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Shift in expectationsIn the past, Augsburg’s tendency toward humilityhas kept our students from applyingfor national scholarships or to graduateschool. But that trend is changing, thanksin part to the work of one woman—DixieShafer.As director of Augsburg’s office of UndergraduateResearch and Graduate Opportunity(URGO), Shafer gives pep talks, takesher trademark green pen to students’ personalstatements, and shepherds themthrough the often daunting graduate schoolapplication process.For a small, private college, Augsburghas an impressive résumé of national fellowshipsand scholarships. In 2010 alone,four Augsburg students were awardedFulbright scholarships, bringing the totalto nine awardees in the last four years,and Augsburg was recently named to TheChronicle of Higher Education list of topFulbright-producing schools. Five studentsreceived Gilman scholarships for the2010-11 academic year, and in 2009 oneAugsburg student became the seventhAuggie to receive a Goldwater scholarship.And in 2008, lest we forget, Augsburgadded its first Rhodes Scholar to the list ofstudent achievements.Shafer’s work involves helping studentsconduct faculty-led research during thesummer and school year, advising on thegraduate and professional school applicationprocess, and helping students apply forfellowships and national competitions.In general, Shafer says she sees studentswho don’t believe they can be competitiveat a national level. “I rarely meet a studentwho thinks that,” she adds. “We have apretty humble group of students.”But she acknowledges the slow culturalDixie Shafer, URGO director, holds a “bouquet” given toher by Brian Krohn ’08. Krohn fashioned the flowersfrom drafts of his Rhodes application essays.shift in expectations. “We have more studentsapplying for national fellowships andmore receiving them, and that allows othersto know that they can do it.”Not just for elite schoolsKatie MacAulay ’08 was one of the humblestudents Shafer typically meets. In herjunior year, she was studying abroad inArgentina and read a story about twoAugsburg students who received Fulbrightfellowships.“I had assumed it was a fellowship ofthe elite schools, one in which a smalltown,Midwestern girl with a relatively averagerésumé would be of littlecompetition,” she says. But the article inspiredMacAulay, and she made an appointmentto meet with Shafer on the dayshe returned to Augsburg. “Dixie handedme the Fulbright information book andtold me to decide whether or not I was seriousabout applying. As she put it, ‘Onceyou start, there’s no turning back.’”MacAulay says her desire to apply wasmotivated out of curiosity to test her beliefsabout Fulbrights being only for studentsfrom “prestigious” schools and tochallenge personal feelings of inadequacy.“Dixie helped me realize that, althoughI maybe didn’t feel like I had the background,I certainly had the foreground.”Through the application process,MacAulay says, “I realized that your socioeconomicstatus and upbringing don’tplay as large of a role in defining who youare and what you become.” That insightinspired her to stop feeling inadequate incomparison to others and gave her the motivationto challenge her own boundaries.In November, MacAulay completed a10-month grant as a Fulbright EnglishTeaching Assistant (ETA) in Terengganu,Malaysia. She says it has been the bestexperience of her life and a gift that willcontinue to benefit her in the future.“I am of the opinion that you can neverhave too many options. Be realistic aboutyourself, but don’t doubt your own uniquenessand abilities,” MacAulay says. She encouragesother Augsburg students to applyfor national fellowships and programs and tochallenge their own ideas about being competitiveat a national level.Educating the whole personTina (Quick) Sandy ’08 is another studentwhose path was guided by Shafer’s counseland by the gentle insistence of a fewdetermined history professors. A first-generationstudent who says she almost didn’tcome to Augsburg, Sandy is in her thirdyear at William Mitchell College of Law inSt. Paul.At the end of her second year at26 Augsburg Now