Piecing together a life

Fargo, N.D. -- An elephant picture hangs on the wall, the mother's trunk curled around her baby. A Bible verse is printed across the bottom in a smooth script. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you. Isaiah 66:13. The brown leather sofa and chair sit empty around the opposing walls, an electric keyboard stands waiting to be played on the fourth side of the room and a television hides in the corner, next to the artificial Christmas tree hidden behind the keyboard. The room is maybe ten by fifteen feet, if we're being generous. The family is gone.

“When we do things as a family,” Judith Young said, “we like to go out.”

She sits in the West Acres mall by Lighthouse Coffee. Curly, brown hair hits her just below the shoulder as some gray shows near crest of her forehead. Her oldest daughter, Adele, 22, sits next to her, each holding their steaming drinks in blue styrofoam cups. Her son, Evan, 17, sits across from them, mostly silent but gently offering responses to their direct questions. He draws in a sketchbook—working on a warrior at first until his sister says “draw me some broccoli,” and he works on the three-inch-by-three-inch sketch for 45 minutes.

This single mother of three has lived in public housing for nearly eight years, and it has allowed her to care for her children's special needs without sending them into foster care. She has used the system so her kids can escape it, she said.

Amber, Judith and Evan after a production
of "Les Miserables" at West Fargo High School.

Her two youngest kids, Amber, 14, and Evan, are still in high school, and Adele is preparing to graduate from Concordia College on May 6. Adele will become the first person in her family to obtain a four-year degree, and she will be the first child to follow mom's rule that all of her children must attend college immediately after high school and obtain degrees in four years. She made that rule because of her own struggles with career and finances.

“If you have a college degree, that's something that can never be taken away from you,” she said. “Not getting that degree, especially when [my] kids are so intelligent, and with our limited means, not having it in your tool box is just not OK.”

After high school graduation, Judith's dad died, and she moved to Grand Forks to be with family. She struggled in college because of his death and ended up dropping out. She completed a two-year degree and had her first child all within a few years of leaving high school. And yet, she dreamed she would find a husband to raise her daughter.

“I thought I would be able to do 'middle-class' for Adele,” she said. “I really thought that would happen.”

Adele would never need to know the difference, Judith thought. When Adele was one year old, Judith met Jeff. They were married four years later.

Adele had always been a unique and irritable child, but as she was the oldest, Judith had no point of reference. She assumed Adele's actions were normal. Adele wouldn't learn until her senior year of college that she was allergic to nearly all meat proteins, but she knew at an early age that meat made her feel sick. One daycare provider required the children to eat all of their food, so Adele pocketed it in her cheeks. At the end of the day, Judith would bring her home to find meat in her mouth from lunch.

A few years after Evan and Amber were born, and the divorce finalized, Judith got her dream job at the as a surgical assistant and returned to Fargo. But what seemed to be a dream job turned out not to have hours conducive for a woman to care for three kids. Judith's mother had just died two weeks prior to their move, in the same hospital where Judith would be working, and transplanting kids, ages 3, 5 and 10, was a complicated issue.

“I was as much of a mess as an eighth grader could be,” Adele said.

Combined with puberty and anxiety issues, Adele's lack of comfort in social settings manifested itself in “not so sociable ways,” she said. Her school in Grand Forks valued individualized education, she said, but Fargo was different. It wasn't as much of a priority, she said, and anxiety about doing the new type of homework resulted in it not getting done.

One day, a math teacher who habitually ignored Adele's individualized education program made fun of her in front of the class for not completing her homework. That's when Adele threw a desk at the teacher.

“[Adele's] favorite game in school was 'how much can I piss these people off so they tell me to leave?'” Judith said.

“It was a good strategy,” Adele said, shrugging her shoulders.

When Adele received medication, she slept for three days, Judith said. She woke up a whole new person. She no longer crouched or hunched over into herself. Her voice was different.

“There's no other way to say it,” Judith said, “but it's like in the Bible when a demon is cast out.”

Judith and Adele

As Adele began to recover, however, Judith began to see some of Adele's mysterious behaviors in Evan, and Amber's physical health continued to be poor. Amber had had the stomach flu and chicken pox within her first few months of life, and she always had any sickness for three times as long as the rest of the family, Judith said.

These growing health problems plus the nearly $30,000 Judith spent every year on child care eventually required her to pull Evan and homeschool him for the year he would have had Adele's non-IEP-believing math teacher. Not to mention Judith's awareness of the risks for unwatched teenagers in their neighborhood.

The people who live in their public housing community are genuinely nice, hard-working people, Judith said. Rent is proportional to income, but getting a raise at work is still worthwhile since rent only increases by a fraction of that raise, she said. Parents work, but pre-teens and teenagers often go unsupervised. They can't be in child care, and they get bored. That's why she gets her kids away from home: not because the once-innocent faces have turned dangerous, but because kids without a guiding hand more easily find trouble. They drop out of high school. They lead difficult lives by all standards. So Judith has used the system for her kids to be free of it.

“My real job is being a parent,” she said. “I've done what it takes to get through.”

She credits her children's success to scholarships to Trollwood Performing Arts School, financial and emotional support at church, social services in schools and through the government and Concordia's support of Adele. Public housing helped them pay rent. Food stamps helped buy food. Trollwood gave Adele an outlet. Every step of the way, they've needed everything they've had. These three kids would not be graduating from college or consistently lettering in academics. Judith believes they would not even be alive.

“We have pieced together a life,” she said, “and we're piecing together a future as a family.”

Judith now works at Bank of the West, where she has worked since May 2011. If she can move into a full-time position, she plans to utilize the education benefits to return to school and finish a four-year degree like she requires all of her kids to do. After years of counseling and rebuilding their family, they are finally in a better place. Judith is finally able to pay her bills.

Adele's recent allergy testing revealed she is allergic or sensitive to wheat, eggs, corn, dairy and most meat proteins as well most environmental allergens, such as trees and mosses. She also has a high-functioning case of Autism Spectrum Disorder, but on May 6, 2012, she will receive the same bachelor's degree as any other English writing major at Concordia, and her family will be there to see her walk.

Judith pulls out her EBT food stamp card. The outline of North Dakota sits in the upper left corner, filled with pink wild prairie roses, the state flower. Using the card was the biggest source of embarrassment while she needed the aid, she said. But now, she keeps it in her purse as a reminder of the social services that saved her family.

“The whole world can end, and we'll figure it out,” Adele said. “I'm seriously not afraid of a zombie apocalypse.”

