Below you'll find just five examples of how Oles are leading lives of worth and service. Partner with these and other Oles to support the next generation of thinkers, leaders and doers. You can make a difference.

Alumni | Parent | Student | Faculty Member | Staff Member

Kristen Copham ’92

For anyone who wonders how a professional artist makes use of what she learned in classes such as physiology or psychology, Kristen Copham ’92 has the answer. Those courses, along with a wide range of others she took at St. Olaf that include women’s studies, literature and history, expanded her understanding of the world and “have directly or indirectly contributed to my work and enhanced my life,” she says.

“St. Olaf is secluded enough to focus on learning, but connected enough so that you feel stimulated, aware of the world, connected with world events through the process of learning,” Copham says.

That broad understanding of the world and the diverse range of people in it has been especially useful as Copham works on her current art project. Hundreds of people from all walks of life come to Copham’s New York studio and sit for an hour while she paints their portrait. Some people buy the portraits or copies of it, but any unsold originals are kept with a collection that she’s putting together titled “Your Face Here.” She’s up to 650 portraits, with a goal of getting to 1,000.

The project has become a professional passion matched only by the renovation she’s doing of an old building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that is the new home to NY Studio Gallery, which Copham owns. The gallery exhibits a wide range of modern art from around the world by emerging and mid-career artists who work in media ranging from video to performance to sculpture. Copham says she’s always known she wanted to be a professional artist, but she was able to put that dream into focus while working with incredibly skilled art faculty members at St. Olaf including Arch Leean, Wendell Arneson, Ron Gallas, Jan Shoger and Irve Dell.

“Without a doubt the biggest resource was the staff, the people, the professors,” she says. “It is a real community — one that for me provided a learning environment, a support system, safety, fun, challenges, new friends and new experiences all at once.”

Jon ’80 and Jeanne ’82 Berget

Jon ’80 and Jeanne ’82 Berget don’t mince words when asked whether they were hoping their son, Karl ’11, would choose to attend their alma mater.

“Are you kidding me? I was praying he would choose to attend St. Olaf,” says Jon, an anesthesiologist who himself was drawn to the college because of its strong science and pre-med program.

“Our experience was so awesome that we couldn’t help but want him to enjoy the same richness we were able to enjoy,” says Jeanne, who majored in social studies education, psychology and sociology. “St. Olaf provides opportunities for young adults to grow in all ways — intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, physically, artistically — and our hope is that at some point Karl will engage himself in activities that allow for each area of development.”

Jon and Jeanne took advantage of such opportunities during their own days at St. Olaf. Both participated in the Global Semester program, and Jon says one of the most unique aspects of the college is its vast array of study-abroad opportunities. “I have come to realize the value of leaving one’s comfort zone and learning firsthand about the way other people of the world live,” he says. “I think this is becoming ever more important in today’s world.”

Jeanne found St. Olaf to be an intellectually and emotionally safe place to grow, and she said that is something that hasn’t changed. “St. Olaf’s spiritual and academic mission has remained constant — its product, for lack of a better term, has only improved throughout the years, and it’s the students who we in some small way support who are our hope for the future.”

Sean Dawson ’09

Sean Dawson ’09 has long dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon. Yet when he began looking at colleges, he knew that in addition to a top-notch science program, he wanted to find an academic institution where he could play football, enjoy small class sizes and explore other interests such as music.

St. Olaf was the perfect fit.

“I just fell in love with the place,” he says about the first time he visited St. Olaf from his hometown of Buckley, Wash., a small town about 45 miles southeast of Seattle. “The campus is wonderful, and I got to sit in on chemistry and biology lectures that were amazing. This is a wonderful place to grow and learn for four years.”

A chemistry major with a concentration in neuroscience, Dawson spent this summer working on a research project led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Janice Pellino that attempted to sequence the Tertiary structure of small signaling RNA in E. coli and identify accompanying protein complexes. Figuring out the role of this genetic material could help researchers determine the role of the same type of RNA found in humans, he notes. Dawson is also studying for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and plans to jump right into medical school once he graduates from St. Olaf. He’ll be the first person from his family to attend any type of postgraduate school, and the breadth and depth of coursework — as well as the research he’s done — at St. Olaf have prepared him to succeed in medical school. “Neuroscience just fascinates me. I love being hands-on and building and learning,” Dawson says. “And I love helping people.”

