15

How does this garden grow?Augustana has a love affair with living, growing things which becomes apparent to visitors the moment they pull into the main public parking lot. In an age when abundant parking is seen as more of a birthright than a benefi t, this place borders on heresy by sacrifi cing the absolute maxi-mum number of spaces to accommodate trees—not just at its edges, mind you, but at some dozen spots scattered across the lot itself. Once visitors secure a parking space—if indeed they do—they soon fi nd themselves being accosted at almost every turn by blossoms of some sort or another. To get into the Carver Center, for instance, you must fi rst make your way past an honor guard of fl ower boxes outside the main doors. And it’s not just entryways: when the new weight room was added on the southwest side of Carver, the project wasn’t deemed complete until its exterior had been ringed by chokeberries, boxwood and prairie-fi re crabapples. The older buildings have their planted appurtenances as well, from the stalwart hostas around Denkmann to the reticent lilies-of-the-valley just outside Founders Hall. And remember that these are just the cultivated species: in addition to the profusion of plot-ted plants, you’ll still happen upon such wildfl owers as ragwort, kitten-toes and Star of Bethlehem. Having a handsome campus is more than just a whim here, though. It’s a calculated strategy that has been an administrative priority for decades. As Conrad Bergendoff, who was presi-dent of Augustana from 1935 to 1962, believed a beautiful campus was more than luxury, noting, “This, too, is part of an education.” More recently, President Steven Bahls took time during his installation address to thank the grounds crew for making the campus shine. All of this begs the question: what goes into to making this place look so great? >

p

16 Augustana Magazine | Summer 2004

Perhaps the person on pPerhaps the person on pmost intimate terms with pmost intimate terms with pthe answer to that ques-p

the answer to that ques-p

tion is Mark Steiger,

ption is Mark Steiger,

pwho’s been part of the

pwho’s been part of the

pAugustana Grounds Crew for 23 years. Now in charge of a staff of eight, Steiger’s calendar is in lock-step with the march of seasons. Early spring means clean-up…pruning trees, shrubs and bushes, and clearing away all of winter’s dead-wood to make way for the annual eruption of spring.

The very fi rst inklings of green are like the heat-lightning that heralds a coming storm. In this instance, the tempest of activity is made up of mulching, edging and over-seeding—all accom-plished to the omnipresent drone of mowing.

Augustana owns a small herd of walk-behind mowers and sev-eral riding jobs, which not surprisingly bear the same name as the College’s planetarium: John Deere.

Mowing is fairly con-stant from April through July, then tapers off at the approach of autumn, which in its turn means leaf collection. Winter offers no breath-catching, given the miles of side-walks, paths and drive-ways which need to be

kept clear of snow and ice. But one of the major mile-markers in each year’s passage through the seasons comes at Commencement, when—more than most days—the campus is expected to shine.

Assisting Steiger in the build-up to that day is James Youngers, who recently joined the staff after completing studies in plant and soil sciences at Southern Illinois Uni-versity. In addition to coordinating major land-scaping projects, Youngers helps see to it that there’s almost always something in bloom somewhere on campus.

Many of the fl ower boxes which greeted par-ents at Commencement hosted marigolds and var-iegated blue pansies—as if they needed reminders of Augustana’s school colors. The traffi c islands along Seventh Avenue blossomed in waves, as springtime’s petunias made way for the summer bloom of purple cone-fl owers. It’s a pattern repeated elsewhere on campus, where tulips, lilac bushes and dogwood trees signal the start of spring, only to be replaced by the May-June snow of bridal-wreath, and all leading up to the valedic-tory of mums.

17 17

Mark Steiger

Jam

es Y

oung

ers

18 Augustana Magazine | Summer 2004

Refl ecting on successNot long ago, a small group of graduates—back for an Alumni Weekend—paused in the library during a tour of campus to hear a brief description of the new Center for Vocational Refl ection. Having heard about its mission of challenging students to deep-en their understandings of themselves, their faith commitments and their callings in life, one of the alumni remarked, “That is so like Augustana.” >

Christie Tibbetts and Kristen Glass

R

19

As one of the colleges and universities selected by the Lilly Endowment to receive a grant from its Theological Exploration of Vocation program, expectations have been high for Augustana’s $2 -million Called to Serve initiative. And although it’s only been a little more than a year since the Center opened its doors in the Thomas Tredway Library, it’s not too soon to check on its progress relative to the Lilly Endowment’s mandate of helping “young people…make life-defi ning decisions in light of their intel-lectual and faith convictions.”