Kicking Ass: A Reason to Skate

Fargo, N.D. -- The Fargo Civic Center was only half full, and the entertainment was going in circles. Skaters with matching jerseys wore patterned tights and shorts or leggings and a belt, anything to make their look their own. The Fargo Moorhead Derby Girls skated on the cement floor, warming up as the fans purchased glazed almonds, nachos and beer and settled into the red stadium seating. It was a family-friendly event, and a member of the Battlescar Gallactica team tossed silver Mardi Gras beads into the stands. An older man wearing a “Call me Big Papa” Smurf shirt waited to show his granddaughter a bout, the derby name for a match that comes from boxing terminology. A middle-aged man sat a few rows back with a beer, watching the scene. Some kids caught the beads and put them around their necks—Battlescar fans.

The FMDG skates to raise money for local non-profit organizations, but it currently needs the community’s support to make its practice space safe. They have donated funds to the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center of Fargo Moorhead, The Giving Tree, Lake Agassiz Habitat for Humanity and Moorhead State University—Moorhead’s “Fight the Frost: Go Pink” awareness drive to support the Roger Maris Cancer Center in Faro, according to FMDG president Donna Donley, skater Bruz-her.

If possible, the Derby Girls also participate in a service activity related to the bout’s designated charity, such as building a shed with Habitat for Humanity and filling backpacks for a school drive, she said. Within the league, however, roller derby has transformed lives as well. Riah Roe, skater Buffy Bastinada, knows women who were hooked on drugs or in abusive relationships when they started roller derby, but FMDG has provided them with a supportive community and changed their lives.

“There’s a lot of solidarity in an all-girls league,” she said.

The use of derby names is an important part of the individuality in the culture, and no two Derby Girls in the nation have the same name. Girls check their names against a national registry to ensure there are no duplicates, and the names are often edgy puns, such as Bruz-her, Bolt Action and Buffy Bastinada.

“It’s kind of like an alter identity,” Roe said. “I get to take on what I like about her, and it becomes me.”

Mary Beth Shaffer, skater Rollz4Damage, began derby without knowing how to skate, but she was hooked. The Fresh Meat program teaches potential recruits everything they needed to know about skating and falling, and Shaffer was addicted to the empowering culture.

“It’s finally nice to have a female sport that portrays women as strong and sexy,” she said.

Roller derby is a unique, rugby-esque sport, according to Jen Hurd, a Concordia senior who experience derby for the first time this season. She heard about FMDG through her sociology professor, Natalie Peluso, who skates.

“It sounded so cool with being so aggressive, pushing people around while on quad skates,” she said. “Seeing your prof outside of class is one thing, but this is just so different.”

The Haute Dishes jammer (pink, far right) tries to
pass "the pack" and become eligible to gain points.

In roller derby, one designated skater from each team of five tries to be the first to break through the pack, the remaining four of both teams’ skaters. The first skater to do so becomes the lead jammer and can stop the jam, the 2-minute round, at any point. Both jammers score points by passing members of the opposite team, so the lead jammer will often continue the jam if she is far enough in front of the other team’s jammer to gain points without the other jammer immediately gaining points as well. She will usually call off the jam if they are close together and the brouhaha necessary to get through the pack wouldn’t create a gap in the two teams’ scores.

Hurd sat in the “suicide seats,” those located on the floor of the Civic Center. To sit in chairs on the floor instead of in the higher permanent seating, Hurd simply signed a waiver and arrived ten minutes early. She went to the bout with a Concordia friend also curious about the off-campus event.

“It’s a fun way to get out of the Concordia bubble,” she said, “and if you’re 21, you can drink.”

Although Hurd had no experience with derby, the bout was easy to understand. Before each event begins, the announcers read the rules and end with the most important one:

“Don’t spill your beer!”

After the rules are read, the teams skate out from under the stands, like football players running into a stadium of cheering fans. They circle the track as each derby girl is introduced.

FMDG operates as a non-profit though it is still in the process of transitioning to a non-profit in the eyes of the federal government, according Donley. Because the skaters pay to be in FMDG, any shortage is paid by the Girls, she said. In fact, FMDG has been so busy helping women that the organization hasn’t been helping itself. The current financial need is too great.

“We could get $10,000 for the warehouse and not even spend it on the rent,” she said. “There’s so much to be done.”

The smaller costs are consistent, such as tape to keep the rope in place, rope that outlines the track and other supplies for the warehouse. But, the padding that currently keeps skaters from hitting metal posts if they fly off the track is old mattresses that need to be replaced, preferably with actual padding. Also, FMDG is hoping to add a new key card system to the warehouse is more secure and accessible, Donley said. The padding costs about $3,000, but FMDG hopes to also install the security system, which would be a great way to practice more, Donley said.

Flat track derby began in 2001 and currently accounts for over 98 percent of current derby leagues due to the financial appeal of tape and rope to construct the track over the costlier construction of a banked track, according to the Derby News Network. Flat-track derby can be just as physical as banked tracks, but it occurs at a slightly slower pace.

Those interested in sponsoring a skater or donating to the Skate-a-Thon on Saturday, February 25 can find more information at the FMDG website, http://fmderbygirls.com, or their Facebook group, www.facebook.com/fmderbygirls.

The point of the FM Derby Girls is to empower women, regardless of whether or not the women are on the teams or recipients of the money raised at bouts. As Alex Vruno, skater Nutmeg, said:

“[It] gives us a reason to be here—other than kicking ass.” 

Changing times, changing trends bring people together

Fargo, N.D. -- The store smells like used clothes and dust, an appropriate combination for a store selling used clothes and dusty items, but it's a smell that's only there once you notice it, like a hidden face in a picture that you don't see. Until you do. 

It is 7 o'clock on a weeknight, and the Fargo Savers has three customers. One woman looks at blouses, maybe searching for a work shirt or just something nice to wear. Another woman is farther back in the store, almost to the dresses but still in jeans, and the third is wandering up and down the rows of shoes.

The economic downturn hurt the thrift store like any other store, assistant manager Don Cornell says, but it has also encouraged a shift in the predominant clientele.

“We get all types of people: doctors, lawyers, teachers... it used to be all blue-collar workers like road construction,” he says.

We're close to the West Acres mall, and that's bad for business. But more white-collar workers are buying professional clothes at Savers, Cornell says, and the proximity to the mall has to help too.

The regular customers still shop as they always have. The wool ladies from Detroit Lakes and Park Rapids buy all of the wool in the store to make mittens and blankets, says Doug Klettke, a red-shirted, red-vested employee who volunteered at Savers for eight years before being hired in 2008. Some customers come weekly or daily at a specific time to see what's new, Cornell says.

“They like the treasure hunt,” he says.

A woman steps up to the cashier, ready to purchase a shirt.

“That's cute. I like that!” the brown-haired cashier says to the woman. “I was there the day it came out, but it wouldn't fit me. I'm glad someone bought it.”

Cornell stands at the front of the store—past the register but before the shopping carts lined perpendicular to the wall with clothes and hangers ready for employees to return to the floor. He is next to Joey Zawicki, a teenage employee with aqua streaks in his long hair, talking to Zawicki about “the cougar outfit [that's] still there,” hanging on the wall.

