Greetings from Augustana Campus!
A message from Augustana dean and executive officer, John Parkins
“Looking ahead, new developments are coming to our campus, including renovations to our gymnasium, the lounge space next to Monica’s Café in the Forum and more. These projects will refresh our spaces and create new opportunities to connect and welcome our community. New academic programming is also underway, with final approvals for work-integrated learning opportunities and more program offerings, in partnership with U of A faculties in Edmonton, coming soon.”
The Lane
News from around campus.
National Hub Calls Augustana Home
The Grassland Learning and Knowledge Hub, supported by a $4-million grant from Environment and Climate Change Canada, will build crucial understanding of what motivates conservation — or not — of Canada's grasslands.
Transformative Learning in Kenya
A new three-week course in Kenya gives students a chance to see sustainable development in action — and gain insights they can take back to their own communities.
The Secret of Her Success
Dr. Alexander Carpenter, musicologist and musician, analyzes Taylor Swift's huge hit Shake It Off to suggest a deep sophistication in her approach to songwriting and to her relationship with her legion of fans.
Debugging Popular Science Software
A comprehensive study of the vulnerabilities in Jupyter Notebook, a popular open-source web application researchers use to explore and analyze their study data, pinpoints the most common bugs in the software — a first step to improving it.
Weaving Lessons from the Past
Woven into the curriculum of a modern art course at Augustana, the act of crafting the rag rug article has plenty to teach anyone who cares about sustainability, says Dr. Andrea Korda.
Funny Women: A Hidden History
Looking at a variety of comedic performances from stand-up to plays and podcasts in her new course, Dr. Willow White illuminates the often hidden history of funny females and queer people dating back to the 17th century.
Rooting for Green
A new study helps get at the root of why residents in Camrose plant and maintain trees on their property. The survey is one of the first to explore what influences small-city residents in Canada to plant or remove trees on their property.
Coaching Excellence
Steve Enright of the Augustana Vikings has been named the recipient of the 2025-2026 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference Overall Coaching Excellence Award.
Livestock Diseases Take Psychological Toll
Culling livestock when serious disease strikes is devastating for farmers, and Augustana research suggests ways to better help them cope with the stress.
Art Students Receive Undergraduate Research Award for Collaborative Exhibit
In early 2025, a group of four Augustana art students launched a collaboration that will culminate in fall 2026 with an exhibit in the Augustana Forum. Women and Machines is the product of nearly two years of work by artists Isabelle R. Spohn, Evelyn Cheung, Annie Arciniegas and Darius Polishchuk, with the supervision of art history professor Dr. Andrea Korda and mentorship from art professor Julian Forrest, ’05 MFA.
The group, whose exhibit explores the dynamics of gender and technology as both uniquely human expressions, was awarded Augustana’s Dr. Roger Epp Award for Team-Based Undergraduate Research for this work. — SASHA ROEDER MAH, ’91 BA
Agricultural Speaker Series Launches
With the first event held in Fall 2025, the Agricultural Speaker Series fosters meaningful discussions on today’s agricultural challenges and opportunities. These free talks connect the local agricultural community to researchers, highlighting insights and innovations that are shaping the future of agriculture, rural communities and sustainability.
Young Learners on Campus
Reading University returns to Augustana Campus! In July 2026, program students will work to strengthen their reading, writing and literacy skills.
In the same month, students entering Grade 11 and 12 from across Canada will come to campus as part of the Shad Program — offering immersive, hands-on programming in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
Tree Cuttings Can Restore Sensitive Natural Areas
Research rooted in balsam poplars can help get sensitive, flood-prone natural areas back on track after damage from off-highway vehicles. Using trails that had been restored in Alberta’s Blue Rapids Provincial Recreation Area in 2017, researchers compared three types of cuttings that had been planted in this region from native tree species.
A Year in Numbers
All numbers are for the 2025/26 academic year unless otherwise noted.
940+
students on campus across Augustana Faculty and Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine programs — an approximate 10% increase from 2024/25.
10% international students
15% student-athletes
12% from Camrose and Camrose County
76% from Alberta
20,000+
attendees across public campus events from April 2025 - March 2026. Won't you join us?
TOP GIVING AREAS
Student Awards
Vikings Athletics
Research
Over 1,400
donations from 566 donors in fiscal year 2026.
37%
of total donors are from Camrose and area in fiscal year 2026.
$399,000
from donor-funded awards supported 150 students. Plus, eight new donor-funded awards were created!
$100,000
raised to support Vikings student-athletes during U of A Giving Day 2026.
Over $1 Million
in grant funding received to support Augustana research projects in fiscal year 2026.
211
student research presentations given at the Student Academic Conference.
Featured Stories
Beyond the Scoreboard
As the spotlight on women in sport shines brighter than ever, athletes are redefining what it means to win.
Core Course Brings Students, Local Business Together for Success
Students build invaluable career skills helping local alpaca-yarn business dress up its digital presence.
The Common
Get to know us better.
Meet new faculty and researchers
Brad Geddes
Assistant Lecturer, Management
Brad Geddes, ’98 BA, ’11 MBA, completed his bachelor of arts with concentrations in economics and rural development at Augustana before going on to graduate studies. He has taught at Augustana over the years, now entering a full-time role as assistant lecturer in management. With more than 25 years of public service leadership experience, Geddes’ background includes modernizing major contact-centre operations and coordinating disaster recovery.
