Dr. Paul Pribbenow, President of Augsburg University, welcome. And thank you so much for making the time today to discuss the Cedar Riverside Partnership.

Thanks, Louis, great to be with you.

How is life at Augsburg these days? I imagine it might be quiet.

The campus is quiet, it looks beautiful. Our grounds people are about the only folks that are working regularly on campus. We pivoted as did every other major institution, the end of March to online learning and working and we finished our spring semester, strong at the end of April, and now are turning all of our attention to the fall and trying to think through the intersection of different formats for teaching and learning, all the safety considerations, of course, the financial implications and all kinds of trends. So, enought to keep us busy.

You havea lot on your plate. Well, there's so much that I wanted to cover in this conversation, I want to talk about the challenges of being a university in an urban setting and the opportunities that represents, and your response to those challenges, especially the values and principles that you operate with or have lived. And then I thought we'd cover some practical implementation, some examples of the work that has been done. But first, I think it's important to allow our listeners to get to know you a little bit. As I recall, you were born and raised in Iowa, is that right?

I was born in Decorah, Iowa, my dad was a senior at Luther College. And we moved then from there to the seminary at St. Paul. And then Dad went to his first parish in Wisconsin, actually, so I lived in lots of small towns, Wisconsin, I'm the oldest of six kids. Ultimately, I went to Luther myself, graduated in 1978, and had a couple of episodes, I went there thinking that I was gonna become a minister, because then, those days, that's what the eldest child of a Lutheran minister did. But halfway through, I realized that I didn't think I could live my dad's life. And I got some good advice from a faculty member there about these places called divinity schools. So I actually graduated with a degree in sociology and political science, and then went off to the University of Chicago, where I pursued a masters and a PhD in social ethics. And that's an important piece of the puzzle for me, because as a sociology major, I got involved in lots of field work while I was at Luther. In fact, we did some good work in Mason City, Iowa, working with displaced workers. And I started to realize as a sociologist, that I could study that, but I actually didn't have the kind of foundation to make any kind of moral judgments about that. So I went off to the University of Chicago into the ethics program and social ethics program and really combined the kind of social analytical skills that went along with being a sociologist with the opportunity to actually, you know, make some judgments and to provide more of a kind of normative framework for how we respond to some of the challenges that we face in the world. I got deeply involved in world hunger issues and had lots of practical opportunities to practice my kind of ethical, you know, academic work, and really, in that, for me, that's the combination of practice and theory that has really defined my career. Now I'm finishing up my 19th year as a university president and in many ways, I see that that kind of beginning where I brought those two things together is something thatis critical to my work.

Well, it's clear that faith and value and ethical leadership is a really strong foundation for your life in your work. How did you decide that the path for you was to be a college president?

Yes, when I came out of graduate school, I had actually not finished my PhD yet, but I was still at the University Chicago, and they hire a lot of graduate students there to do different kinds of jobs. So I actually got a job in a fundraising office. And I started to realize that I had some administrative skills, and I got to know the kind of inner workings of the university a bit more clearly and tracked on some of the leadership there. I started to realize that likely I had some combination of both skills and a passion around administrative leadership for a university or college. And so that was the path I worked my way up through various settings. I was at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as the vice president. And then I went to Wabash College in Indiana, as Vice President, primarily focused on kind of external relations, fundraising, alumni relations, working with boards, and all of that kind of came together finally. And then in the late 90s, I realized that that combination of things that actually prepared me to be a president and so I set off on that journey and I had actually moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana thinking that I would end up in a small town even though I'd lived in Chicago for almost 20 years. But I actually found my first presidency at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, a medium sized city, and was there for five years before coming to Augsburg in 2006, as its 10th President. Come to find out you can be the president of a university in a large city. And so, again, combining my commitment to urban issues, together with the role that universities can play in their metropolitan settings. Lots intersections, there along the way.

Of course, you know, I know you also travel really around the world. I know you've been in China, Mexico, Central America, South Africa, is that part of your Augsburg presence?

Augsburg has developed over the past almost 40 years, relationships in a variety of places in the world have actually started actually in response to a request from the church, Lutheran Church, to help take late people to developing countries and so we started programs in Mexico, Cuernavaca and we were in Nicaragua, in Managua. And then in 1994, we also went to Namibia, in South Africa, which gets combined with South Africa and Namibia. And then, shortly after I arrived in 2006, we started a relationship with a kind of burgeoning liberal arts university in China. Of course, we have all kinds of ties to Norway, our traditional kind of our heritage comes out of the Norwegian immigrants that came to this part of the country in the mid 19th century. So so it does, it does fit the overall profile to be connected to these places, and to think about how we are actually educating global citizens. And it's interesting for us also, because of where we're located, we're actually in a neighborhood, then we're surrounded by people who come from different parts of the world. And so, so the combination of that international kind of work that we do in those other countries together with what we can experience in our own neighborhood makes for a very rich learning environment.