At Augustana, this is done through a combination of initiatives touching on aca-demics, co-curricular programs, and church and community involvement. The Center’s formal programming began with a faculty workshop held last August on the theme “Our Calling.” It was an auspicious begin-ning: while organizers had hoped to attract as many as 70 faculty members to the work-shop, almost twice that number (virtually the entire faculty) actually took part.

In addition to workshops, faculty are also encouraged to infuse the idea of voca-tion into the curriculum with grants assist-ing the creation of new or modifi ed courses. These have included such new endeavors as the History Department’s “Service Learning in Indian Country” summer program, and augmentations like the Women’s and Gender Studies Program’s initiative to incorporate vocational refl ection activities into all of its existing and new courses.

Some of the Center’s work takes faculty members out of their own disciplines for a broader look at the nature of vocation. These “Center Fellows” include Dr. Mwenda Ntarangwi from the Sociology Department, who’s developing a service learning frame-work which faculty from all areas could use in bolstering their own curricula.

“This notion is already embedded in the mission of the College, which says that we are to prepare students for lives of leadership and service in a diverse and changing

world,” says Ntarangwi, who’s hoping to produce a handbook on service learning, and to recruit a core group of faculty mem-bers to become champions of service learn-ing. Prior to coming to Augustana, Ntarangwi helped lead programs in East Africa for St. Lawrence University which coupled service work by students with guid-ed refl ections—journals written by students —journals written by students —and reviewed by members of the community being served.

As part of his fellowship, Ntarangwi is creating an inventory of what’s going on within the campus community, including connections employees have with outside organizations that could be used to launch new campus efforts. A student assistant—Christie Tibbetts ’05—is helping with a similar inventory of student engagement in volunteerism.

It’s noteworthy that Tibbetts’ involve-ment came about as a result of frustration she felt at not being able to combine learn-ing and work. “I went on foreign term in Latin America, and issues that we’d learned about in classrooms became very real to us,” Tibbetts says. “Knowledge just sits dumb, and needs certain situations to retrieve it. I don’t simply want to learn facts for a test and then not apply them.” As a matter of fact, the work Tibbetts is doing now is very much in line with the research methods class she’ll need as a sociology major.

While she’s already turned up consider-able evidence of student volunteerism, Tibbetts says the work she’s done so far has served to underscore a critical distinction. “I’ve discovered that refl ection is the defi n-ing aspect between simple community ser-vice and actual service learning,” she says.

Refl ection is a major emphasis of the RRefl ection is a major emphasis of the RCenter’s workRCenter’s workR —and it begins to impact stu-dents even before they come to campus. Last Rdents even before they come to campus. Last Ryear’s entering class had already been given homework before showing up for Orienta-tion. All incoming students received a copy of What Should I Do With My Life? by best-What Should I Do With My Life? by best-What Should I Do With My Life?selling author Po Bronson, who later came to campus to present a Convocation lecture and meet informally with students.

All of the fall term Convocations provid-ed opportunities for refl ection on the nature of vocation. This included Steven Bahls speaking about the various calls he has heard on his path from practicing attorney to law professor to president of Augustana College, and culminated in a panel presen-tation by members of Augustana’s Alumni Board, in which participants shared their own takes on vocation.

Beyond Convocations and classrooms, Kristen Glass—program associate for the Center—has spent much of the past year

It’s not about “What am I going to do when I grow up?” but “Who am I going to be?” kristen glass

Dr. Mwenda Ntarangwi

20 Augustana Magazine | Summer 2004

building bridges with the many co- curricular offi ces on campus which provide students opportunities for service work, personal enrichment and career preparation. Partnerships include a workshop co-spon-sored by the Career Center called “Refl ecting on Your Career Goals”; a series of EXPLORE leadership development programs created in concert with the Offi ce of Student Activities and based on the book How to Find the Work You Love by Laurence G. Boldt; and special You Love by Laurence G. Boldt; and special You Lovetraining for the student Community Advisors

(C.A.s) in the Offi ce of Residential Life that included a workshop co-sponsored by Campus Ministries called “The Spiritual Nature of Being a C.A.”

Based on the many-faceted pursuits of the Center—only a portion of which have been mentioned above—it might be easy to say its work is all about helping students discover what they want to do for a living…while putting in a little volunteer work on the side. But such a short-hand description ignores the critical role of context in all that the Center does.

