JOURNEYS
 
To give St. Olaf alumni and friends an opportunity to return to the Hill, meet with old friends, hear thought-provoking and interesting programs, and indulge in good food.
-Inception, Fall 2000
". . .Commitment to lifelong learning. . ."
 

Speakers are scheduled for the following dates:
(bios listed below)

Noon - 1 p.m.Lunch
1 - 2 p.m.Featured Speaker
St. Olaf College campus, Buntrock Commons, Kings’ Dining Room
Featured program in Viking Theater

Group transportation is available for $1 per person. Northfield Transit picks up passengers at 11:20 a.m. at St. John’s Church, 500 3rd St. W., and returns at 2:20 p.m. Pre-registration required with the Alumni Office.

 
Guest Speakers
 

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009
Michael Kyle '85, vice president and dean of enrollment
Crafting a St. Olaf Class: A Review of the Class of 2013 and Previewof the Class of 2014

Sit for a moment and imagine the following. You are in charge of a team of over 30 people whose charge it is to work with 16-18 year-olds from around the world who have an interest in St. Olaf. The group works together - and with many others on and off campus - to get to know thousands of students, 4,000 of whom become applicants to St. Olaf College. The admissions and financial aid decisions made are challenging and inspirational. Their work is part science, part art, part prediction. How do we admit a class that is geographically and ethnically diverse, while remaining true to those tenets of the college’s history: legacy families, Lutherans, and first-generation families? How do we ensure that admitted students are ready for the caliber of work at St. Olaf? How do we meet the demonstrated financial need of these students in their aspiration for access to a St. Olaf education?

Tired yet? Thankfully, this is not your job, but that of Michael Kyle ’85, vice president and dean of enrollment for the past five years. On September 10, join Michael as he paints a picture of the newest group of Oles who began their experience just five days before.

 

Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009
Todd Nichol '74, King Olav V professor of Scandinavian-American studies; chair, history department
The Academic Theme of Migration

Todd Nichol received his B.A. from St. Olaf in 1974, graduated from Luther Seminary in 1978, studied at the University of Minnesota 1978-79, and received his Th.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in 1988. He was ordained into the ELCA in 1978.

Nichol served as assistant pastor of Christ English Lutheran Church in Minneapolis from 1979-80, as associate pastor and instructor in church history at Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary from 1983-85 and as interim senior pastor in St. Philip’s Lutheran Church in Fridley, MN from 1985-86.

He was appointed assistant professor of church history at Lutheran Northwestern Theological Seminary in 1985 and served in that capacity until 1991. In 1990 Nichol was also named director of graduate studies. He was promoted to associate professor of church history in 1994 and to professor in 1999.

In 2001, Nichol returned to St. Olaf as the King Olav V professor of Scandinavian American Studies. He also serves as editor of the Norwegian-American Historical Association.

Nichol is the author of several books, including Crossings: Norwegian-American Lutheranism as a Transatlantic Tradition and All These Lutherans: Three Paths Toward a New Lutheran Church, as well as many publications in scholarly journals. He is a member of the American Society of Church History, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies.

Professor Nichol will talk about the current wave of immigration to the United States, one of three great waves since the nineteenth century. Nichol notes, "The current immigration includes people from many points of departure. What do these movements have in common, what distinguishes them, and what do they mean for us? We will consider if the questions about immigration so hotly contested today are really new and why they are so controversial."
 

Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009
P.J. Lambrecht '68 and Traci Lambrecht '89
Two Authors, Five Novels, and One Monkeewrench:
Writing as a Mother-Daughter Team

PJ Tracy is the pseudonym of mother-daughter writing duo P.J. Lambrecht '68 and Traci Lambrecht '89, winners of the Anthony, Barry, Gumshoe, and Minnesota Book Awards. Their first four novels, Monkeewrench, Live Bait, Dead Run, and Snow Blind have become national and international bestsellers. Their fifth book is currently in the publication process. P.J. and Traci will share some of their experiences as writers and then answer questions from the group. Copies of their books will be available for book signing.
 

Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010
Rosalyn Eaton-Neeb '87, dean for first-year students
Current Students at St. Olaf, Another Perspective

Rosalyn (Roz) Eaton-Neeb '87, Associate Dean for First Year Students at St. Olaf, has been working in higher education most of her post-college life. Roz is an experienced student affairs professional whose graduate education focused on college student development and the management of institutions of higher education. She feels very strongly that college students are very much in the process of becoming adults and that it is our job in higher education to help them to do so wisely.

Roz will speak about the challenges new students face when they first move onto the Hill, examine student development, and identify the ways St. Olaf works to engage student growth.  "Higher education, when it’s done right, will challenge students. New Oles arrive on campus with strong academic histories and varying degrees of preparedness for college living. Some of the challenges typical of higher education can be a little shattering for our students, just as some of the challenges they present to us as staff and faculty can be a little shattering. It’s tempting for generations who have come before this one to look at current college students and declare them lacking by comparison. Or we can invest in them - supporting their development into wise adults."
 

Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010
Eric Lund, director of international and off-campus studies, professor of religion
Study Abroad: History and Lessons

Eric Lund earned his BA at Brown University, his M.Div. at Yale Divinity School and received his Ph.D. in the history of Christianity from Yale University Graduate School. He taught for 25 years in St. Olaf's religion department before becoming Director of International and Off-Campus Studies in 2005. During his time at St. Olaf, he has led 19 study abroad programs for students, including the Term in the Middle East and interims in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Germany and South Africa. He has also led St. Olaf Study Travel programs for adults to Italy, Germany and Turkey. Although his only teaching these days consists of January interim programs abroad (one year in Italy/Germany, the alternative year in South Africa), he continues to be active in research about religious life in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. He has published Documents from the History of Lutheranism (2002) and was co-editor of a book on the English reformer, William Tyndale (1998). He also writes articles on German and Scandinavian Lutheranism.
 

Thursday, March 18, 2010
Jim Farrell, professor of history
The Nature of College: Links between College Culture, Consumer Culture and Campus Ecology

Jim Farrell is a professor of history, American studies, environmental studies and American Conversations. Currently, he is working on a book on the nature of college, exploring college culture, consumer culture and the environment.  There are chapters on stuff, clothes, food, cars, fun, TV, computers, politics and religion.  In the process, Jim’s been thinking about American environmental values, including both our expressed and our operative values.

As an interdisciplinary scholar and teacher, Jim's teaching has been weird, if not innovative, including courses on Environmental History, the Mall of America, Nuclear Weapons and American Culture, Walt Disney’s America, Consuming College Culture, and Campus Ecology. Jim was chosen as St. Olaf’s first Boldt Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities.  At the end of the millennium, Jim chaired the committee that wrote St. Olaf 2000: Identity and Mission for the 21st Century. As a member of the college’s Sustainability Task Force, he’s had a hand in the greening of St. Olaf.

Jim holds a B.A. in Political Science from Loyola University in Chicago (1971), and both an M.A. in History (1972) and a Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Illinois (1980).  His books include Inventing the American Way of Death 1830-1920 (Temple University Press, 1980),  The Nuclear Devil's Dictionary (Usonia Press, 1985), The Spirit of the Sixties: Making Postwar Radicalism (Routledge, 1997); and One Nation Under Goods: Malls and the Seductions of American Shopping (Smithsonian, 2003). 

 

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Pat '65 and Kathy Quade, professor emeritus of theatre; retired student disability services coordinator and tutor request specialist
The New and (not so new) China

Since October, 2008, Kathy and Pat Quade have been living and working in Zhuhai, China at United International College (UIC).  Zhuhai is located in Guangdong Province in Southeastern China about a one-hour ferry ride from Hong Kong. Kathy teaches English and Pat is serving as The Chief of International Development.  UIC is the only fully liberal arts college completely taught in English in mainland China.  It is the result of China’s efforts to reform higher education in the country and is the first model which was established through the combined sponsorship of Beijing Normal University in Zhuhai (Chinese government institution) and Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong (western model).  UIC will graduate its first class in June, 2009 and next fall will enroll over 4,000 students.  The dynamics of working in an environment that includes working at a brand new academic institution in addition to being the "first of its kind" in China and at the same time adjusting to an entirely new culture has been a true Journey!

Living and working in China gives us a full immersion into the Chinese culture and enables us to gain a perspective on the society from the “inside”.  Many of the stereotypes people hold about the country are just that, stereotypes, but many pieces of the ancient cultural aspects of the society still remain, even after the Cultural Revolution and the last ten year effort of OPENING UP AND REFORM.  We’ll talk about the insights, frustrations, joys and humor in our experience of day to day life in China. 

Kathy served in the Office of Academic support at St. Olaf and Pat was a professor of Speech and Theatre before moving into the position of Director of International Education at St. Olaf.  Pat then served as a visiting Professor at California Lutheran University and as the Director of International Education at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota after retiring from St. Olaf in 2004.   Kathy and Pat have led two of the St. Olaf Global semesters and one Term in the Middle East in addition to a great many Theatre in London January interims.  They also have led Lifelong Learning programs through St. Olaf to Australia and New Zealand, Central Europe, around the world, England, Denmark and France.  They are scheduled to take a CLL program to South Africa in November, 2009 programs to Germany and London in 2010.
 
 
 

Committee Members: Jim Cederberg, Judy Ness Cederberg '66, Alice Hogenson Ellis '60, Karl Korbel '60, Rose Ann Korbel '61, Jon Rondestvedt '61, Brynhild Rowberg '39