It must. I know, then you have this broad global footprint, even as a relatively small university, but a very strong local orientation to your local place. Let's talk a bit more about the challenges that you find in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood where Augsburg has been now for quite some time.

So we've actually, we've actually been in the particular location where we're located right now for about 147 of our 150 years. So we were brought to this neighborhood by Norwegian immigrants who had settled in then the village of Minneapolis, and wanted to have a seminary. So we were a seminary initially starting in 1872, in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood. So and we stayed in that same spot, basically, the, you know, a little bit expanded footprint, but for the most part that that same location and, and so for us, it's about place, it's about how place matters. And so even if those founders were, in fact, Norwegian immigrants, now we are surrounded by immigrants from other parts of the world. So primarily Somalis came starting in the early 90s, but also Ethiopians, Koreans, Vietnamese, so the neighborhood, which may be one of the most diverse zip codes between Chicago and Los Angeles is made up of people who have come to this country have been brought, usually by social service agencies, correct refugee resettlement and those kinds of programs, but now has settled into the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, trying to carve out a life for themselves in this new new setting. And so here's Augsburg 147 years in place alongside of these folks, you know, really trying to develop their own place. And of course, we also have the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota, we have the big M Health Fairview campus. So an interesting neighborhood in that regard of immigrants surrounded by fairly significant institutions, and trying to carve out what that means to live alongside each other to be good neighbors. But also to deal with the challenges that we know come along with a neighborhood that is full of folks who may be experiencing poverty or trying to get into unemployment issues, we've had challenges with violence along the way. opportunities for youth to have the kinds of activities they need. We're kind of a food desert. We're also kind of an education desert for the K 12 level. Our students have to leave the neighborhood for the most part to go to schools. And so just a combination of challenges that that in fact, really set the stage for a lot of the work that we've been doing through the Cedar Riverside Partnership.

You know, before we turn to the partnership, I just think in terms of perspective, many colleges and universities or for that matter, hospitals or corporate campuses, are tempted in a setting like that, to focus within, to just set their boundaries and concentrate on their own real estate and try to build up a sense of security and safety, but it can also be isolating. So I'm just curious how you see Augsburg's perspective over time in terms of the focus within versus looking outward?

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's one that has been at the heart of Augsburg work really going back to the mid 60s, if you go before the mid 1960s, you would find that Augsburg, you know had on occasion, really fought off the neighborhood, really didn't understand what it meant to be a part of the neighborhood, in fact, was concerned about some of the some of the violence, some of the vice in the neighborhood. What happened in the mid 1960s is that one of our faculty members, a sociologist, went off on a sabbatical and spent a year studying the role of universities in urban settings. And he came back from that sabbatical and actually prepared a paper which I still have the mimeograph copy of, which argued that it wasn't good enough for Augsburg, Augsburg to be just in the city that it'd be of the city. That was a turning point, a turning point for curriculum. So he helped to develop a more robust sociology program with social work program, Metro Urban Studies program, they're still signature parts of our curriculum. But he also encouraged students and faculty, colleagues and staff to think about their responsibilities to be neighbors. And so a whole variety of practical programs has started to unfold. And so for me that that's the thread that then runs through the work. So when I came over in 2006, as its 10th, President, I knew that that trajectory, I knew that history, I knew what it meant for the campus to, to have those kind of commitments again, both with its students on campus, but then also reaching out. So very strong folks, and experiential education, major kind of programs and service we call service learning, combining curriculum with experiential opportunities. So that fully baked into the culture of the place. As a campus, fascinating folks that visit Augsburg are always surprised, there's no gates, there are no fences, it's a fluid boundaries to the neighborhood, that we think about the neighborhood as a classroom for our students, we urge them to get out and about. We have the oldest city park in Minneapolis in the heart of our campus, and it's still a public park. So we have all these kind of markers of, if you will, of what it means to be neighbor in a way that institutions can do that. And that that's really shaped my work over the past 14 years is to think about how do we even strengthen that commitment, and then think practically, about what it means about the work we do alongside of our neighbors?

Well, it's so powerful that you have that vision and really a physical setting where you've lived it out, trying to seek to be a neighbor, rather than establish your own fortress. And so that's very distinctive. I know that at some point, leaders from the neighborhood began a conversation about forming some kind of more explicit partnership with the larger institutions in the neighborhood like Augsburg. So let's go back to that time. And as I recall, there were several specific incidents that really became catalyst for forming a more intentional partnership.