The writer/teacher/theologian Frederick Buechner described ‘calling’ as being the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. To that end, much of the Center’s work deals with making sure

all of the refl ecting that’s going on doesn’t take place in a vacuum. For example, Glass will soon be working with a new Community Service Student Executive Board to coordi-nate—and deepen—projects under-taken by student organizations. Such activities can help students learn the ways in which their particular skills align with the world’s needs. “When students respond to authentic com-munity need through volunteer work, they are exploring their own

vocation,” Glass says.Working with Campus Ministries, the

Center has coordinated three “Conversations About Faith” programs which helped build context by bringing members of the commu-nity into dialogue with students and faculty. Close to a thousand people have attended the conversations, which to date have included a panel discussion of Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, The DaVinci Code, screenings of The DaVinci Code, screenings of The DaVinci CodeMartin Doblmeier’s documentary on the

life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and a spring term discussion of Mel Gibson’s fi lm The Passion of the Christ.

Another way in which the Center adds depth to student refl ections is by injecting the voices of alumni into their deliberations. Participants in last February’s African-American Alumni Conference were asked about their own vocational journeys, and the resulting interviews were videotaped and are now archived at the Center, along with a growing body of alumni stories currently being collected.

According to Glass, building this larger framework is essential to the process of voca-tional refl ection. “It’s not about ‘What am I going to do when I grow up?’ but ‘Who am I going to be?’” she says. “The ‘what’ is going

to go away or change at various points in our lives, but the ‘who’ remains. And how we are shaped as persons is in part a response to the call we discern from the community—what does my community need from me?”

Making ‘community’ as rich as possible is yet another goal of the Center’s program-ming. One way it does so is to bring interest-ing people into the campus community, whether that means Convocation speakers or other special guests, such as John Bell, a lead-er within the Iona Community—a Glasgow, Scotland-based ecumenical church-renewal movement. But it can also mean sending students out into new communities on what it calls “Servant Leader” internships. Among the fi rst of these interns were Bryan Lager-stam and Jennie Wilson Van De Velde—both of whom were featured in last summer’s issue of Augustana magazine. Both used the experi-Augustana magazine. Both used the experi-Augustanaences they gained from internships at local church congregations during the spring of 2003 to propel them into their post-graduate lives: Lagerstam is now entering his second year at Wartburg Seminary; Van De Velde is currently coordinator of Youth and Family Ministries at Redeemer Lutheran in Betten-dorf (where part of her responsibilities include working with—you guessed it—interns from Augustana: Monica Hammack ’05 and Amy Walsh ’06 both interned there last spring).

Through all of its programs, the Center helps lead students and faculty alike to the recognition that by defi nition, vocation is not a solitary pursuit involving the seeker alone. As Herman Hesse wrote, “There are many types and kinds of vocations, but the core of the experience is always the same; the soul is awakened, transformed, or exalted so that instead of dreams and presentiments from within, a summons comes from without; a portion of reality presents itself and makes a claim.”

As Glass puts it, “Vocation does not need to be ‘found,’ it needs to be lived. By nature of being born, you have a vocation. You are called to live in the world and be a person in the world. Vocation is a call to refl ect on yourself, on your role in the world, and on the gifts given to you that you can return to the world.”

Refl ection is the defi ning aspect between simple community service and actual service learning. christie tibbetts ’05

Jennie Wilson Van De Velde

21

And no one said,

If you had it to do all over again (college, that is), what advice would you wish to impart from your present-day self to your college self? Last March,

three-dozen alumni had occasion to consider that very question during a career night hosted by the

Augustana Alumni Board. Participants included graduates spanning the previous fi ve decades—from

Dr. Earle McBride ’54, professor of geology at the University of Texas at Austin, to Rhonda Copeland

’99, supply management accountant at John Deere Harvester. ¶ Alumni met with students through one

of fi ve panels: humanities, business and computer science, fi ne arts and communications, education and

social sciences, and natural sciences. Although many of the participants were, like Copeland, from the

Quad Cities region, others such as McBride came considerable distances; the event was, in fact, a coast-

to-coast affair, thanks to Tonya Lensch ’97, associate editor of ’97, associate editor of ’97 Soap Opera Weekly magazine in New

