Congratulations to Jim Trelstad-Porter, Director, International Student & Scholar Services and Mike Matson, Assistant Director of Leadership Gifts for receiving the January Auggie Pride Award. Both consistently go above and beyond their expected duties and their impact is felt by our entire community. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award him with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Jim Trelstad-Porter

Nomination: Jim has always been caring and attentive to the international students. More than just a faculty member or a director, Jim was the big father that took charge in looking over us for all of our troubles. Jim always goes out of his way to help the students in need and we are grateful to have him. In this past semester as I have had the honor to work with him, I get to know that not only is Jim kind and nice to everyone but he is also a passionate and hard working person. For the international student community of Augsburg to be as big and great as today, a huge contribution is thanks to Jim.

Mike Matson

Nomination: Mike Matson ’06 has the “Heart and Soul” of an Auggie. New, to the Institutional Advancement department in the past year, Mike serves as a Leadership Gift Officer. As a newcomer to fund development work, Mike takes his passion for Augsburg University, and imparts it to potential donors. Prior to his full-time employment at Augsburg, Mike was Pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, noted for its community involvement (much like Augsburg). For several years, Mike has served as chaplain to Augsburg University athletic teams and student athletes. He is also a US Navy Reserve Chaplain. Mike recently served as preacher in Chapel. He is married to Helen Matson, and together they have 4 “future Auggies”, and one on the way.

Congratulations to the Ruby Murillo, Director of Latinx Student Services; Matthew Schornstein, Associate Director, IT Systems; and Sandy Tilton, Strommen Marketing and Programming Coordinator for receiving the December Auggie Pride Award. During times of change they have stepped up to help our students, faculty, and staff. Their willingness to go above and beyond their expected duties has been felt by the entire community. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Ruby Murillo

Nomination: Ruby joined Augsburg mid-spring semester 2017 and literally hit the ground running! The position had been vacant since October 2016 and Multicultural Student Services (Pan Afrikan, Pan Asian, American Indian and Latinx Student Services) were missing a person in that role with all the changes in politics and fear of our students. We were thrilled to have the position filled and as the months have passed, I have learned how fortunate we were at Augsburg to have Ruby join us as a staff member. She developed a relationships with students immediately, planning gatherings and outings with ALAS -Augsburg Latin American Students, having one-on ones with students, being present at as many things as she could to get to know the students and the community….she jumped right in with the three of us in planning, implementing, organizing campus events. We are lucky to have Ruby with us…to join our team but more importantly to have joined our community.

Matthew Schornstein

Nomination: This year saw the Hagfors project enter its final phases. Having a vacancy in IT in the classrooms position when construction started posed a problem with a new building coming online. Matt stepped in and took the lead on all building information technology and classroom needs, not just the wiring and wireless which is his usual responsibility, but the entire range of technology including TVs, projectors and classroom furniture. He studied the plans thoroughly and knows the plans as good as, and even better than, the architects. This work has involved many many meetings with architects and contractors. He has led this work in a collaborative fashion engaging both IT staff and faculty groups in the learning space needs. His efforts embody the ethic of the IT department to focus on the experience of the students and faculty first as well as a high standard for quality.

Sandy Tilton

Nomination: Sandy was temporarily assigned part-time to the Leadership Studies Department fall term to assist us while Jolee Lilja was on maternity leave. Sandy was able to step in very quickly with our day to day activities supporting graduate and undergraduate students in our department. She also played a very key role in planning and implementing several very important events. In September we hosted the MAL 30th anniversary event as part of Homecoming and in October, Augsburg hosted a national conference for an organization called Seeing Things Whole—an organization that is housed at Augsburg and is administered by the Center for Leadership Studies. Both events were on weekends and were very successful reflections on Augsburg to the broader community. Without Sandy’s help, and willingness to commit to activities outside the regular workweek, we would not have been able to make all this happen.
   Sandy was also able to assist us with our web site updating, the implementation of a grant to assist veterans, and in making updates & changes to our class schedule and student advising. Sandy was willing to be flexible with her time, creative in her thought process, and positive in her outlook. She really made a difference for us.

Congratulations to Jeff Grauer, Maintenance Operator, and the Center for Wellness and Counseling for receiving the November Auggie Pride Award. Their passion to help our students, faculty, and staff is felt by the entire community. Staff Senate admires the work they do everyday and are honored to award them both with this month’s Auggie Pride Award.

Jeff Grauer

Nomination: Jeff sets an example of compassion that drives the goals and initiatives Augsburg University strives to achieve. Jeff is the HVAC specialist at the university. He is the only person in that role and he takes it on with pride. Jeff has excelled over time to learn the different applications on campus. He goes above and beyond to ensure that the residents, faculty, and staff are comfortable in their settings. Jeff works well with his peers, taking the time to help others learn about the numerous amount of equipment that it takes to run the university efficiently. Whether its after hours, or its during breaks, Jeff is always making sure that everything is ok. Not only is Jeff an employee, he is a student as well. During his downtime, Jeff‘s nose is in the books, learning and growing. He is going for a major in communications, which is a huge part of working in a facilities department. I commend Jeff for his willingness to show up and commit 100% effort into his role here at the university. So when you see a guy with his head in the ceiling, or his legs partially showing underneath something, give him a shout. Thanks Jeff for all you do.  

The Center for Wellness and Counseling

Nomination: The Center for Wellness and Counseling goes above and beyond to provide support, advocacy, and wellness to the greater student body here at Augsburg. They are incredibly collaborative, consistently reaching out to various departments to find out how they can be helpful in others’ work, seeking out educational opportunities to better their knowledge and skills as practitioners, and support others’ programming despite having an incredibly heavy workload. They are dedicated to their students, and work to help students seek out balance and health within their personal, social, academic, and family lives.  

 

 

Congratulations to Caren Custer, MAE Coordinator and Matt Bakan-Fischer, Senior Admissions Counselor for receiving the September 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.

Caren Custer

Nomination: Caren Custer is an integral player on the Education Department team. She is always willing to lend a hand, and her extensive expertise, to any project. She is a true professional, who knows her work well. She stepped up to the plate to cover both Minneapolis AND Rochester MAE enrollment this summer, and provided new students with excellent service. Caren is a great mentor and co-worker, and I appreciate all she contributes to the education programs both in Minneapolis and in Rochester.

Matt Bakan-Fischer

Nomination: Matt has many strengths on display every day. I’m hoping we can recognize him for his ongoing efforts in graduate admissions. Not only does Matt have mastery of the grad programs he represents and their chief competitors, his cultures competency benefits his colleagues and prospective students. We lean on him for advice when working with applicants who originated from outside the U.S. or domestic students who earned degrees or credits outside the U.S.

Matt’s pursuing training so that he can provide cultural competency training for others as a credentialed facilitator/trainer. Given the diversity we find at Augsburg, Matt’s growing skill set becomes more relevant every term. Hats off to him to pursuing more training not available at Augsburg but that benefits Augsburg.

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 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

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

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.

James Shropshire, assistant director of Operation and Investigation, received the September Auggie Pride Award for his great work through adversity. The Auggie Pride Award is presented to Augsburg staff as a token of appreciation for their dedication and work that goes above and beyond what is expected.

Nomination: “We had the assistant director for Transportation and communication in DPS leave for another position, which meant James had to carry two jobs while we did the job search. In the exciting time of CSBR construction, we lost 180 parking spaces, re-designated lots, increased incentive packages and added parking lots across the freeway. James took on this second job, and not only hired and trained the 16-17 students working at dispatch, but took on parking. There were a number of very trying situations and a good number of our community who weren’t particularly gracious or kind. James responded with professionalism to all.”

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.