Yeah, and I think, probably 12 or 13 years ago, when in fact, you and I first met when you were doing the feasibility study that led to the creation of the Cedar Riverside Partnership, but what it had been occasioned by the kind of challenges in the neighborhood, so of, you know, unemployment, violence, some of the placemaking kind of challenges, in terms of institutions, perhaps, especially the large institutions that are kind of turning their back on the neighborhood, and we're even in some of the architectural projects that that came along, that just were not, they weren't friendly, or they were, they were really hostile if you will, to, to creating a sense of community and, and then we came together actually formally in the partnership in the summer of 2008. And immediately, almost almost immediately, we were challenged with, with an incident that, for me, is the kind of pivot point for the work that we've now done over the past 12 years. On a Monday night during our homecoming week, in the fall of 2008, one of our students Nur Ali was murdered. As he came out of the Brian Coyle Center, the community center located at the West edge of Cedar Riverside, and he had actually broken up a fight in the community center. And while he was there tutoring students, doing what we ask our students to do being volunteers. And as he came out of the building, one of the people that had been involved in that altercation shot him. That person who did that, apparently people know who it is, he was brought to trial, all of the witnesses disappeared. So he's never been fully convicted of that crime. So for me, that moment, could have been a place where we went to one of two

we either could have done exactly what you suggested earlier, which is that we could have pulled back and gone kind of within, to keep ourselves safe, kind of hunker down, if you will, build fences and keep people out. Or we could go down a path where we would say no, this isn't the kind of neighborhood that we want to be a part of. And, and I think the good fortune is that we made the latter choice. And, and I remember the particular moment for me when it really hit, it was at a gathering at the Brian Coyle Center was with a whole variety of folks from the neighborhood, and they were grieving and of course, looking for more security and more patrols and trying to figure out how they could build better trust with the police department. And, and one of the Imams, Muslim religious leaders, stepped to the microphone. And as they always do, when they, you know, begin to speak, he said, God is good. And I thought to myself in that moment that, that that's it. I mean, it's about believing that, in fact, this isn't what God intends for us, no matter what your faith tradition might be. We need to be neighbors to each other. And, and I think, it's real interesting to look at the work of the partnership, then because in that first year, a lot of our work was focused on safety. We were really trying to say what do we do to make this neighborhood a place where people do trust, and how do get the police department put liaison officers on the street, who are in fact Somali themselves so that people learn to have a relationship there that can be trustworthy. And it was interesting to me a few years later, former police chief Dolan was at an event in the neighborhood, as he was getting close to retirement, and he said to me, that he had never seen a neighborhood transformed in a way that Cedar Riverside had in terms of its relationship to public safety. And I that to me, was a, that that meant that the work we had done as we came together as institutions and neighborhood organizations and city and county government that, but the work we were doing as a partnership was in fact, creating a kind of asset-based vision of the neighbor as opposed to one that when we all pull back into our own corners, and so, so that that was the, that was certainly the defining moment for me in this work, and here we are 12 years later. And we've achieved so much in those 12 years, we've had our, had our challenges, that are, continue to have some of our bumps that we have, but that's part of the work, is kind of wading into the messiness if you will, of sometimes how neighborhoods operate and, and still believing that together we can achieve something more than we can do on our own.

So this has become such a unique partnership, you have Augsburg and you serve as the chair of the partnership, you have M Health Fairview, a very large health system, with a major hospital campus and, and leadership offices right there in the neighborhood. You have one of the largest housing projects in the city, and the developer and owner and manager of that project, George Sherman is there. And you have city, Minneapolis, city council members, county commissioners, and all kinds of different neighborhood organization leaders. It's a very unique combination of people, how would you say the partnership has been able to discover its purpose and what its goals are?

Yeah, part of it, I think we were very clear when we came to the table initially, especially coming out of your feasibility report, which had been called for by the neighborhood, I mean, and paid for actually, if I remember right, by the NRP organization and, and that that, to me was a key that they were asking us to consider how we could come to the table with them, and leverage whatever assets we might have. And those weren't just those weren't necessarily financial assets, but actually were assets of presence, assets of influence, assets of leadership in various ways to help the neighborhood achieve what it wanted to do. So, so in that way, the institutions sat there alongside the neighborhood organizations, or the tenant associations, or the park board or anybody else that came to that table and said, 'what can we do together to use our various assets to create a healthier, more just neighborhood?' And I've done a lot of work now, as you well know, Louis, over the country with various kind of they call anchor institution partnerships. And this still stands as one of the most fascinating just because of the mix of people that we bring to the table on a regular basis to think about how we, we can do this work together. And, you know, and that that meant we had to overcome early on, especially some of the skepticism, which still comes up about big institutions and their agendas, and, you know, power dynamics that are at play and this notion of somehow we're all rich, and we should just put money into the mix. And that would be what we could contribute. And I think you know, we've had our moments where that continues to be some of the dynamic, but I think we've proven that there are ways to leverage a variety of assets to in fact accomplish something that, that is good for all of us. And that, that for me is that one of the best things about this anchor institution kind of movement is that it says institutions have self interest. I mean, it doesn't deny the fact that we have self interest. The neighborhood organizations have self interest, the city and county government has self interest. But when we come to the table and state that self interest and then look for the shared value that can come out of that mix that we create there, then, then in fact, I think it's a much healthier kind of dynamic that gets built in. And we've certainly seen that on a variety of the successes that we've had as a partnership, I think over the past 12 years.