York, and Marty Richards ’67, a social worker in Port Townsend, Washington. ’67, a social worker in Port Townsend, Washington. ’67 ¶ Chris Coulter ’94, who

chairs the Alumni Board’s career education committee, coordinated the event. He says planners prepared

a list of questions as a back-up in case any of the conversations lagged, but all of the panels semed to fi nd

plenty to talk about. “We wanted people to share life stories from before, during and since Augustana…

and especially to share the twists and turns along the way,” Coulter says. ¶ To give readers a sense of the

sorts of real-world experience that alumni were able to share with students, we visited three participants

in the places they accumulate that know-how. Here’s a sampling of what we found. >

Tony

a Le

nsch

’97

and

Hea

ther

Fug

iel ’

04

And no one said, ‘plastics’ …

22 Augustana Magazine | Summer 2004 23

Linda Newborn ’73 “Ensuring we do the right things the right way,” is how Deere & Company’s chief compliance offi cer describes her job. Today Linda Newborn is one of the highest-ranking Augustana graduates at the worldwide corporation, which does business in more than 160 countries around the globe. She joined Deere 32 years ago, working in accounting, then marketing, before beginning a 21 -year run in human resources. Making the move to chief compliance offi cer this past March represented a major change for Newborn.

“I went from knowing just about everything there was to know about my job to what’s been one of the greatest learning-curves I’ve had in my professional life,” says New-born. “But the time had come when I was beginning to feel too comfortable about where I was.”

As chief compliance offi cer, Newborn’s job is to ensure that her company—with its more than 40,000 employees—conducts its business legally, ethically, and with a strong sense of corporate social responsibility. “The legal aspect deals with making sure we are in compliance with all of the laws that govern everything we do, in every country in which we operate,” Newborn says. “The ethical dimension has to do with applying honesty and integrity to Deere & Company’s relationships with all of its stakeholders around the world.”

Kirk Marske ’93Although he came to Augustana, in part, to play basketball, Kirk Marske wound up discovering a new passion: radio. “I did make the JV team my freshman year, but after the season ended, I decided to invest my time in other interests, including WAUG [Augustana’s student station]. It was during my fi rst show on WAUG that I realized that maybe I could pursue a job in radio—because it was fun…and not because I had any talent,” he says. Marske has since proved he has plenty of fun and talent in radio. He’s the exec-and talent in radio. He’s the exec-andutive producer of one of the Quad Cities’ top-rated programs—the “Dwyer and Michaels Show” on KCCQ 106.5FM.

Whenever he speaks with students, Marske stresses the importance of internships, such as the one he served for a local radio station during the summer before his senior year. “My internship made everything possible for me, and I thank whatever professor it was that scared me into doing one by telling our class that if we didn’t do an internship, we probably wouldn’t get a job.” Marske also urges students to give themselves more than one career option—advice he’s taken himself by starting his own company, Marske Music Productions.

Although he hasn’t forgotten that the Augustana men’s basketball team made it to the NCAA Division III championship game in 1993 without him, he’s still glad he made the decision to pursue a career in radio. “There’ve been times I thought about pursuing a career in a bigger radio market, but the Quad Cities is home for me and as long as I can be successful here, I am content.”

22 23

Tracey Kuehl ’78 “I wanted to share with students that it’s OK to realize that maybe your fi rst job isn’t the one you’ll want to stay with forever,” says Tracey Kuehl, executive director of the Family Museum of Arts and Science, a Quad Cities organiza-tion dedicated to inspiring children—and their families—to pursue life-long learning. Being in a position to serve more than 100,000 people per year—most of them chil-dren—is a plum assignment for Kuehl, but it’s also a far cry from her fi rst job after Augustana, working at the City of Davenport’s sewage treatment facility.

“I’d majored in biology, and I thought I should have a job in my major. What that fi rst job taught me right out of the chute, though, was what I didn’t want to do. I real-ized I wanted more interaction with people…and there sure wasn’t much of that at the treatment plant,” Kuehl says. Her next step was to work part-time in a jewelry store while taking classes at the Quad Cities Graduate Studies Center. When an opening came up in marketing/advertising for the mall in which the store was located, she went for it, landed it, and began honing the administra-tive and communication skills that have keyed her success since joining the Family Museum in 1991.

“The liberal arts emphasis instills in you the desire and ability to look above and beyond your primary discipline,” Kuehl says. “That philosophy of discovery propelled me into many of the things I’ve done since graduation.”

The liberal arts emphasis instills in you the desire and ability to look above and beyond your primary discipline. TRACEY KUEHL