While St. Olaf’s strong science program played a major role in bringing Dawson to campus, the college’s Division III football program sealed his decision. He has played defensive end for St. Olaf for three years and is playing defensive tackle this year. “I love the sport, but academics and my career come first. So a D-III athletic program was the perfect fit,” says Dawson, who will serve on the team’s leadership council this year and is involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

To add to his packed schedule, Dawson also plays the drums in a campus band called Vera. It’s a way to have fun and stay in tune with something he loves.

Dawson knows that many of the things that he loves about St. Olaf — the opportunities to do research, the athletic equipment and facilities, the study areas — are made possible through the support of the annual fund. “It just makes being, learning and living at St. Olaf that much better,” he says.

Dan Hofrenning

Professorof Political Science Dan Hofrenning’s favorite moments in the classroom are when students challenge conventional wisdom.

“I instruct students to ask two questions: ‘What is misunderstood?’ and ‘What is missing?’” he says.

At St. Olaf, students are able to ask those questions in a unique academic atmosphere that is shaped by the fact that the college is simultaneously part of academic disciplines, faith communities, student communities, and the broader public community. While maintaining a strong connection to the traditions of the past, St. Olaf invites people of all faiths to join its community and seeks wisdom in the secular traditions of knowledge. It’s an intersection of peoples and traditions rarely found at other academic institutions, Hofrenning says.

“This college is one of the few institutions in the world in which sacred and secular modes of living and learning engage one another,” he says. “That should make us a very stimulating place, perhaps the most stimulating academic place.”

With the firm belief that we learn by challenging our preconceptions, Hofrenning frequently exposes his students to counter-intuitive material: a book that argues that negative advertising is actually more substantive than positive advertising or an article that tries to make the case that terrorists are rational.

“The students and I often disagree with these books, but sometimes we need to ask questions that challenge, even disturb us,” he says, noting that he thoroughly enjoys helping students with their own research and finds the quest for originality compelling.

As a faculty member, he also enjoys having the resources to travel to conferences to confer with other academics and the support for developing research and teaching. “If we don’t get a chance to step back once and a while — to do research or review the most recent scholarship — we will get stale,” says Hofrenning, who has been teaching at St. Olaf since 1990.

The annual fund provides a way to obtain resources that are invaluable to the St. Olaf campus community. “We get hundreds of philanthropic appeals, and sometimes we give to institutions that we don’t know that much about,” he says. “Those of us who are Partners know a great deal about St. Olaf. If we believe in this place and its mission, we should support it generously.”

Lois Stratmoen

As Lois Stratmoen wrote notes of appreciation at a recent “thank-a-thon” for those who have supported St. Olaf College, President David R. Anderson ’74 pulled up a chair next to her.

“It’s not very often that you sit down to write thank-you notes to donors and the president of the college sits down next to you and starts writing as well,” Stratmoen says. “That’s the sort of opportunity we have as members of the St. Olaf College community.”

For the more than two decades that Stratmoen has worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst at St. Olaf, she says the people around her have always been the best part of her job. Those people — from the young musicians whose performances she loves attending to the colleagues she works with each day in her department — are the reason she and her husband, Noel, have supported the college.

“Personally, my husband and I have a very strong sense of stewardship to our church and to the community where we live. We feel it’s important to make it a better community by giving back,” Stratmoen says. “Certainly the same thing applies to where I work. It’s important to demonstrate that the college is a central part of my life.”

As someone who loves music, Stratmoen says there “couldn’t be a better place to work” when it comes to having opportunities to listen to rich vocal and instrumental performances. She hasn’t missed a single Christmas Festival concert in the 20 years she’s been working at the college, and she’s volunteered as an usher at the event a number of times. “It’s such a wonderful time to give back to all the alumni who return to the college,” she says.

Although Stratmoen and her husband aren’t Oles — they graduated from South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D. — their love of music and dedication to the college has made some people think that they’re alumni. “Both my husband and I enjoy singing, and people just assume that because we’re Lutheran and love music that we must have graduated from St. Olaf College,” Stratmoen says with a laugh. “They say to me, ‘Did you sing in the St. Olaf Choir?’ And I say, ‘Yes — every year at Christmas Fest they invite us to sing with them.’”

One of Stratmoen’s favorite St. Olaf memories was her experience traveling to Norway with the St. Olaf Choir, Orchestra and Band as part of the college’s study travel program. Closer to home, she spends much of the summer at her family’s cabin, which is located just 12 miles from her year-round home in Northfield. Stratmoen jokes that she has to be the staff member who lives closest to their summer getaway. But the location has its perks. “I can be on the lake 15 minutes after I leave the office,” she says.