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St. Olaf to celebrate Founders Day Tuesday

By David Gonnerman '90
November 2, 2007

The St. Olaf College community will celebrate the 133rd anniversary of the founding of the institution Tuesday, Nov. 6, with a coffee reception in the Buntrock Commons Crossroads at 10:30 a.m., followed by a chapel service at 11:10 a.m. in Boe Memorial Chapel. The speaker will be Reidar Dittmann '47, professor emeritus of art and Norwegian.

Dittmann was a 21-year-old music student at Oslo University when the German occupiers closed the school in 1943, suspecting that it was a center of the resistance. They arrested thousands, including Dittmann, who was subsequently sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in southern Germany. Released near the end of the war, Dittmann received a scholarship from St. Olaf College, where he graduated with Bachelors of Music and Bachelors of Art degrees. He began teaching Norwegian at St. Olaf in 1947.

Dittmann was a catalyst, along with the late Ansgar Sovik '34, for the creation of St. Olaf?s respected international studies program. In 1952 he took his first group of St. Olaf students abroad (12 countries in 72 days), and by 1954 he was leading such tours annually. In 1976 he helped launch St. Olaf's Continuing Education for lifelong learners (now known as St. Olaf Study Travel). In 1977 Dittmann was awarded the St. Olav Medal by the King of Norway.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.