It sure seems as though, when you get to different layers of government, the city, the county, the park board, you have these various institutions, a hospital, a university, large housing project, you have all these different neighborhood organizations, the local business association, the neighborhood organization, other nonprofits there sitting in the neighborhood -- each could be operating within their own silos, and not pay close attention to what the others are doing. And what you have envisioned is a way in which all these different entities can share their common goals. So ground themselves in the work, that the neighborhood envisions for itself. But then how can you coordinate the efforts and align assets and resources to make things happen? I think it's fascinating, and it's truly been powerful. And I know that the partnership has said that it's concentrating on safety. You mentioned that powerful beginning and focus on safety. There's been work on job employment and youth service, looking at some of the redevelopment projects that are occurring at some scale in the neighborhood. And then key infrastructure projects that always impact place and livability and neighborhood. So maybe let's take a moment now to kind of walk through some of those who our listeners can be mindful of the tangible specifics, in terms of outcomes. In terms of safety, not only did you coordinate public and private security efforts, and you talked about increasing the diversity of the local police presence. But as I recall, there, there was a Safety Center that was the product of combined efforts, too.

Yeah, that was a just a great kind of incident that happened where the renovation of the very dense housing development at the at the kind of again, the West edge of the neighborhood, actually had opportunities in that to think about other uses of space, in addition to the renovation of apartments and the like. So actually it led to the creation of a partnership with the, with Minneapolis police department to create a safety center, which is staffed by a community focused staff member. And what she's done, there is both keep track of what's going on in the neighborhood kind of behind the scenes and kind of understand, again, what the police think they need to do, but also to kind of pick up the intel, if you will, from folks on the streets. But he's also created a space where in fact people feel comfortable to come together as community. So she's got meeting a couple meeting rooms that she's able to use, so that it's really become a wonderful resource for the entire neighborhood and to have that presence. And that is something that I think 15 years ago, no one would have imagined could have happened here in theCedar Riverside neighborhood. So so that was a powerful piece, I think you mentioned the other thing, which is because of all these institutions and organizations in the in the neighborhood, we all have our own security or safety forces. So M Health Fairview has their own, University of Minnesota, Augsburg, the housing development has its own private security, Park Board, park district has its own police. And what we found was that with some intentionality, we were able to say let's think about what they do, kind of, first of all, in their own silos. And then let's think about where the gaps are as a result of not thinking about the integration of that work. And it's led to, I think, monthly gatherings now of folks from these different forces that at least think together about, you know, where they can support each other and complement each other, if you will, with things like safety patrols and the like. And so, just in just communication with each other also about some of the intel that they are gathering about particular incidents. And I have to say that overall, the the crime rate in the neighborhood has really come down significantly over the decade or so that we've been doing this work.

That's powerful. I know you've also created something called "Scrubs Camps." Tell us about that.

Yeah. Well, one of things. We're concerned about it for young people. And of course, I have again here self interest. I want people to go to college, you know, they're young people go to college and to get a good college education, whether it's a community college or a four year private. But we also knew that a lot of to kids in the neighborhood, it was hard to, for them to think about what that track looked like. They just didn't have that, parents would have probably hadn't gone to college, they, they weren't necessarily thinking about what they could do to, to kind of go up a path that will lead them into a particular profession. Well, and we knew that health care was a great need in the neighborhood, around the city and region for folks in various health care roles. And so we partnered with, with our big hospital partner M Health, Fairview, as well as with HealthForce Minnesota, which is an organization that thinks about some of these kind of questions of creating those kind of pipelines of staff, and launch of the urban scrubs camp, which is a summer program, where we basically bring young people to campus. What started as an overnight camp, it's now just a day camp, but and what they experienced over five days is an introduction to various types of roles in the healthcare world, healthcare space. So everything from, you know, nursing to being a doctor to being a social worker to being a phlebotomist, and just like a whole ranges of things. And, and we bring in faculty from our institutions, as well as docs and others from the healthcare become the faculty members, they get to go out see experiential, Sim labs and things like that. And so they, they get a full week of really thinking through those pipelines. And we've now I think, I think we're 10 years in or something here at Augsburg. We started a similar camp over at St. Paul College, in St. Paul, probably five, six years ago. There are now these scrubs campus, also around the state in different locations. So we're, we were pleased that we were able to be on that front end and, and we've focused primarily on students to come in from the populations that you know, that we serve primarily in the neighborhood, but also other parts of the city. They're very successful. And we've even garnered significant scholarship support from different organizations. So we're able to provide folks this opportunity without they're having to pay for it and very excited about what that I think, as a model means. And one of the things we're starting to track on now is which one of those young people maybe as a middle schooler, came to this or high school came to this and then comes to one of our institutions, and actually pursues a degree in nursing or goes on to medical school or something like that.

