Campus clips: Music, honors, study and travel

Grimpo

The monthly “Campus Clips” column includes brief reports from LCMS day schools, universities and seminaries.

Piano honors

Dr. Elizabeth Grimpo, professor of music at Concordia University, Nebraska (CUNE), Seward, Neb., has been inducted into the esteemed Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame. Grimpo was honored in early October at the historic Steinway factory in New York.

“This honor is a testament to the diligence, talent and care that Dr. Grimpo exhibits every day at the university,” said CUNE Music Department Chair Dr. Kurt von Kampen.“I speak for the faculty and students when I say that we are blessed that Dr. Grimpo is a music professor at Concordia, Nebraska.”

The Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame is a prestigious designation recognizing the work of North America’s most committed and passionate piano educators.

Grants for growth

Concordia University Chicago (CUC), River Forest, Ill., is celebrating several recent grants. The CUC nursing division will receive a grant of $142,500 from the Illinois Board of Higher Education for equipment for its simulation lab. The new equipment will fund a virtual reality learning system, emergency crash carts and defibrillation activities, and geriatric- and pediatric-simulated learning.

CUC also received a Lilly Fellows Small Grant of $3,000 to initiate a common vision and approach among the athletic staff, placing vocation at the center of coaching, sportsmanship and interactions with students. Additionally, the Center for Gerontology has been approved for a $138,387 Kott Trustees grant, which will be used to support CUC programming for older adults.

Concordia Christmas

“A Concordia St. Paul Christmas” was held Dec. 8–10 on the campus of Concordia University, St. Paul (CSP), St. Paul, Minn. Under the direction of Paul von Kampen, CSP director of choral activities, this festive service celebrated Christ’s birth and featured performances by CSP’s choirs and instrumental ensembles interspersed with congregational hymns and Scripture readings.

English excellence

Dr. Bryan Santin, associate professor of English at Concordia University Irvine (CUI), Irvine, Calif., served as editor for a new book, The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Novel and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Santin, who is co-chair of the CUI English Department, teaches courses in American and world literature, American history and political theory, and composition and rhetoric. He also serves as faculty-in-residence for Polis Plaza, one of CUI’s Living Learning Communities (LLC), which seek to extend the learning environment beyond the lecture hall or laboratory and into the informal learning spaces of residence halls, recreation areas and gathering places. The mission of the Polis Plaza LLC is to produce wise, honorable and cultivated citizens rooted in Christ.

Scholar in residence

Concordia University Wisconsin (CUW), Mequon, Wis., has welcomed Nickania Pryce, a Fulbright scholar-
in-residence from Jamaica, to campus this year. This is the third time in the past decade that CUW has been selected as a host institution for the prestigious Fulbright program. Pryce will spend 10 months in the U.S. teaching within CUW’s School of Pharmacy and assisting with HIV drug research alongside a Concordia faculty member. Learn more at blog.cuw.edu/pharmacy-fulbright.

Orchestra honors

Each year, many of the country’s most respected music ensembles vie for top honors in the American Prize, one of the U.S.’s most rigorous performing arts competitions. The Concordia University Ann Arbor (CUAA), Ann Arbor, Mich., orchestra, directed by Dr. William Perrine, was awarded second place in the College/University-Smaller division of the American Prize for performances the group submitted this past spring. CUAA took runner-up to the Ivy League powerhouse Cornell University.

Bible study

Registration is open for the Feb. 10 Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (CSL), Lay Bible Institute, “The Bible We Read in Church,” led by Dr. Vilson Scholz, CSL visiting professor of Exegetical Theology. Scholz will explore the Three-Year Lectionary to demonstrate how the lessons for each Sunday intercommunicate and illustrate the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture. This event is open to anyone interested in the study of Scripture and proclamation of the Gospel. The workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 10 in CSL’s Sieck Hall, Room 202. The registration deadline is Jan. 6, with a cost of $20 per person or $35 with lunch. For more information or to register, visit csl.edu/lbi or contact Continuing Education at 314-505-7286 or ce@csl.edu.

Teaching in Tanzania

In November 2023, the Rev. Dr. Paul Grime, professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions and dean of the chapel at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne (CTSFW), and Deaconess Amy Rast, associate director of CTSFW Deaconess Formation, went to Tanzania to work with the fourth cohort of the Concordia Pastoral and Diaconal Training Program. Grime taught liturgics and catechetics to pastoral students, while Rast led “Theology and History of the Deaconess Vocation” and “Deaconess Counseling and Practice” with deaconess students. “Without a doubt, it was the people who made the greatest impression on us,” Grime said. “They had a spirit of joy even though they have seemingly little in the eyes of the world.”

Posted Jan. 12, 2024