For example, she has written about arranged marriage and the myth of Persephone through the lens of her Korean grandmother’s experience as well as about political structures and crises in both American and Athenian democracy.

Across her scholarship and teaching, Hong encourages students to ask difficult questions: How do narratives shape the ways people understand themselves and others? Which perspectives are included or excluded from the stories societies tell? What can ancient cultures reveal about contemporary communities and institutions? In her classes, students are encouraged to bring their own experiences and perspectives into conversation with the ancient world to cultivate intellectual curiosity, ethical reflection, personal growth, and a deeper sense of connection to their communities and the wider world.

Hong has received the Society for Classical Studies Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics at the College Level, the Gustavus Faculty Service Award for work on the Faculty Task Force to revise the academic program, and the Mankato YWCA Woman of Distinction Award for leadership and community engagement. 

Outside the classroom, Hong enjoys finding unexpected ways to connect popular culture and the ancient world. She is known for occasionally developing mini-obsessions with a film, television series, book, or Broadway musical—and then finding creative ways to bring those interests into her teaching.

Nearly 90 percent of Gustavus graduates are employed, in grad school, or volunteering within nine months; all will participate in an internship, research, a community project, or a study away. Our students come out ready to do good work in the world.