Well, that's a powerful demonstration to show high school students that they, it is feasible and very achievable for them to go to college that they can pursue a career in health care, which is really a diverse number of, of jobs and opportunities, professional opportunities, and for so many of these students, you brought hundreds of students each summer, over the years, that many of whom are come from a low income background. Many are first generation college attenders. And you've created this vision, and I know many of them have gone on to college and are pursuing healthcare careers. So that's really amazing. You also through the partnership created something called the Cedar Riverside Opportunity Center, which is again, quite a story of collaboration and combination of different organizations and units of government sharing their resources.

Yeah, probably, overall the opportunity center is probably our most comprehensive project that we've that we were able to accomplish. A lot of it was, again, going back to the similar issues with the youth unemployment rate is just skyrocketing, young men in particular, unemployment rates that are just in, you know, 50 - 60% range, something like this. And so what we started to realize was that, again, it's similar, it's similar kind of theme of how do you create pipelines where you are coming alongside these young people, offering them the services and education training they need in order to in fact imagine a pipeline to a job. So, so yeah, it started actually fascinating started with the County library folks, initially, were helping us to think about this, the county board was very supportive. Ultimately, we partnered with the Minneapolis College, the two year community college provides most of the kind of educational support. M Health Fairview really came in and really tried to focus on again on job training and trying to create pipelines into healthcare. We worked alongside of an organization called Emerge, which goes job training and job development kind of work, nonprofit work. And so the funding came in some combination, we actually found space for it, and we raised money, you helped, you certainly helped, you with most of those grants that helped to bring in funding for both the capital improvements, and then the ongoing support comes primarily from the county and the city. And, and it's been a really interesting thing to watch it unfold. So early on, I think, again, trust issues, trying to make sure that it was actually focusing attention, but it's now become this kind of one stop shop located right in the heart of the immigrant community for folks to come in and get the range of services that they need from a variety of partners. And it's making a difference. We have statistics that are coming in quite regularly now about you know, folks getting jobs, especially particular employers that really have seen it as an opportunity to come in and have an impact. And so places like Amazon and Medtronic, whole variety of companies that have been partnered with us and thinking about this work. So it really stands I think, as a beacon, again, of what, when people come to this table and see an issue and can think about how they, you know, no, one of us would have been able to create something I think, as as powerful as this model is, and but together, we did it. In fact, I think if we were doing this, as we were originally intended to do it, we would have probably been at the Opportunity Center, actually meeting there in order to show the urban investors, you know why this work is so important.

Well, again, I think, as I understand it, hundreds of Cedar Riverside residents have found employment opportunities through that center. So it's powerful I, as I recall, there's work with trade unions to find apprenticeships as well as specific training to become heating and ventilation specialists that are very well paying jobs and a quick track to a really good career. You've also done work, through the partnership to gather all the different youth serving organizations in a collaborative. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah, one of the things that we're particularly concerned about are in fact, the youth in the neighborhood, because again, some of the issues with them, what activities were available for them, and who was helping to coordinate that. And what we found was we had a very large number of very small organizations that were popping up trying to respond to the needs of youth, whether it was through sports, things or other kinds of activities. And we realized that we needed to find some way to bring that into some kind of collaboration. So with the City of Minneapolis' help and their youth collaborative, folks, we were able to bring some staffing, helping to begin to bring those groups together and get them into conversation about how their work fit together. We, also ultimately provided some financial support to hire a recent recent Augsburg grad who worked for a summer and more to be with the youth to understand some of the challenges that they had and think about how this work could be better coordinated. So youth work has been one of the themes of the partnership right from the beginning, I think there were four or five themes that we laid out early on, and we've actually just ticked most of them off by virtue of looking at these concrete ideas, safety was certainly on top of top of mind. Placemaking, so the whole infrastructure work was important. The issues around employment of healthy economies, so the Opportunity Center, and then the focus on youth, with the youth collaborative really allowed us to do it. Now. I would say that one of the things about the partnership is it's we're proud of some of these outcomes that lead to some of these very concrete strategies, ongoing strategies. But we never want to lose sight of the fact that those that work has to continue, not just within those particular kind of entities and programs that we develop. And we've, we've learned that even as we develop those, especially in an immigrant neighborhood, there are other challenges, sometimes with other political issues in the neighborhood, issues of leadership, and consistent leadership for these organizations, when in fact, culturally, perhaps, they aren't always clear how to navigate some of the ins and outs of the US society. And so it's actually been interesting, because we've actually done that not through the partnership, but through Augsburg and some other entities, we've actually focused also on a kind of leadership development program that's been very well received and successful in helping to educate the emerging leaders in issues like how to deal with the press and media, how to how to work on writing grants, to foundations and corporations, you know, how to how to kind of build teams, if you will, effective teams that can work together. And so, but I would say is that the partnership is probably the most comprehensive kind of organization in terms of all folks at the table, but there's lots of subsets that then kind of go off and work on particular aspects of the work because of what they realize they can do together. And so that that, to me, again, kind of represents the best of this work. It's not that everything has to happen at one table where you create that table for the sake of the opportunities that arise there for people to work together in ways.

