#WhyGustavus Series: Möbius Initiative

Here is our second post in our #WhyGustavus series.  Gustavus is taking liberal arts education and raising it to a whole new level, because at Gustavus we care about helping produce well-rounded individuals who are prepared to positively contribute to the greater community after graduation. 

Möbius Initiative Highlights Value of Liberal Arts through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Gustavus Adolphus College’s new Möbius Initiative is offering faculty and students an innovative way to explore the liberal arts by connecting teachers and learners from different disciplines in a series of collaborative projects.

The initiative symbolically takes its name from the Möbius strip, a continuous curve with only one side, and celebrates the breaking of disciplinary boundaries and spirit of interdisciplinary cooperation that characterizes the liberal arts tradition and equips its students to challenge old paradigms and to anticipate and innovate throughout their lives.

Now in its first year, the program is already supporting projects ranging from a chaplain and economics professor presenting on the subject of dehumanization under capitalism, to a student/professor pair serving as artists-in-residence in a month-long chemistry lab, to a co-authored article on restorative justice in ancient Greece by a political science professor and classics professor.

“I’m excited about the willingness of early participants to engage outside their area of expertise,” Hanson-Peterson Chair of Liberal Studies and classics professor Eric Dugdale said. “These projects are often process-oriented, not goal-oriented, which gives participants the freedom to experiment and make mistakes as they learn.”

Eric Dugdale

Dugdale, one of the driving forces behind the initiative, hopes that the interdisciplinary liaisons will allow both students and faculty members to see the multifaceted nature of a liberal arts education. As the program continues to grow, he looks forward to including staff members and alumni in the projects to further expand the initiative’s scope and depth.

“Gustavus has a community in which faculty, students, and staff cooperate in many different configurations,” Dugdale explained. “There’s a spirit of collaboration on campus that Möbius supports by encouraging people to learn across departmental boundaries.”

The Möbius initiative is supported by the College’s John S. Kendall Center for Engaged Learning, the Office of the Provost, and the generous benefactors of the Hanson-Peterson Chair for Liberal Studies. Visit the Möbius Initiative website to learn more, see other ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations, or submit a project proposal.

Direct Link to Article: https://news.blog.gustavus.edu/2016/02/29/mobius-initiative-highlights-value-of-liberal-arts-through-interdisciplinary-collaboration/

Article courtesy of gustavus.edu, written by Director of Media Relations and Internal Communication JJ Akin, jakin@gustavus.edu.  

#WhyGustavus Series: TEDx at Gustavus

Here is our first post in our #WhyGustavus blog series.  This blog series is to show you reasons why Gustavus is an impressive and wonderful institution that provides a well-balanced liberal arts education for all students, including offering unique opportunities for our student-athletes.  The #whygustavus series will offer you a glimpse of some of these unique opportunities.  After all, don't you want to attend an institution that helps develop you as an entire person and provide you with a blueprint to be the best individual you can be in all areas of your lives?!  

Gustavus Adolphus College’s Center for Community-Based Service and Learning will host the College’s third annual TEDxGustavusAdolphusCollege event from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Wallenberg Auditorium. The conference theme is “ENGAGE!” and will feature a series of eight live speakers and two TED Talks via video.

Tickets for the independently organized event, licensed by TED, are $5 for Gustavus Students and $25 for the general public, and are limited to 100 tickets. Tickets can be purchased online at gustavustickets.com. The presentation will be recorded and archived online following the event.

Speakers will give presentations between five and 18 minutes, followed by a brief opportunity for audience members to discuss and share new learning and insights with each other. Scheduled presenters and topics for the TEDx event at Gustavus include:

Paul Batz

Talk Title: Sparking Goodness

​​Founder/president of Good Leadership Enterprises, Paul Batz will show that with shared values, good intentions and concern for people both personally and professionally, good leaders thrive in all kinds of market conditions and placate the complexities that test our resilience.

Annika Erickson

Talk Title: Making the Most of Life on Earth

Annika Erickson will suggest that more of us can and should make engagement with the richness of this world a priority. She will share her own strategies for overcoming challenges, and for moving beyond tourism to more satisfying forms of intercultural engagement




Fardousa Jama

Talk Title: Knowing Your Worth

“Volunteer of the Year” winner Fardousa Jama will talk about our mission to create a reason for being here. As we engage our goals there will be obstacles, but if you believe in yourself and believe in your decisions you will move forward.

Ryan Johnson

Talk Title: Engagement on the Big Science and Technology Issues

Ryan Johnson is a nationally recognized lawyer for innovative health care and life science companies. Johnson will show how he engages the public and policymakers on several of today’s biggest science and technology issues, including genome editing, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and energy.

Kathy Lund Dean

Talk Title: Why can’t we just all get along? Title VII religious protections 50 years on

Kathy Lund Dean currently holds the Board of Trustees Distinguished Chair in Leadership and Ethics at Gustavus. Her session will describe research on how American workers have responded to religious diversity in all types of organizations, and how this research engages by sharing workplace experiences.

Carol Markham-Cousins

Talk Title: What Does it Take to Push the Racially Biased System, and Fail?

Carol Markham-Cousins has experienced both the teaching and administrative aspects of education. After being removed as the principal of Washburn High School for standing up for equity in education, Markham-Cousins will talk about how she continues to find ways to engage all students in education.

Carry Metkowski

Talk Title: The Art and Science of Engagement

Part design thinker, part producer, and part coach, Carry Metkowski says that the jury is still out on a repeatable set of conditions needed to create engagement. In this session, Metkowski will take an unorthodox approach at examining what science is available behind engagement.

Thomas Thibodeau

Talk Title: Positive Power of Servant Leadership

Thomas Thibodeau is a distinguished professor of servant leadership at Viterbo University. He will speak about the act of servant leadership being both timely and timeless, and how it is expressed every day through our words, presence and commitment to the common good. ​




About TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxGustavusAdolphusCollege, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxGustavusAdolphusCollege event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

For more information on tickets or the conference in general, please e-mail tedx@gustavus.com, call organizer Dave Newell at 507-933-6069, or visit tedxgustavusadolphuscollege.com.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or fewer) delivered by today’s leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED’s annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, and made available, free, on TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

TED’s open and free initiatives for spreading ideas include TED.com, where new TED Talk videos are posted daily; the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from thousands of volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed; the annual million-dollar TED Prize, which funds exceptional individuals with a “wish,” or idea, to create change in the world; TEDx, which provides licenses to thousands of individuals and groups who host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Direct Link to article: https://news.blog.gustavus.edu/2016/03/01/gustavus-to-host-third-annual-tedx-event-on-april-23/

Article courtesy of gustavus.edu, written by Director of Media Relations and Internal Communication JJ Akin, jakin@gustavus.edu.