Pics of the Day
The Pic of the Day is featured on student and faculty pages, as submitted by members of the Augustana community. Here are some recent images. (Click on a photo to see a caption.)
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Members of the course COMM-210-B: Sexual Communication may not have traveled over J-Term, but their faculty member, Dr. Wendy Hilton-Morrow, reports that students still took quite a learning journey. Students gathered for a picture after their final class meeting.
Last week geology students in the Mojave Desert for J-Term asked a passerby to take a group photo. The stranger turned out to be Greg Johnson, Augustana geography major from 1983 (on the left)!
Andrés Restrepo-Sánchez, a nurse, Ph.D. student in Medical Anthropology at University of Iowa and Fulbright Scholar from Colombia, visited Dr. Lena Hann's PUBH-273 Reproductive Justice course to talk about his international research in obstetric violence. Elina Nilsson, visiting scholar from Sweden and the current Hildeman Fulbright Fellow in Scandinavian Studies at Augustana, also joined to talk about this important public health issue. The three faculty are all Fulbrighters from different counties who study diverse areas of reproduction. The students participated in group discussions about Restrepo-Sánchez's research, evaluated healthcare approaches to preventing obstetric violence, and asked questions about pursuing graduate study in these areas.
Dr. Ashley Burge and students from her Contemporary African American literature course expanded their studies on literary icon Toni Morrison by connecting her work to Black art and Black cultural expression in the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. They stopped for a treat of good conversation and deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's pizzeria in the heart of Chicago.
Dr. Jessica Schultz's PSYC-405: Risk & Resilience class is spending J-Term in Guatemala. The class studies how the context of children's lives influences their development by studying how it occurs within developing countries.
Pictured: Rylee Noack '26, Abby Degustino '25, Jaclyn Schmidt '25, Zoe Cervantes '25 and Grace Gustafson '26.
On Jan. 16, Donna Hare's COMM-111: Confident Communication class attended a networking luncheon and job shadow event with employers in the Quad Cities area. Big shoutout to CORE for making this happen!
Mark Safstrom's "Wilderness and Faith" J-term students are learning in, with and from creation while snowshoeing on Lake Ottawa in the Ottawa National Forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
This week, the new Student Solutions Hub opened in the Gerber Center across from the Brew! During J-Term, the table will be staffed weekdays from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. This offers a great opportunity for students to learn answers to their questions, find guidance on accessing campus resources, and get connected to the right offices for support. Pictured: Wendy Kelley, senior associate director of admissions, and Fati Talibi '27.
Augustana students and professors Dr. Elizabeth Lawrence and Dr. Xiaowen Zhang visited Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China, the group's second city after Hong Kong, and had a great day interacting with students from China. SUSTech is one of the top public universities in China, also one of China’s newest pioneering research universities.
Last Friday, creative writing students took a trip to The Atlas Collective in Moline to write poems and get inspired by books. And ended part of KWQC's story on the coffee shop's one-year anniversary!
For the first project of the term, students in Professor Anne Heide's J-Term course, ART-251: Loom Weaving, wove a sampler — an experimental cloth with exploration of various textures, colors and techniques.
Students in the First Year Global program created travel posters in anticipation of their upcoming J-term trip to Ecuador. This trip is part of the Environmental Justice and Ecuador course taught by Dr. Mariano Magalhães.
Students in Professor Mark Safstrom's "Wilderness and Faith" J-Term class headed from their first class session directly onto the lake ice for an intense game of broomball. The students are living, studying, skiing, skating and developing community together at Covenant Point Camp in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Five students are completing STEM internships in Costa Rica during J-term 2025: (from left) Hailey Turner '25, Selgie Okine '25, Renee Williams '26, Karen Rodriguez '25 and Grace Jenkins '26.
Over the holiday break, President Andrea Talentino invited international students to a warm and heartful dinner at her house.
Admissions and Financial Aid staff gather for a fun holiday photo in a tradition that goes way back, celebrating the end of a busy fall season.
Congratulations to the Geography majors on completing their Senior Inquiry projects last week! They enjoyed a celebratory lunch at La Rancherita after they presented their research.
Congrats to team Holy Shots, who won the Men's A Division Intramural Basketball Championship with a score of 44-35. From left: Brett Holcomb '26 (Freeburg, Ill.), Toby Splitt '26 (Fox River Grove, Ill.), Breyden Smith '26 (Prospect Heights, Ill.), Tristan Carone '25 (Huntley, Ill.), John Bolton '25 (Ingleside, Ill.), Mike Digioia '25 (Schaumburg, Ill.), Nate Henry '26 (Milan, Ill.), Darren Oregon '26 (Aurora, Ill.), Jake Miller '26 (Canton, Ill.) and Ethan Vrabec '27 (Mokena, Ill.).