And there are ongoing challenges. I know the opioid crisis has been one that neighborhood leaders, especially the Somali mothers, have made visible with their concern about young people and opioid addiction, and that really is engendering some important collaboration among Augsburg in your health faculty, as well as community, service learning opportunities, we have M Health Fairview lending its expertise in chemical health, and really working hand in hand with the neighborhood organizations that are really looking at the face of this opioid crisis. So again, there's much more work to be done.

Right. And when I think that's, that's it, you know, what's next. As we move through these issues, we certainly again, we, we keep paying attention to what's going on with the work that we've, we've accomplished. But we also know that we haven't yet fully embraced what it means to be the kind of healthy, just neighborhood that we want. We still have still have high unemployment, we still, you know, I think the youth gangs have been a challenge, again, the opioid piece and addiction to opioids is that you're right, that's become top of mind for folks. I would say right now, for example, in the pandemic times that we're in this is a particularly vulnerable neighborhood, as we think about just the kind of density of living in that, so what they call the congregate living challenges that we have. So we're always thinking about, again, paying attention to what we have done and what we can, how we can continue to improve that, even as we are aware of kind of additional horizons for the challenges ahead. But the fact that we're at that table, and working together means that I think we have the same opportunities to respond constructively and responsibly, to those challenges as we go forward.

You know, one of the things Paul, you mentioned earlier is Augsburg's focus on a sense of place. And personally, I think I know that's a very important value, and both from a lived experience as well as an academic perspective. And I know that the partnership through your leadership has attended to major infrastructure projects, and really had an impact, as I think back on the reconstruction of both Riverside Avenue and Cedar Riverside, or Cedar Avenue. Those who have really been defining works as well, maybe you could remind us of the interplay of the partnership and the public works involved.

Right, yeah, this and I've mentioned this phrase a couple times, this notion of placemaking, that actually, you know, the decisions you make about infrastructure, like roads, and you know, how buildings are positioned along the street, you know, they make a difference for how people experience a neighborhood. And so, and I, for me, this work has really been shaped, by you're right, I have a particular academic interest, I studied the whole settlement house movement, you know. And that whole movement is based on a notion that when you settle into a neighborhood, part of what you're doing, when you settle in, is to think about how you take care of that neighborhood, how you, you tend to the needs of that neighborhood. And that's been a big theme for us at Augsburg, but, but you're right, so Riverside as a major artery, thoroughfare that goes right down through the heart of Cedar Riverside, the city had decided that it was time to replace that, that roadway and was going to be a two year project, very complicated project, because, again, that kind of major access point through the neighborhood, but also for a lot of organizations, it was the way we got to where we needed to be. And I remember conversations with the City Public Works folks over just some of the rerouting of you know of some of the traffic that was going to come right through our campus or through somebody else's campus. I remember a particular incident where they were going to route all of the ambulances going to Fairview's emergency rooms, right through the heart of Augsburg's campus. And they hadn't really thought through the implications of that. And I mean, it's just a concrete example of sometimes it may, not malicious. So this would be folks that didn't have access to information or perspective that would allow them to make a better decision. So, so the fact that we were at that table with them on the, on the Riverside project meant that I think what we accomplished there was both during the construction, as tough as it was to have it all going on at the same time. We made it made the best of it by bringing our own perspectives and needs to the table and helping to think through some of those questions. We also were able to get a boulevard of put in which kind of cut down the traffic patterns in a particular in a healthier way. We created bike lanes that probably weren't necessarily always going to be a part of things. We made sure that some of the accessibility issues were covered. And so I think the end result of that project was really just one where we, to just be quite concrete, I think we we enhanced the value of property along that street by virtue of what we were able to accomplish in partnership with the city. And, and then that carried over to the Cedar Avenue project, which was a couple years later, where they were thinking about widening the road, it was going to cut sidewalks and other issues of having trees along there, just just again, streetscape that was actually more friendly, if you will, that really invited people to, as opposed to be fearful for their life actually invited them things like crossings across a very busy street and creating kind of safe way for that to happen. So, so I think we've created a trust level with the city, which actually now is playing itself out, in particular with a project that Augsburg is involved in, which is creating a new bridge pedestrian bridge over the interstate. So folks that know our neighborhood know that Cedar Riverside was basically cut off from the rest of the city when I 94 was built in the late 50s, early 60s, and then also the trench that goes down Washington into the University of Minnesota campus, essentially cut off Cedar Riverside. So one of our themes has been how do we reconnect neighborhoods. So for Augsburg, in particular, the Seward neighborhood, which is right on the other side of the freeway from us that used to be connected. We have pictures of the time, when in fact, the park is in our, on the edge of our campus right in the middle of our campus, was in fact the park also for our neighbors in Seward. When the freeway went in, and they built a very rickety, what one of the scariest pedestrian bridges I've ever had to cross with lots of traffic zooming by underneath, you know, we've been trying to make the case that they should build a new pedestrian bridge, which is wider, again, architecturally more friendly. So that actually built on the grid, right now that the pedestrian bridges there actually drops into the middle of the block, as opposed to right on the street grid. So we have been working on that. And interestingly enough, just a year or so ago, a wayward truck driver actually hit the pedestrian bridge that was there, which was a sad thing, nobody was hurt, thank heavens, but that has actually led to the opportunity now to bring this question even further on people's agenda. And we have a temporary bridge now, which, to be quite honest, is better than the original bridge. So we're not complaining about that. But in very serious conversations, again, now, both with the city and the state about building a new bridge that would reconnect the neighborhood. For me that that will be a very tangible sign of what again, the work we've done over the past 12 years has allowed us to even be in that conversation, to have a chance to just think about how we reconnect neighborhoods that were that were disconnected from each other, with a of time in urban renewal when that's what people did. And we know that in the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, same thing happened there, the disruption that happened to people's lives, we're really working hard to think about how we can respond to that.