A few more customers enter the store and wander around the clothes, the toys and the kitchenware.

“Wanna play Jeopardy?” Klettke says.

There's not a whole lot to do. The extra hangers are already neatly hooked on the bright red hanger racks, and it seems like a good night to just talk to customers.

College-aged boys set a Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey on the counter by the register. The cashier scans the tag, the boys make small talk—“this is a cool jersey”—and they purchase the jersey with a “thanks.” Immediately after them, a blonde woman with curled hair, a Chanel purse and a red pea coat steps up to the register holding a tan trench coat. She looks like she stepped out of a Macy's advertisement, like she should be trying on a new coat at Christopher & Banks or New York & Co.

Something's changing. Maybe it's the decade-old Savers policy of “don't fill the landfill, fill the recycling” that's finally catching on, Cornell thinks.

Maybe it's the friendly employees who enjoy their jobs, the ones with a “sense of humor, they last here,” Klettke says.

Maybe it's Savers' focus on “Good deeds. Great deals,” the generosity of Savers to local flood and fire victims, Cornell says.

Maybe it's the economy. But something is bringing people together at Savers.

“Beep beep!” says Zawicki, carrying a pile of clothes to add to the return cart. He sets the clothes down, and a cashier wanders over to an 8 o'clock regular, a middle-aged man with a big smile and a big black coat.

Thiele will speak to seniors

This article was originally printed in The Concordian in April 2012.

MOORHEAD, MN--

We have a life of choice. Little girls in America might prefer a red dress over a pink one, or a Blow Pop over a Tootsie Pop, but Haitian children don’t understand the difference, according to Joanna Thiele, class of 1997 and the 2012 Sent Forth Award recipient.

“They have nothing,” she said, “but they have so much hope.”

Thiele received the award for her embodiment of Concordia’s heart of service and living a Christian life, most notably in service in Haiti. She will be on campus during graduation weekend and will host the Senior Farewell Banquet on Friday, May 4 with President William and Anne Craft and the Office of Alumni Relations. But Thiele isn’t used to being the center of attention: the work stems from her nurturing personality and her habit of simply caring.

When Thiele graduated from Concordia with a degree in nursing, she didn’t set out to save the world. She thought she’d be married and have a family by this time. And while she had a passion for people and justice, she never imagined she would co-found a non-profit dedicated, as the Haiti Mission Project Website says, to sharing “God’s love and hope in Haiti.”

Until she recently switched churches to attend with her fiancé, John Dols, Thiele attended Calvary Lutheran Church in Golden Valley, Minn., where she worked with the youth program. After one uninvolved teen committed suicide about eight years ago, the leaders made a conscious effort to get teens who were not regularly attending more involved. Thiele noticed that there was a group being overlooked: the children of pastors, leaders and other highly involved church members. She began mentoring students and still does today.

Physical challenges during one youth group trip to Washington, D.C. wouldn’t have allowed Nick, a boy with cystic fibrosis, to attend. However, because Thiele is a nurse, she was able to talk to Nick’s parents and work with him on the trip. He currently attends the University of Minnesota, and they still meet up monthly for lunch.

It wasn’t until she was approaching her 30th birthday, a milestone that pushed her to check off a few items on her bucket list, that she ran a half-marathon and went on her first mission trip. The half marathon was an unpleasant experience—“never again,” she said— but the trip to Haiti ignited a fire. During the trip, the group built an orphanage, visited children’s hospitals and other orphanages and had daily time for individual devotionals.

“My heart was totally captured,” she said.

Near-constant political upheaval, hurricanes, earthquakes, food scarcity and feces-contaminated water fill the Haitian life. Diplomats have called Haiti a “failed state.” Four out of five Haitians live in poverty, according to an April 2, 2012 article in the New York Times, and more than half live in abject poverty. Barren, over-farmed land washes into the sea as food prices skyrocket on the tiny island.

“It would never be acceptable to anyone here,” she said. “It is disheartening.”

When Thiele returned from Haiti after that first trip, the culture shock created a sense of numbness. She was overwhelmed by happiness, sadness and gratefulness. She was so overwhelmed that she had difficulty functioning in this life of affluence, an average American life of running water and predictable meals, a life with technology and expendable income.

“I couldn’t believe that 300 miles off the coast of Florida life could be so different,” she said.

She was grateful to be alive.

Her early trips were primarily construction-oriented, but then she was in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake that left the country in shambles. She joined with other missionaries to organize a field hospital and pharmacy and provide medical care to hundreds of wounded people, said Beth McHoul, director of the Heartline Maternity Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She worked 16-hour days in the field hospital’s pharmacy but still made silly signs and baskets of candy to make the pharmacy fun.

“She created an atmosphere of order but lightness,” McHoul said in an email nominating her for the Award. “She created a sanctuary during those dark days of non-stop chaos.”

As a nurse at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn., she works in labor and delivery. Since the earthquake, she has been transferring her professional skills in America to her service in Haiti. She now helps women by working in a women’s program at the Heartline Maternity Center. She works in prenatal and child development classes, and she even came down with gifts, according to McHoul.

Thiele is loved for who she is, and her co-workers recognized her as an outstanding nurse who goes above and beyond what is necessary when they awarded her the Sarah Harrison Knight award in 2005. She also received the 2009 Community Service award for her excellent work with patient care and her community service that overcomes social barriers. Yet, even after two awards that recognized her service, she is still not used to the spotlight shining on her.

“People go ‘Haiti equals Joanna, Joanna equals Haiti,’” Thiele said, “but I’m just a small drop in the ocean.”

This June she will leave for her 15^th visit in the last seven years, and the shock that used to last for days has become much more bearable, she said. Counseling has helped her develop tools to manage the disparity between a day here and a day in Haiti.

Back home in Plymouth, Minn., Thiele is currently planning her wedding.

She and John Dols have been together since last Christmas when her co-worker, Dols’ dad, realized they have all the same passions.

“He does Africa,” Thiele said.

Dols goes to Africa every other year for five weeks, but he has never been to Haiti. Thiele goes to Haiti about twice each year and usually is gone for a week at a time. They value remaining themselves, something that many couples lose when they meld two lives into one. And while they both hope to visit the other’s country of passion, it’s a dream that live in the future.

In 2006, Dols received St. Norbert College’s equivalent to the Sent Forth Award in recognition for his work in Africa since graduating from St. Norbert, Thiele said. He is currently an assistant principal and campus minister at Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria, Minn., but students approach him as if he were a friend, Thiele said.

“Our passions just line up,” she said, smiling and shrugging her shoulders.

Ten years out, Thiele hopes to be living a life very similar to her current life. She and Dols will be invested in their local community and reaching out to those who often slip through the cracks in society. They plan to live in North Minneapolis where there are many opportunities for them to be purposeful about outreach, she said.

“Another adult being a positive influence on someone’s life,” she said, “it can never be bad.”

