Keynote Moderators
Fred de Sam Lazaro is the executive director and founder of the Under-Told Stories Project, a program that combines international journalism and teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. He has served as a correspondent for the PBS NewsHour since 1985 and was a regular contributor and substitute anchor for PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Sam Lazaro has reported from 65 countries, focusing on stories that are under-reported in the mainstream U.S. media, from global health and human trafficking to the myriad issues related to poverty. He is the recipient of two honorary doctorates, numerous journalism awards and media fellowships from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Michigan. He was a trustee at his alma mater, the College of St. Scholastica, in Duluth, MN, and serves on the board of Minnpost, an online non-profit Minnesota based news service. He also has served on the boards of the Asian American Journalists Association and the Children’s Law Center of Minnesota.
Nick Hayes is a writer, professor and commentator for the media. A frequent guest on television and radio, he has also published nationally and internationally in newspapers, magazines and journals. He has received awards from the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Program and also won an Emmy in 1991 for his work on Twin Cities Public Television’s (TPT’s) Television and Democracy in Russia. Today, he is a professor of history and holds the University Chair in Critical Thinking at Saint John’s University in Minnesota and is a contributing writer for www.MinnPost.com – the premier political blog in Minnesota.
Marco Werman is the host of Public Radio International’s The World. He took over as full-time host of the program on January 1, 2013 after years as fill-in host and producer of the Global Hit music segment. Werman has been working in journalism since he was 16, when he worked as a copy boy at the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina. His journalism experience includes documentary photography, print, radio, and television. A returned Peace Corps volunteer and a lifelong surfer, Werman got his start in radio while freelancing in Burkina Faso, West Africa, for the BBC World Service, where he later worked as a producer.E
Session Moderators
Elizabeth Dunbar has been a reporter for MPR News since 2009 and currently covers the environment,energy and climate change. In 2015, she co-reported a series on climate change in Minnesota that won a Kavli Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2017, she launched “Feeding the Future,” an engagement project on the future of agriculture. Her efforts included setting up a booth at Minnesota Farmfest to chat with farmers and facilitating a closed Facebook group where rural farmers and urban foodies exchange ideas, share perspectives and build trust. The experience has led Dunbar to look for more opportunities to engage people with diverse viewpoints and empower them to collaborate and find solutions to today’s biggest challenges. Previously, Dunbar reported and edited for The Associated Press.
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Executive Director of Augsburg’s Christensen Center for Vocation, leads national and international initiatives to advance interfaith dialogue, inspire peacemaking, and support the College’s commitment to vocational discernment. In addition, he serves as a major gifts advisor for “Always Being Made New: The Campaign for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” Prior to his current appointments, Hanson served as presiding bishop of the ELCA. He was elected to this position by the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA in August 2001 and was reelected in 2007. Bishop Hansen graduated from Augsburg College with a B.A. in sociology, was a Rockefeller Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, and received a Master of Divinity degree there in 1972. He is the author of Faithful Yet Changing, the Church in Challenging Times and Faithful and Courageous, Christians in Unsettling Times.
Fardosa Hassan graduated from Augsburg in 2012 with a degree in sociology and international relations and currently serves as the Muslim Student Program Associate in Campus Ministry at Augsburg. As a student, she was active in interfaith work and received the College’s Courageous Woman Award. Hassan was recognized by President Barack Obama for her work as part of Augsburg’s interfaith work and invited to the White House to take part in the Interfaith Campus Challenge. As a student, she interned with the Kenyan Parliament and Lutheran Social Services. Hassan, who also works as the Interfaith Youth Connection Program Coordinator at Interfaith Action of Greater Saint Paul, describes herself as a “community-minded citizen, who wants to make a positive change in the world.”
Dr. Deborah Schuhmacher joined the Augsburg University nursing faculty as an assistant professor in a full-time tenure-track position in 2012. She earned her Doctor of Nursing (DNP) degree in Transcultural Nursing Leadership at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, MN. Schuhmacher teaches a variety of courses in the graduate nursing programs. Her DNP project focused on the development of a transculturally relevant transitional educational model for an RN to BSN completion program with the Pine Ridge community in South Dakota. Schuhmacher also received her Master of Nursing (MAN) degree from Augsburg University. Her MAN thesis was a qualitative study focused on exploring Somali women’s ability to care for their family and community through difficult and challenging life transitions. Schuhmacher has worked in a variety of nursing practice settings and roles. She worked 12 years in acute care settings and has 20+ years in community health and public health. She worked for 7 years with an international healthcare company which focused on providing home visits for immigrant communities. For 14 years she worked in public health and held multiple positions: a public health nurse on an international team in family health, focusing on home visiting with refugee families; and management in public health for home visiting and public health services, including 9 years in formal leadership positions. Schuhmacher is also a trained qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a cross-cultural assessment tool used at Augsburg University to nurture cultural competence. Schuhmacher is passionate about nursing practice, transcultural and community nursing, health equity and inclusion work, social justice and human rights, indigenous knowledge, and healing practices. She has deep respect for other ways of knowing and understanding another’s worldview.
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea. She is the author of poetry/essay collections Unbearable Splendor (Minnesota Book Award); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (Asian American Literary Award), editor of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and author of bilingual illustrated book for children Cooper’s Lesson. Together with poet Su Hwang, Shin runs the arts organization Poetry Asylum and she also is the full-time editor of the Twin Cities Daily Planet, a media outlet that exists to amplify and connect marginalized voices. Shin lives in Minneapolis.