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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.

Ying Diao is an ethnomusicologist and cultural anthropologist whose work centers on the intersection of sound, media, and religion, with a particular focus on music, minority, and transnational cultural production in the China–Southeast Asia borderlands. She is the author of Faith by Aurality in China’s Ethnic Borderland: Media, Mobility, and Christianity at the Margins (University of Rochester Press, 2023). She was the 2022–2023 SSRC Arts Research with Communities of Color Fellow, during which she explored artistic innovation and community engagement of Ragamala Dance Company, exploring how South Indian diaspora artists navigate the U.S. performing arts industry to make their culturally rooted art forms accessible to contemporary audiences while challenging stereotypes about tradition, creativity, and community. She holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, an MA in Theory of Literature & Arts from Fudan University, and a BA in Chinese Language & Literature from Tsinghua University.

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.

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.