Alumni find rings worthy

This article was originally printed in The Concordian in April 2012.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Her Cobber ring sits in a glass dish, unworn. The golden “C” in a rectangular ruby surrounds “05,” the year Jade Rosenfeldt graduated from Concordia College. Now an attorney at Vogel Law Firm in Fargo, N.D., Rosenfeldt doesn’t wear her ring.

Each year, hundreds of juniors and a handful of seniors spend $500, $600 or $700 to purchase the idolized rite of passage to wear proudly on their right hands, but after graduation day comes and goes, when the diplomas are hidden in boxes and real life ensues, some Cobbers like Rosenfeldt take off their rings. Even if they don’t wear them, however, most Cobbers who coughed up the cash are glad they did so.

Rosenfeldt graduated from Concordia in 2005 with degrees in sociology and social work. While she didn’t purchase a ring right away, she caved by senior year. People see the ring as a badge of honor, she said. It’s reflective of someone who not only graduated from Concordia but is also a part of a specific community. It shows achievement, status. But on top of all that, it’s a personal memento.

“It’s like an engagement ring,” she said. “It’s reflective of a commitment, of work put into something.”

Yet Rosenfeldt doesn’t wear her ring on a daily basis. When she wore the ring, it started conversation. She was one more example of a story any student on campus has heard. But, when she and her husband, Steve, got married, her ring fingers were full. After her sister died in a car accident, Rosenfeldt and the women in her family decided to get commemorative rings.

“It allows me to to look down and see her,” she said.

The Cobber ring was bumped.

Petty officer Laura Auer enlisted in the Navy after graduating from Concordia in 2010 with a major in English writing. Her mom bought her the ring senior year, and as a Navy woman working with others fresh out of high school, the ring is much more personal.

“It’s a reminder to myself,” she said, “that I’m an intelligent person with a college degree.”

She wasn’t originally sure that she wanted a ring, but now it reminds her of what she’s done, of where she’s called home. Once, at her naval optometrist check-up in Portsmouth, Va., the optometrist said she’d seen a lieutenant with the same ring–not a similar one, as Auer insisted, but the same one. After the optometrist went and fetched the lieutenant, Auer connected with a Cobber 1,500 miles from campus.

Yet for other alumni, it’s not a ring in a dish or a personal reminder. It’s a way of life.

Assistant director of admissions Katherine Halvorson, a 2002 graduate who majored in organizational communication and religion, found her passion and her family at Concordia. She considered working in geriatrics, a church profession, event planning or human resources, but she worked in admissions throughout her time as a student. After graduation, she began working in the office full-time.

“The connection people make to this place is kind of neat,” she said. “This place is steeped in tradition.”

She met her husband, Joe, a 2004 graduate, while working the front desk in the admission office and complaining about filling a CSC-equivalent commissioner position (for which Joe applied and filled).

“Concordia put two rings on my fingers,” she said.

She got her Cobber ring as soon as possible, during the beginning of her junior year. Her husband, a few years behind her, didn’t get his ring as a junior. By that time, they couple was married and had a baby, so his parents purchased his ring as a graduation present.

“As someone who values tradition and establishing roots, it’s nice,” she said.

Rosenfeldt’s ring is unworn but not unloved. She sees it every day, and said she would gladly buy it again knowing it would rest in that glass dish.

“It’s a really great tradition,” she said. “Most colleges don’t have such a following. The community is something to be proud of.”

Prospective student rocks with PTFS band

This article was originally printed in The Concordian in February, 2012.

Photo by Rachel Torgerson. Members of Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome,
Russ Peterson and Matt Patnode, play sax with prospective student Sarah Kremer.

MOORHEAD, MN--

The dim lights paint the audience in shades of grey as the young brunette’s saxophone reflects golden light. The drums, trumpets, trombone and nine other jazz instruments fill the room with loud, saucy music that floats around a pre-determined chord progression, a progression the high school senior has never practiced with the rest of the band. She exchanges fours with the band’s alto saxophone player; he plays a few measures of improvisation, and she responds with equally emphatic runs up and down. Staccato and glissando, like a player who has learned from the best.

Within one hour last Friday night Jan. 27, prospective student Sarah Kremer played on stage with Concordia saxophone professor and jazz ensemble director Russ Peterson in his band Post Traumatic Funk Syndrome, improvised with Concordia students in the blues band Chord on Blue (which opened for PTFS) and played sax to a karaoke track of Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” in the High School Choral Festival talent show.

“So, do you think Sarah should come to Concordia,” Russ Peterson asked the cheering crowd after Kremer’s scat solo, “or NDSU?”  The clapping turned to loud boos, a smile came to Kremer’s face and the cheering resumed.

Kremer, a senior at Cathedral High School in St. Cloud, Minn., has played saxophone for eight years and first met Peterson while on campus for the 2011-2012 Minnesota All-State Jazz Band. He went to the concert and talked to Kremer about her sax solo after the impressive performance.

“She was firey and had tons of energy,” he said.

When Kremer visited Concordia in the fall, Peterson told her to bring her horn to Studio 222 in Fargo where his five-piece band, The Funk Commission, was playing.

Throughout the first set, she sat in the front row, but Peterson bounced in his chair remembering and imitating Kremer during that set. Leaned forward, ready to jump, he said she looked like an athlete waiting for the coach’s call.

“Put me in, Coach! Put me in!” he said, putting his words into her imagination. When she started playing with them, the crowd erupted.

“People stood up and screamed,” Peterson said. “I really enjoyed it.”

Kremer has had several similar impromptu performances throughout her musical career. While at the University of Minnesota—Morris’ Jazz festival in 2007, then seventh-grade Kremer traded fours with guest clinician Allen Vizzutti, a classical and jazz artist who has performed around the world from Tokyo, Germany and Slovenia to Winnipeg, England, Brazil and many more countries. Kremer attended the UMM festival for several years, but the experience was the first time she improvised with a famous musician. She has since worked with several accomplished musicians including Steve Jennings, Eric Merienthal and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, an international ensemble founded in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

In Nov. 2011, Kremer saw Gordon Goodwin, a Grammy award-winning composer and performer, at a jazz event at Winona State University. Goodwin called for one person from each instrumental part, and Kremer couldn’t resist.

“I just ran onstage,” she said.

Eric Merienthal, a member of Gordon Goodman’s Big Phat Band, recognized Kremer from the UMM Jazz festival in 2008 where he had been a guest clinician the year after Vizzutti. He came up to her and just said “Yeah! I remember playing with you!” Kremer said. Her tone of voice got higher as she remembered the event, the honor of being remembered by a famous musician years later. She wasn’t expecting to be remembered, she said, but the experience has stuck with her.

Many Cobbers also remember Kremer. Senior Nicholas Ganoe, a music education major whose primary instrument is saxophone, thought she was a fantastic player from another college in the area.

