Luther College News

Thanks to a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, Luther College’s Preus Library and the Winneshiek County Historical Society will make county newspapers more accessible to the public.

A Norwegian immigrant in the Midwest in the 1860s, Herbjørn Gausta was a painter who attended Luther College in 1872. He painted portraits of influential people, genre scenes and landscapes in the Midwest and Norway. Annika Vande Krol, Luther College senior from Decorah, Iowa, is in her second year of summer research about Gausta in an effort to find previously unknown works.

Luther College’s Social Impact Fellowship Program partners together one student studying social work and one student studying business to research a problem and develop a business plan for a solution. Italee Castellon, Luther College senior from Chicago, Illinois, and Lauren Voigt, Luther College junior from St. Louis Park, Minnesota, are working with nonprofit organizations in the surrounding Decorah area in order to better connect Luther College students with volunteer opportunities.

The Luther College Admissions Office is offering prospective students the opportunity to tour Luther and Decorah during the second of four Summer Preview Days Thursday, July 26, from 9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Registration is open until midnight Sunday, July 22, at https://tinyurl.com/previewdayjuly26. This visit provides prospective students with a total immersive visit to the campus, as well as the Decorah community.

Students of all ages struggle to have fun engaging with and understanding foreign cultures and global citizenship. Levi Bird, Luther College sophomore of Muscoda, Wisconsin, is researching and creating historically based role-playing simulations in order to stimulate and to engage students in the learning of modern languages.

Unit testing involves testing individual components of software to assure each smaller section performs as it was designed before testing the larger unit’s functionality. Through his summer research project, David Oniani, Luther College first-year of Tbilisi, Georgia, is exploring whether unit testing could be used in a classroom setting to provide immediate feedback for students.

Roughly five million Americans live with fibromyalgia, a chronic disease with no standard treatment or cure that involves musculoskeletal pain. Shannon Lunn, Luther College junior of Farmington, Minnesota, is exploring experiences men have with fibromyalgia for her summer research project.

Thanks to a generous donation by lifetime conservation enthusiast Donald Nelson, the Luther College Land Stewardship Program has new longevity and stability. Nelson, who established the Donald H. Nelson Endowment, most recently donated $500,000 to Luther, with $40,000 set aside to create the Lionberger Preserve Wetland Restoration Project.

Luther College has added Visual Communication and Musical Theatre to their 2019-20 academic lineup. Considered the fastest growing form of marketing communication, visual communication is expected to account for 84 percent of all marketing communication by the end of 2018. After unanimous approval from Luther's Board of Regents, Visual Communication has been added as a major and minor to the college's curriculum.

Luther College’s spring 2018 Dean’s List includes 732 students; 96 first-years, 135 sophomores, 184 juniors and 317 seniors. To be named to the Dean’s List, a student must earn a semester grade point average of 3.5 or better on a 4.0 scale and must complete at least 12 credit hours with 10 hours of conventional grades (A, B, C, D).