Congrats to Team LeHennessey, who defeated the team of Men's Veebs in the Men's B Intramural Basketball Finals with a score of 53-34. From left: Sylvester Brady '26 (Joliet, Ill.), Josh Vook '28 (Schaumburg, Ill.), Teddy Hearne '28 (Spring, Texas), Levi Burke '26 (Pekin, Ill.), Magnus Wells '26 (Coffeen, Ill.), Evan James '27 (Oregon, Ill.), Nolin Hulett '26 (Dunlap, Ill.), Alex Sell '25 (Rosemount, Minn.), Zach Renner '26 (Belleville, Ill.), coach and music professor Dr. Joel Linscheid. Not pictured: team Captain Ian Empen '26 (Rock Island, Ill.).
Congrats to Delta Chi, who defeated the team of Delta Chi X Softball in the Women's Intramural 4v4 Basketball Finals with a score of 40-33. From left: Marley Aluyi '26 (Tremont, Ill.), Kirsten Nicholson '27 (Chicago, Ill.), Leslie Gamez '26 (Huntley, Ill.), Kylie Collachia '25 (Fulton, Ill.), team captain Cassandra Chandler-Haag '26 (Bettendorf, Iowa), and Kendall Phelan '27 (Lindenhurst, Ill.).
Geology major Shaun Duckett '25 unveiled Ecos: La Brea, his newly released educational prehistoric animal survival video game, set in the ice age ecosystem preserved by the famed fossil site of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, Calif. As co-producer, 3D modeler, environment designer, researcher and concept artist, Shaun has been researching, designing and digitally illustrating with seven collaborators for the last two years to bring their creative vision to fruition. Early access is now available on @Roblox.
Interested in learning more about the history of fungi on Earth? Then join the Mycophiles Club this Saturday, Dec. 7, at 5 p.m. in Olin 201 for a mushroom movie and Papa Johns pizza! We will also decorate a new banner for the club, for those who are more artistically inclined. For the Mycophiles final meeting of the semester, we encourage students to forget about the stress of finals week and join us in watching this film.
This week, we welcomed the first measurable snow on campus. For some students, this is their first time experiencing snow and winter in the Midwest. Stay warm, Vikings!
Augustana's annual Festival of Sankta Lucia celebration shares traditional Scandinavian Christmas carols, lessons and poetry. A cherished tradition of the Advent season in Nordic countries, the celebration includes a candlelight procession of singers led by a young woman robed in white with a crown of candles on her head, commemorating the martyred St. Lucy (d. 304 AD), whose feast day is Dec. 13. Hailey Turner '25 from Clermont, Fla., majoring in Scandinavian studies and biology, was this year’s Lucia.
Seniors Hana Bui (right), a communication studies and international business-marketing major from Haiphong, Vietnam, and Linh Tran (left), a multimedia journalism mass communications major from Hanoi, Vietnam, recently placed 19th in the Digital Marketing Competition and Summit hosted by Purdue University Northwest's College of Business. Bui and Tran were advised by Dr. Ann Ericson.
The international competition challenges college students to pitch real clients. For the fall 2024 event, participants built a digital marketing plan for Meats by Linz, a company that provides consumers direct access to Angus beef. Bui said the team used market research insights to tailor paid and owned media strategies to create the one-year digital marketing plan.
Dr. Tšooane Molapo and Provost Dianna Shandy teamed up with Chef Martin on Monday to create a meal inspired by Tšooane’s home country of Lesotho, using a special delivery of spices from Southern Africa. The group prepared two delicious curries: chicken and vegetables in coconut curry sauce and vegan and gluten-free vegetables and tofu curry.
Earlier this week Kai Swanson and Sangeetha Rayapati were interviewed by students in FYI-101, a course on what it means to be a good citizen, on their experiences of civic engagement.
Augustana Student Ambassadors brought the BOOM to last weekend's Academic Scholarship Day! The ambassadors worked with the Admissions team to bring home our newest class of Vikings.
Senior Charley Williams, a biology major from Morrison, Ill., won second place in the undergraduate poster competition at the Entomological Society of America annual meeting for her poster titled "Exploring Beetle Diversity: A Fusion of Art, Science, and Community Outreach." Williams traveled to the event, held Nov. 10-13 in Phoenix, Ariz., with Dr. Tierney Brosius, associate professor of biology.
Dr. Çağlar Çetin-Ayşe, this year’s recipient of the Swenson Research Center Faculty Research Stipend, led his Intro to Sociology students on an exploration of the Center's rich archives. Housed in the Denkmann Building, the Center provided a unique opportunity for students to examine World War I pamphlets and discuss the intersections of religion, nationalism, war, and democracy.