“I was totally shocked [when Peterson announced she was a prospective student],” he said in an email. “Both of her performances were fantastic and rivaled anything that anyone else in our saxophone department could play… if she wants to perform, I think she could make it at a conservatory.”

Kremer is the first prospective student to accompany Peterson’s band in such a way, he said. Most prospective students wouldn’t have the guts to do it.

“She’s fearless and good,” Peterson said. “She’s not afraid to walk into a place, pull out her horn and start playing.”

After impressing Cobbers in the Centrum, Kremer hurried off the stage, packed up her sax and rushed over to Memorial Auditorium just in time to play in the Choral Festival talent show.

As the whistling of Maroon 5’s “Moves like Jagger” played over the speakers, Kremer tapped her foot and swayed her sax side to side while playing the popular melody. By the time front-man Benjamin Levin would begin the chorus with “I don’t need to try to control you, look into my eyes and I’ll own you with the moves like Jagger,” Kremer was floating around the melody, playing enough to recognize and enjoy the song but taking creative liberties and turning it into a jazz lick. Three prospective students in the top row of the auditorium seating were dancing, standing up and cheering while pumping their fists in the air. After the standing ovation sat back down and the cheering stopped, the three-judge, American Idol-style panel shared their feedback.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Chris Kenney, a sophomore vocal performance major and the ‘Randy’ character in the emcee panel during the talent show.

“I like to judge songs by whether or not I could have danced to them,” said Britta Fitzer, a senior music education major and the ‘Paula’ character, “and I could’ve danced all night to that.”

Even ‘Simon,’ senior music education major Ryan Fellman, said “would your last name happen to be Peterson?”

The following day, Kremer sang with the Youth Chorale of Central Minnesota as one of four featured choirs in the Choral Festival concert. Not only does Kremer play a mean jazz scat on the sax, but she also plays violin and piano, sings soprano, participates in five school-related ensembles, and captains both the nordic ski team and the state champion cross country team. In addition, she plans to audition for the role of Rizzo in her high school’s musical “Grease,” because she has never been onstage in a theatrical production before.

“I’ve always regretted not being in a musical,” she said, excepting her role in one pit orchestra, “and I want to finish high school with no regrets.”

She plans to participate in varsity track, band and choir at Concordia—a seemingly impossible task but one that she has discussed with Peterson and Marvin Roeske, the women’s cross country coach. Because cross-country is a team sport based on individual performances, athletes can do workouts on their own time, Roeske said. It is different from other sports, and some students like Kremer can still be athletic while performing in multiple ensembles.

“Some kids realize they have to make choices, [but] sometimes they cope really well,” Roeske said. “I think she’s the kind of person who can make a combination work.”

After a thrilling few days on campus filled with a music scholarship audition, three on-stage sax performances and a 36-hour choral festival, Kremer looks forward to her last semester of high school and returning to Concordia.

Clausen conducts 9/11 tribute in NYC

This article was originally printed in The Concordian on September 23, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

“Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,” translated “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy,” is the basis for the ending of René Clausen’s “Memorial” written to commemorate the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ten years later, on Sept. 11, 2011, Clausen directed the piece in New York City’s renowned Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The concert, titled “A Concert of Commemoration,” took place a few miles from Ground Zero, honored the 10th anniversary of the attacks and featured Karl Jenkins and Clausen, both guest composers and conductors.

The essence of “Memorial” is the drama and response to the attacks on Sept. 11, he said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio preceding its first debut in 2003. The 30-minute piece has four sections, referred to as “September Morning,” “The Premonition,” “Attacks,” and “Prayers and Petitions” by Clausen in the MPR interview.

“Hopefully the themes of the piece are cleansing and hope,” he said in the MPR interview.

Clausen conducted his piece "Memorial"
with a mass choir in New York City
for the 10th anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

When the piece was first premiered in New York City, both the Concordia Choir and Concordia Orchestra made the trip. In an e-mail interview, Clausen recalls the “intense passion, commitment, skill, professionalism, and musical craftsmanship exhibited by our Concordia students” while on that trip. The students performed the piece three times in the one day, he said.

“It was a physical and mental feat as well as performance accomplishment,” Clausen said.

The most memorable performance on that day, however, was not in Lincoln Center but in a Manhatten church, at least for Concordia graduate Michelle Hayes who sang in the choir as the piece was premiered.

“It was powerful beyond belief,” she said in an email. “It was visceral. Every ounce of my being was invested in the piece in hopes it could bring a sense of understanding for the healing that was needed.”

Clausen has conducted several performances of “Memorial” in various locations around the country over the last few years. Last year, Jonathan Griffiths, president of Distinguished Concerts International—New York, contacted Clausen about conducting his piece for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 and invited the Concordia Choir to sing as well, Clausen said.

While Clausen was able to go to the event, the Concordia Choir remained on campus. Unlike the first trip, the college did not have sufficient time to budget the money to send the choir to New York for the weekend, according to the administration. Also, after the cost of the South Korean tour in May 2011, the college deemed it unwise to ask the choir members to bear the significant cost of the trip.

While the piece was originally written for and performed by the Concordia Choir and Concordia Orchestra after being commissioned by the American Choral Director’s Association, Concordia and the Fargo-Moorhead area were represented in the event, as Concordia Choir alumni and The Master Chorale of Fargo-Moorhead performed.

Clausen also conducted Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” and Jenkins conducted two of his own pieces, “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace” and the United States premier of “For the Fallen: In Memoriam Alfryn Jenkins.”

In addition to conducting “Memorial” in the Lincoln Center, Clausen was also invited to conduct his piece at the Northern Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert to their 10th season this weekend. The NSO is an orchestra in the Twin Cities metro area, and the choir will be comprised of over 70 choir alumni and other musicians to total 125 singers. Hayes, who  directs choir at Anoka High School and helped organize the chorus for the Twin Cities performance, will be singing in the chorus.

The Concert will take place at St. Andrew’s Church in Mahtomedi on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:30pm.

Wondering as I wander

This article was originally printed in the opinion section of The Concordian on September 24, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Life is a series of accepting things you never thought you would be old enough to face. Going to college, losing a loved one, becoming an aunt or a parent–these are events that we all know will happen in the distant future to the older, more mature versions of our selves that the current, younger selves never actually believe will happen. When they inevitably occur, we say “I can’t believe I’m finally here.”

We are constantly in motion, constantly aging and changing. We are constantly reviewing, refining and redefining who we are and our places in our worlds. We give up old versions of ourselves as we meet friends from other cultures, as we visit new corners of the world, and as we learn theories about humanity. We create new selves that are entirely unique from the self that existed last week, last year, last decade, regardless of the similarities they share. This self exists in the present, and it is a different self than that which existed in a different time. This year’s Symposium opening speaker Colum McCann built on this notion of change when he said “you can hold on to what you were and be something new at the same time.” You can be something that used to be you while simultaneously being something you now are.

