Download the Fall 2004 PDF - Augsburg College

Meet Joan GriffinPROFESSOR OF ENGLISHDIRECTOR OF GENERAL EDUCATIONJoan Griffin has lived and breathed themission and values of Augsburg College.She is the co-author of the College’s visiondocument, Augsburg 2004: Extendingthe Vision, that was approved in 1999,and has also co-authored its update andrevision, presented to the Board of Regentsfor approval in January 2005. AugsburgNow posed the following question to her:What are the most important corevalues from the College’s mission andvision that are now imprinted in thenew Augsburg Core Curriculum?One, of course, is vocation … the ideathat each student brings a unique set oftalents and abilities and potential. Weneed to cultivate all of these abilities,not just the academic ones, but all thetalents that students bring with them.Certainly, also important iscitizenship, or “the city.” We tried toexpand the notion of city, so that it’s notjust an urban studies requirement, but itreally has to do with providing aneducation for citizenship. The Collegehas always done that; it’s part of why theCollege is a college rather than aseminary—early leaders were concernedwith how to prepareNorwegian immigrants tobecome citizens.Right away we wantstudents to know they they’vecome to a terrific place andthat they can learn here, both inside andoutside the classroom. We introduce thistheme in Engaging Minneapolis andrepeat it in the Augsburg Experience,where once again we ask them to gobeyond the classroom and actually putinto practice what they’ve learned in theclassroom.For the first time we have overallgoals in our curriculum—we wantstudents to become effective, informed,and ethical citizens. The emphasis onethics comes from our Lutheran heritage,but we want it to pervade the entirecurriculum. Effective citizens need theskills of knowing how to write, to read,to think critically. Those skills should beaddressed intentionally throughout thecurriculum, but general education can beparticularly accountable.We know too that effective citizenswill need to function in a diverse society.Although we explicitly introduce thetheme of diversity through the ManyVoices Project in the first year, the newAugsburg Core calls for an infusionmodel of diversity whereby we’ll ask theentire curriculum—especially majors—to think about the skills and knowledgethat their students will need to beresponsible citizens of an increasinglyglobal society.The Signature Curriculum doesreally hit these distinctive parts of anAugsburg education. The two Search forMeaning courses address vocationthrough the lens of our Lutheranheritage. The city, of course, we addresswithin our metropolitan setting throughthe Engaging Minneapolis requirement.There is also the notion of caritas,the demand for God’s love to be enactedin the world. An Augsburg education isan education for action. We see thisthroughout the curriculum—inAugsburg Seminar, in EngagingMinneapolis, and in the AugsburgExperience.Contact informationOffice of Undergraduate Admissions612-330-1001 or 1-800-788-5678admissions@augsburg.eduwww.augsburg.edu/dayWeekend College Admissions612-330-1101wecinfo@augsburg.eduwww.augsburg.edu/weekendFor information aboutAugsburg’s Core Curriculum:Barbara Edwards FarleyAssociate Dean for Faculty Affairs612-330-1024farley@augsburg.edu2211 Riverside Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55454 www.augsburg.edu26 Fall 2004