Well, that's really, those are classic issues in in urban living, and making these major thoroughfares more livable and walkable, with wider sidewalks and boulevards and better lighting, as well as the idea of bridging over that expanse of that freeway trench, and reconnecting people in neighborhoods are really powerful demonstrations of partnership. And it really these are the kinds of things that don't happen without lots of different organizations and leaders from different units of government and institutions, coalescing around what their priorities are to move those resources to get those changes made. I know you've also had some really interesting work on expanding recreational facilities for the neighborhood. As I recall, you've been working with the YMCA and the park board, the city park board, and the community center, Brian Coyle, as well as Augsburg and Fairview tell us a little bit about what that has been about and the vision there.

We'll go back to the beginning of our conversation when I talked about the murder of our student at the Brian Coyle center. And one of the challenges at Brian Coyle center throughout its history has been it just doesn't have enough room for the kids to have the time they need in gym and other kind of activities. And so we've known that it to be an issue for a long time. I think we got to a point where we said we've got to figure out how to increase recreational space for students or young people in this neighborhood. And it's just so happened that Augsburg was involved in a conversation about a piece of property that we own that that had potential for some development. And so we came to the table and said, well, what if we put on the table the possibility of recreational facilities that might be located in a couple different places in the neighborhood. Could we really expand that? And for Augsburg, we said we'd be willing to talk about whether that could happen and as part of the plan in our campus. And so we did. We partnered with a variety of neighborhood organizations, and M Health Fairview came to the table. As you mentioned, the YMCA came, the park board was deeply involved, of course, because they really helped to manage the things linked to the Brian Coyle Center, the Pillsbury Community, the folks that run the Brian Coyle Center came to the table. And we made it very clear that we weren't looking to build something just for Augsburg. We wanted to talk about the joint needs of the entire neighborhood for ra ecreation facility, and then to find the best solution for that, in whatever form it took. And so I, I would say that, you know, as much as it was, I think, helpful to that process for us to name our property as a, as a particular opportunity there, that wasn't the, again, the kind of be all and end all, it was really about engaging the conversation with folks seeing that it was possible to think differently about how we responded to a need like that. Ultimately, now we're in a conversation where, in fact, that Augsburg spot is not the best place for property, there is a new proposal that's come up, which I think is actually exciting about expanding the space down closer to the Brian Coyle Center, and providing that kind of additional recreational space. And, and that was a result of very thorough, brought in outside consultants and architects took the time to think through those questions. We never left that table, we stayed at that table, even as the model changed. And I'm excited to think about what that might mean for the neighborhood coming forward. And we'll see it again is, I think, a significant outcome of the fact that we've built this kind of trustworthy relationship with our neighbors and our neighboring organizations over the past decade plus.

Well, again, there's so much potential there. And it's the power of the collaboration that I think tells that story. You know, we're having this conversation remotely, in part, well, really, because of the COVID 19 pandemic. And I know, that's impacted your life at Augsburg in many different ways. But even with this partnership, I know there's been some work thinking about how, as a collaboration, there could be a response to this. So you've been thinking about engaging your students and your graduates in some work and also, again, Fairview M Health Fairview as a health care organization, partnering with our large housing project leader, George Sherman, to think about access to clinical resources and educating residents about this pandemic. Tell us a little bit more about that vision.