This is easily pictured for immigrants, students studying abroad, or young adults who have come out of troubled pasts. They can hold onto the good that they saw at home, in a new land, or in a trait that brought them through the struggle while simultaneously allowing those experiences to drive the new them. It is a concept that remembers the past while moving in the present toward the future. When you are surrounded by darkness, all you can realize about your surroundings is that it’s dark, according to McCann. To see anything, you must either move, stumbling your way through the unknown, or hope for a light source to find you.

Since we are good Cobbers who know how to Become Responsibly Engaged in the World, we can rule out simply doing nothing. So what would this movement look like? For some, it could be a spiritual movement away from hatred, harm, and other sins towards Love, Forgiveness, and God. Others might take a technological view of this movement and gain inspiration for continuous innovation. Some might go on an academic journey into mathematics or philosophy in a way they’ve never experienced. Still others could simply find comfort knowing that the darkness will pass.

I remember the 2010 Christmas Concerts with the theme “Out of Darkness, Let Your Light Shine.” As a community, we mourned the loss of President Jolicoeur, yet this year we welcome a wonderful new president to campus. The loss of someone so special, so unique, brought us someone new and challenging in a different way. What would it mean for this campus to “hold on to what you were and be something new at the same time”? Most students never knew President Joliceour well, and many will not meet President Craft until graduation day when receiving a diploma.

And yet the campus as a whole needs to hold onto what President Joliceour taught us, the passion and drive with which she lived her life, while being open and receptive to not only a new face and motivation, but a new spirit leading the college as well. This change in the college will be noticed, but Concordia changes every year. Students graduate, others enter school, and faculty rotate in and out after various lengths of service. We all bring our individual journeys to this point in time to be a new institution of “Concordia” for this year.

You are now old enough to vote. You can get married. You can fight in a war and die for your country. You can get a tattoo because it seems like a good idea. Some of you could get a tattoo while your logic is impaired by alcohol or you could keep a minor out past midnight. When you sign a contract, you can’t claim, “I didn’t get it. I was confused.” You are responsible for paying back your student loans, even if you don’t get a job that can pay those bills, and most of you signed your names to documents promising you would do so. You are becoming a totally new individual, and Concordia is becoming a totally new campus as faculty, staff, and students are new this year. We are all leaving something and entering into something else; the difference is whether we will sit idly by waiting for someone to enlighten us or whether we will stumble around searching for reality in whatever way we can.

Health Center Administrator Kathy Benson feels support of campus community during recovery

This article originally printed in The Concordian on April 14, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

A slim woman sits in her living room chair. Her home is orderly and clean, at least in the eyes of a college student, but a binder and a Bible sit on the matching ottoman in front of her. Recordings of The Concordia Choir play in the background as she talks about her appreciation for friends, family and Cobbers.

Kathy Benson, Health Center Administrator and campus nurse, has spent the last few weeks at home recovering from surgery due to lung cancer, and she is feeling the massive outpouring of support that is unique to the Concordia community, she said.

“She is committed… compassionate, and caring,” said Cheryl Ross, a nurse practitioner in the Kjos Health Center. “She is Concordia through and through.”

Few people on campus embody the mission or have as deep roots at Concordia as Kathy, who has worked at Concordia for over 40 years and earned bachelor’s degrees in psychology and sociology before that. Her four sons went to Concordia, and two of her daughters-in-law were Cobbers. The nine grandkids are future Cobbers, too, if Kathy has any say in the matter.

Kathy first came to Concordia as a freshman music major the fall of 1960, but quickly realized it was not her calling, she said.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like it,” she said. “I decided… I had to be the audience, and that’s worked.”

Kathy would eventually tell her four sons that if anything ever happened to her, they were to play her recordings of The Concordia Choir, regardless of her condition. The recordings would follow her to Mayo Clinic.

She graduated with plans to be a social worker, but admitted that little girls had dreams of being teachers and nurses when she was young, and she was no exception. Kathy graduated from Fairview Hospital School of Nursing and got married a few years later.

They returned to Moorhead, and Kathy became the hall director in East Complex for two years. When her second child was born, they moved off campus and into a regular house, but that was just the beginning.

“Those two years in East Complex kind of cemented my love for your age group,” she said.

Concordia was looking for another nurse to work part-time in the health center, and Kathy thought it would be a good fit with her two kids, she said. Forty-two years later, she still loves it.

“I don’t even like to call it a job,” she said. “I think it took me a while to consider it a vocation, but that’s what it’s been. Or a calling.”

Kathy is more than a nurse to many students, according to Cheryl Christianson, administrative health information assistant in Kjos Health Center.

“Kids come to her to just talk to her about things,” Christianson said. “They come seeking her out.”

Junior James Vair first met Kathy during orientation week freshman year.

“I was feeling kind of under the weather, probably a mix of both lack of sleep and homesickness,” he said in an email. “So… I stopped by the Health Center and met up with Nurse Kathy. I’ll never forget her smile and kind words!”

Current and former students coming into the Health Center are not the only ones seeking out Kathy, however.

“Her sense of vocation has led her to befriend and support people on this campus who have never been inside the Health Center,” President Dovre said in an email interview. “And because of our respect for her sagacity, she is sought out for advice and counsel by scores of people, myself included.”

Aside from doing administrative work in the Health Center, Kathy accompanies music ensemble on tour. She accompanies The Concordia Choir on tour each year, and she traveled with the Concordia Band to Europe a few years ago, an experience which she called “more than a little bit of heaven.” This year, she was planning on going with the Choir on their South Korean tour, but her health stopped that—the loss of time with students being her “biggest loss” in not going to South Korea.

Kathy finished the Choir’s domestic tour on March 6, and she had an appointment at Mayo Clinic on March 15.

“The memories that were made in those two weeks, both with [students] and with those that I met along the way, have sustained me more than anybody knows,” she said.

Kathy has felt something in her lung for about a year, and though it was previously diagnosed, she wanted to see if there was anything else she should be doing. While at Mayo, she received a new diagnosis: lung cancer. Kathy is not a smoker. The doctor asked her if she could go up a flight of stairs or two.

“I said ‘I just got back from two weeks with 78 kids. I had to carry my own suitcase around. Yes, I can do that,’” she said.

She had surgery on March 23, and the surgeon removed a tumor the size of a large orange, she said. The doctor told her that her lung could have been compensating due to her activity. In the surgery, they removed the bottom half of her left lobe and a wedge out of the upper lobe, but the scariest part was that doctors suspected the tumor was encroaching on her aorta, she said.

“[The surgeon] said ‘if I get in there and there is involvement, I can’t give you a new aorta,” she said.

The day of the surgery, Kathy and “her boys” prayed.

“The first thing I said that morning was ‘this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it,’” she said. “You get on your fighting shoes, and you go for it.”

The surgery was a success, the aorta was not a problem, and that night Kathy updated her own Caringbridge website.