For Geddes, leadership is about showing up for community, and his career in public service, executive leadership and higher education have given him a way to live that value every day.
Douglas Mugabe
Assistant Professor, Management
Growing up in rural Zimbabwe, assistant professor of economics and business management Dr. Douglas Mugabe was taught each of us has the responsibility and ability to shape the future we wish to see — a belief that he now passes on to his students.
A Fullbright Scholar, Mugabe’s research uses applied economics to address global challenges such as energy transitions, environmental sustainability, resource use, agriculture and climate change — with particular focus on orphaned and abandoned wells across Canada and the United States, and the broader economics of unconventional oil and gas development.
Laticia Chapman-Rainway
Postdoctoral Scholar, ACSRC
Dr. Laticia Chapman-Rainway, ’26 PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities (ACSRC).
During her PhD, Chapman-Rainway examined the history of rural-serving library systems, focusing on their role as a public place. She is now drawing on that experience to support co-lead and ACSRC director Dr. Clark Banack, AUC ’01, in a Canada-wide ethnography project exploring political opinions in rural spaces. Emerging from this work is her strong interest in how communities define themselves as political spaces and what that means to their survival.
Suddha Deb Roy
Postdoctoral Scholar, Social Sciences
Raised in a trade unionist household in northeast India, Dr. Suddhabrata (Suddha) Deb Roy’s journey as a writer, sociologist and global citizen was rooted in principles of social justice.
During his PhD, Deb Roy became interested in the sociological and political undercurrents of India’s pre-Independence era. Augustana’s first Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow, he analyzes the humanist roots of the social justice and activist discourses in South Asia. His work is based on the strong belief in the importance of understanding history and politics through a sociological lens, and vice versa.
Lauren Strumos
Postdoctoral Scholar, Ronning Centre
A love of nature imbues the work of postdoctoral scholar Dr. Lauren Strumos, who investigates how religious and nonreligious affiliations shape our relationship with the natural world. The sociologist with the Chester Ronning Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life began her undergrad interested in the intersections of religion and ecology, and has become increasingly
curious about the views of people who are not religious.
Now, she’s turning her attention from human responses to climate change to the values and concerns that connect people across diverse (non)religious identities.
Unlocking the Past
Breaking news from the past: The Dagligtale, Augustana’s student newspaper, is now available online! The newly digitized Dagligtale collection (“everyday language” in Norwegian) includes issues from 1978 to 2020, capturing student perspectives, photos and coverage of events on Augustana Campus.
The project came about when a group of students researching campus history had trouble finding information about the lives of past students. The alumni office, Augustana Students’ Association and faculty engagement librarian Kara Blizzard, ’10 BA, came to the rescue — rounding up more than 150 issues of the paper, which the library’s digitization team then scanned and uploaded to the Internet Archive.
2025 Alumni Award Recipients
Bob Bailey
Distinguished Alumni Award
Bob Bailey, CLC ’80, ’83 BEd, began his journey in the very city where he would later shape generations of young musicians. Born and raised in Camrose, his father was a trumpet player and member of a local dance band, while his grandmother served as a church organist and choir director. Music was not just a pastime — it was a way of life.
As a junior-high student, Bailey attended Charlie Killam School — the same school where he would eventually teach for over 37 years — and his passion for music education blossomed further during high school. Eventually, after completing an education degree at the University of Alberta, he returned to his hometown to develop a thriving music program at his old junior high.
A much-loved teacher and mentor, Bailey was a national finalist for the 2024 MusiCounts Music Teacher of the Year. “I’ve been blessed to have a career in something I enjoy and have a passion for.”
Craig Wentland
Lois Aspenes Award
When Craig Wentland, CLC ’86, attended Camrose Lutheran College (CLC), he never imagined that 40 years later, he would receive an award named in honour of his friend and mentor, Lois Aspenes.
Wentland’s career has been guided by his philosophy — and Aspenes’s example, as secretary for the director of College and Church Relations — that life is about relationships and community.
After completing his training and ordination, Wentland served as a pastor in the Camrose area for 11 years until Augustana University College (previously named CLC) merged with the University of Alberta. He was the perfect fit for the redesigned role of campus chaplain, where he could provide a “whole person education.”
“Students look to faculty and staff for models of what it means to be whole people,” explains Wentland. “With wisdom, faculty and staff need to reveal to students who they are — their passions, their struggles and how they’re involved in community and family life.”
Petra Cegielny
Alumni Citation Award
When Petra Cegielny, ’01 BA, started in the position of Aboriginal student advisor in 2007, she wanted to act as a facilitator of relationships and connection.
Cegielny — who is not Indigenous herself — began by working with allies to collect data on the number of Indigenous students who had attended Augustana or were currently on campus and identifying their needs.
What followed were years of hosting more and more popular events and programming, with Cegielny’s small office beginning to feel crowded. So, after consultations with community and with the help of $1 million from the U of A, wahkohtowin Lodge was opened in 2016. In this dedicated space Indigenous students gather with each other, Elders and community members and share their gifts through educational programs and workshops.
“My time at Augustana ended, but the students who entrusted me for support during those nine years are the ones making a difference now. They have become the change."
Class Notes
Learn about the exciting ways Augustana alumni are leading with purpose locally, nationally and globally.