Well, again, part of the whole idea behind the anchor institution movement, of which Cedar Riverside Partnership is a great example, is that we all know that we have various assets and gifts that we can bring to the table. And one of the things, for example, for university is that we have a lot of people. I've got 3500 students and 500 staff in the faculty, and so when do those people become an important asset that can be deployed for some purposes, which would both help them potentially gives them a job or whatever, but also would allow us to respond to a need. So one of the things we're working on right now is the possibility of responding to the state of Minnesota's need for contact tracers. And so I have a very kind of distinguished staff of the faculty staff, but epidemiology is one of their focal points in public health. And so we have all the opportunities to do training and our students could be part of a corps that would be available to do the kind of contract raising that we know will be important in response to getting back to work and to school safely. So that, again, I just the innovation, think about how we bring an asset we have to the table around the specific challenges is another example, I think of what this partnership has allowed us to do. The work with M Health and Sherman associates is another great example of where we've got these thousands of residents who live in the tower of Riverside Plaza tower, and they've culturally, sometimes not fully comfortable with the kind of U S health system. And so how can we help them to understand by using kind of culturally appropriate means to engage them and educate them about some of the challenges of the virus and some of the safety procedures that we need? You know, we've had some challenges in the neighborhood, for example, with vaccines and to anti vaccine kind of issues. And so the more we can do to help folks to understand the importance of this both for themselves, as well as for their neighbors, becomes an important part. And that was made possible again, because those folks were at that table together. I'm not sure that Sherman and Associates as a housing developer would have had a relationship with M Health Fairview if it hadn't been for the Cedar Riverside Partnership. So because of that, an idea is born and we have the infrastructure, the means of, of pursuing something like that. And I think there are probably lots of other issues, some of the challenges I mentioned earlier about being a food desert, you know, some of the issues of homelessness, homelessness, you know, that's right on the edge of our neighborhood, the encampments that have been popping up here. So there are issues about how we respond to the needs of those in our neighborhoods that are housing insecure. And, and again, I really am, because we have the right people around the table, I think we are in a position to respond effectively to those challenges.

Well, it's amazing to think about all the work that you've described what the neighborhood has achieved, and in partnership with these institutions and local government. It's amazing, but the work continues, there's still much ahead. I'm struck by how any university president in this day and age has a lot on their plate. And I know you must have so many internal demands in terms of academic leadership and the financial planning for your institution and fundraising. But yet, as you live this work, it is very clear that you are externally focused and spend a great deal of your time looking outward, it's really an interesting model of presidential leadership. Is that intentional?

It is, I think, part of it is linked again to Augsburg's kind of identity and mission in the world, that means that its leader, would be expected to you know, be a voice, if you will, for social justice and the neighborhood, and I have a board that has been very supportive of that role. They hired me knowing that I was a social ethicist, you know, who had these kind of commitments to the place and to the role of institutions in urban settings. That said, it's been very important then that I build the kind of team, you know, on campus, so that those kinds of other challenges that you mentioned, around academic leadership and finance and those kinds of student affairs and things, there have been people who understand that they have my full confidence and trust. And so it's been been good. And, you know, 14 years in, that wasn't the case, the day I stepped into the job, but it's now 14 years in, we've been able to really make my work, my leadership work about the role of Augsburg in the world. And we've now baked it into, you know, it's in our strategic plan. And we are very clearly focused on how we equip our students for democratic engagement. That's a big key theme in our vision, our work. We believe that what we're doing is we're equipping our students to go into the world and meet the same kinds of issues that I've just, we've been talking about for the last hour here. And, and if that's the case, then I think we need to as an institution to model what that looks like. And I think for me, you know, the Cedar Riverside Partnership, among a few other things that we are deeply involved in, is an example of an institution doing that work responsibly well, in democratic engagement. And our hope is that our students will, will see that and understand that and want to pursue that themselves and in the lives that they'll lead, no matter what they end up doing in the world. So, so yeah, it's I always joke that I always thought this is what presidents were supposed to do. I don't think all my colleagues believe that. But, but for this institution, for Augsburg University, this is, I think, the sort of leadership that we're called to, and I have the privilege at this point, to be able to provide that.

Well, I think Paul Pribbenow, it's it's a model of leadership, certainly that is of interest to our colleges and universities, but I'm sure also to hospitals and healthcare institutions and, and many of our other business and banking and, and other business leaders. You are such a unique, rare combination of your faith, your commitment to your social ethics. And really your work as a practitioner to make great things happen as a transformational neighbor. Thank you so much for making time for this conversation. And I look forward to the next one.

I appreciate that, Louis, thank you so much. Good to be with you.