“The diagnosis has been a miracle. ‘All is well,’” she wrote, referencing a closing piece in the 2010 Christmas Concerts performed by all of the choirs and the Concordia Orchestra.

Now, Kathy is working on recovering at home with flowers mailed across the country from a friend, stuffed animals from students, and an over-abundance of bread from loving people trying to tend a nurse and dear friend.

“Sometimes I jokingly say that… the mission statement talks about ‘sending forth people into the world,’ and I feel like I was sent forth,” she said. “I just wasn’t sent forth very far.”

Concordia in 140 characters or less

This article was originally printed in The Concordian on April 7, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Twitter is like a car. If you don’t know what you’re doing, chances are you won’t get far, and Concordia is utilizing the social media outlet to tell the Concordia story, according to Gia Rassier, a 2010 graduate and a communications specialist in the Office of Communications and Marketing.

Rassier helps manage the social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. There are four main Twitter accounts targeting different audiences. The general campus Twitter, @Concordia_MN, highlights campus events and has a broad audience of current, former and prospective students as well as faculty and friends of the college, Rassier said.

“I think Twitter is a phenomenal marketing tool that gives businesses the ability to interact directly with their customer,” Rassier said.

Concordia Admissions has its own Twitter account, @Be_A_Cobber. The account links prospective students to the life of current students through student stories and COBBlog. COBBlog not only contains blogs by current students about campus events, it also contains links to more Concordia blogs, like a May seminar blog, and student blogs, some of which are about a semester abroad.

Current students are not abandoned on the Twitter front, however. The beloved Kernel Cobb has a Twitter, @KernelCobb, and he loves tweeting about campus life, athletics and sometimes shameless self-promotion, Rassier said.

“His main goal is also his greatest passion,” Rassier said, “amping up Cobber pride and sharing his love for maroon and gold.”

Across Concordia, there are 11 total Twitter accounts, according to the “Social Media” page at Concordia’s website. While the accounts range from choir and band to student government and athletics, most students do not follow any of the accounts. With 1,650 people following the campus in general and anywhere between 10 and 450 following specific interests, it is a far cry from the approximately 2,800 students across campus and the vast number of alumni. However, Melissa Lindquist, a senior, thinks Twitter will become more popular over time.

“More people are starting to use it on Concordia’s campus,” she said, “and it is a way to connect and interact with others and learn about what is happening in the world.”

Concordia’s changing campus also created the Offutt School of Business Twitter, @OffuttSchool.  Like the Offutt School itself, this account is in its early stages. The account contains information about students excelling in the academic realm of business, Rassier said.

“I think that it is necessary in a world where social media is emphasized so much for Concordia to use their time to maintain Twitter accounts,” Lindquist said.

Twitter is often misunderstood, according to Rassier, because some people answer the status box’s question of “what’s happening?” with mundane, useless information. Rassier views tweets as something that go beyond that.

“It isn’t a microphone for shouting your opinions into the blogosphere,” she said. “It is a platform for listening and engaging with others who share your interests.”

Water privatization in India

This article was originally printed in The Concordian on March 24, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Water. It sustains life, but it is not available to everyone. Scholar-in-residence David Selvaraj talks about water issues, other dangerous effects that market-led globalization is having on India and the lack of awareness surrounding the issue.

Selvaraj recalls the effects of globalization in India and asks students to be engaged. Selvaraj is the founder and director of an institute for development and peace studies and action in southern India called Vishtar. So far this semester, he has taught a few classes, consulted with faculty on gender and diversity issues, assisted with LeadNow activities and worked with local non-profit organizations, he said.

C: Where did this idea to privatize water consumption originate in recent history?

S: There is a lay person’s reading of economy and a reading from the perspective of the poor, the ones who are excluded from the development process. Privatization in recent history dates back to 1991. The country opened up its economy from being a fairly protected economy and one in which only Indian companies could have the majority shares. This opening up included a liberalization (reduction in government control) and privatization with non-state actors investing in key sectors.

The government of India, perhaps wisely, had followed a model of setting national and regional targets and growth indicators for a young nation in the making. We had pursued a model of 5-year plans, an idea we had borrowed from the erstwhile USSR. The dismantling of the USSR and the pressure from the International Monetary Fund resulted in a major dismantling and a realignment of the Indian economy. Immediately, one observed an unapologetic focus to fit in with market demands, most of the time external to domestic needs. This is an economy of the market, which negates life as a whole. We need to reclaim an economy of life, economic processes that are embedded in values of sustainability and fair play.

C: How would this “economy of life” look in daily life?

S: At the outset, let me make [it] clear that I am not against the market as an institution [but]… I see myself as a social entrepreneur. My conflict is with economic activity that makes people invisible and completely detaches itself from ethics. In the process of wealth creation, people who subscribe to a neo-liberal approach and a global capitalism that is governed by principles of aggressive profiteering and limited accountability do not contribute to life and [the] well-being of the community and the earth as a whole.

We must retrace our steps to small enterprises, cooperative economic activity and laying an emphasis on meeting domestic needs. Gandhi said it best when he said [there should be] production for the masses and not mass production. My own emphasis would be, not only for but include, wherever possible, by the masses.

C: What does the modern “economy of the market” look like in daily life?

S: Over the last twenty years, we have seen a commoditization of land. This means large tracts of agricultural land is being converted into Special Economic Zones for major industries. We see emerging cities within cities, housing offices, housing and related services, to those in the service sector. At another level, we see a shift in agricultural pattern, a movement from food crop to cash crops. This leads to mono-cropping and crops with a focus on the export market as opposed to domestic food needs. Thirdly, we also observe a phenomenal business activity in real estate. While this might make for a huge profit for a few, it comes with a much bigger cost: social, cultural and environmental. Large numbers of people have been displaced, forests denuded and scant respect paid to [the] human rights of the citizen.

Given the structural nature of things, [multinational corporations]… work hand in hand with the Indian state in the plunder… of the natural resources and its people. This maybe harsh, but from the perspective of those in the frontline, I am barely scratching the surface. The economy of the market is a dragon with many heads.

C: What can [Concordia students] do about it over here?

S: I believe the first step is to become aware. Awareness [of] the realities I spoke about are not [only applied] to India. A lot of this is happening in your own backyard, be it issues of migration, refugees [or] displacement. Poverty must be understood as a structural issue. Policies of the [United States] can and does affect our local economies…

Did you know that [Americans spend] 8 billion [dollars] per year on cosmetics, and [America and] central European countries spend 17 billion [dollars per year] on pet food? Compare this with what is needed for basic health and nutrition for [those denied it in the world]—13 billion dollars… The annual estimated cost for all denied water and sanitation is 9 billion dollars…

This not to guilt trip you… on the contrary, I count myself alongside you as the privileged and ask how else should I respond. [Beyond being aware], I am realizing the most important [thing] is to express solidarity with those in pain… Challenge authority on matters of life, life of the community of peoples and the earth.

C: Other than being aware, how can we act?

S: Become aware and look at your lifestyle to make personal changes. Look at consumption at a collective level, and be prepared to challenge your own government policies. Let your congressmen and congresswomen hear your voices. Let them know… that you are aware of what is happening. Make them go back to the capital and ask these questions. Does it seem fair to you that people should come in and drill water from our wells, from our rivers? Make the connections. Think globally and act locally. When you are looking at water issues there, look at the ways we use water on campus… by taking an action locally, you are saying to friends in India “we are in solidarity with you.”

Concordia efforts to address water issues are a part of the Sustainability Task Force established in 2007 in a response to Concordia’s Roadmap to Sustainability, according to Concordia’s website. The task force has five areas: food, water, transportation, buildings and waste. Michelle Marko, assistant professor in biology, is a co-chair of the water task force with Jan Pranger.

“We’re looking to see that our water use and our water resources on campus are being used in a more sustainable manner,” Marko said.

They are currently working on decreasing water bottle use while researching for larger projects, such as additional rain gardens, Marko said.

“Also when we hear of another water resource issue [such as India],” Marko said, “we try to publicize that… think globally, act locally. We’re trying to live that out.”

For more information about Selvaraj, read the archived article “Concordia Names First Scholar in Residence” at www.theconcordian.org.

Get an education, not just a major

This article was originally printed in The Concordian on March 18, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Picking a major can feel like choosing a life. Music or math? English or theatre? Students are torn between passions and have to decide what to be when they “grow up.” In reality, choosing a major only determines what you will study the most in an undergraduate setting, according to specialist Kelly Meyer at the Career Center’s  “Career Choices—Still Deciding?” seminar.

Choosing a major is not a decision with huge, irreversible, life-long consequences, Meyer said. It is not just  about choosing a career, a set income, a graduate school or a minor.

You are in college to learn, not to get a degree.

While a degree is the end goal, employers will ask for your resumé—not your transcript. Instead of focusing on what options a minor will provide, take courses related to what you want to do. Even if you do not get a second major or a minor, the learning could be more applicable to your goals, Meyer said. Gain knowledge, because you will need the knowledge, not the degree, in your career.

“A career-oriented undergrad major may help you get a job one time,” she said. “But your education is what will get you promoted again and again, and [it will] allow you to switch careers when that inevitably becomes necessary.”

You can also learn outside of class.

Internships, on-campus activities and leadership experience, work experience, and volunteer and service opportunities are also learning experiences. They allow you to apply patterns of thinking, people skills, and other transferable assets to the situation at hand.

“Skills don’t just happen in class,” she said. “Creative people develop skills in and out of class and maximize their student experience no matter what their major is.”

You will thrive more where you are passionate.

Study something that is interesting. You will be more valuable to society if you enjoy your job, regardless of the salary, and you will perform better, Meyer said. Do not let family influences or preconceived visions deter you from pursuing passions and talents.

“Most of you actually do kind of know what you want to do,” Meyer said, “but you’ve just never had the time to sit down with someone and have the conversation.”

Your life is a J.O.Y.—a Journey of You.

Talk to a career counselor, alumni, parents’ friends, and friends’ parents about what they do to create opportunities that could interest you. Make mistakes, learn from every job, and pursue a career with meaning. Your journey will be different from other students in the same major, Meyer said, but it is your journey.

“It’s never too late to pursue a career with meaning, or to find an opportunity to contribute to a cause,” she said. “It is too late to think someone else will do it for you.”

SGA creates SPIF account for big ideas

This article was originally printed in The Concordian on March 7, 2011.

MOORHEAD, MN--

Access to money, especially by college students, is rarely able to match the lofty ideas people may have. The Special Projects and Initiative Fund launched on Jan. 3 by SGA attempts to bring access of funding to students across campus.

The SPIF seeks to provide funding for student ideas that are “of audacious vision and scope… foster a unique educational experience for the student body, have a long-term impact at the institutional level, and/or [increase] the visibility of Concordia College within the wider community of institutions of higher learning,” according to SGA’s SPIF description on Concordia’s Web site.

The SPIF has vague criteria, but that vagueness is intentional, according to Student Involvement Council chair Brita Shoemaker. SIC helped set the guidelines and create the application process last semester.

“We didn’t want to put any limitations on the ideas of the students,” Shoemaker said. “There are just so many different possibilities of students using this money.”

The SPIF is funded from allocated but unspent student activity fee money. Currently, it holds over $100,000, with a large portion of the money coming from the money designated for the Cobber yearbook when the yearbook was not being printed, according to George.

At the end of every academic year, there is unspent SAF money for a variety of reasons, according to Nathalie Rinehardt, the assistant director of student leadership and service. For example, when CEC hosts Cornstock inside instead of outside, they save about $5,000, Rinehardt said. Because Cornstock is usually the last weekend in April and the fiscal year ends April 30, CEC does not spend the allocated $5,000 in a week. The money now ends up in the SPIF for students and organizations to access.

The money accessible to student organizations through the SIC has not decreased as a result of the creation of the SPIF, Rinehardt said. Contrarily, previous over-budgeting and the removal of the Cobber’s funding have increased the money available to SIC and student organizations, according to the 2011-2012 Student Activity Fee Proposal.

“In the past, only student organizations have been able to request [money],” Shoemaker said, “and this gives the opportunity for a student anywhere on campus to come up with an idea.”

Students could bring in a speaker or go to an educational conference and present to the Concordia community, among countless other options.

One request that is moving forward asks for new chairs in the library. While the chairs are not a large, institutional priority, they significantly affect current and future students, Shoemaker said. The students want to replace the chairs that have been in the library since the 1960s, she said.

Another project receiving funds is Djembe, a multicultural journal produced by students that is in the process of becoming an official Concordia publication. While Djembe seeks to be a primarily online journal, last year it published 200 copies to maintain a physical presence on campus, according to Jenni Amis, the chief editor. Because the group is not yet a student organization, it cannot apply for student organization money. George suggested that Djembe apply for SPIF funding to help with this year’s financial burden.

“SPIF is a very helpful resource, and students and organizations with ideas should take advantage of it,” said Fafa Yakor, a senior and production coordinator for Djembe.

Concordia used to have a SPIF, under a different name, to provide access to otherwise sequestered and unusable funds, according to Rinehardt. The fund eventually ran out, however, as the current SPIF is projected to do as well.

“I would invite [frustrated students] to engage in dialogue with the Student Government Association and their class representatives,” Rinehardt said. “One of SGA’s major platform goals is to communicate with the student body, and there are lots of mechanisms through which students can do that.”

Since the SPIF’s launch on Jan. 3, SGA has received at least four requests. The applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. To submit an idea for SPIF funding, visit www.cord.edu/Studentlife/SGA/SPIF.php.