The meeting took place at the Royal Palace in Oslo on the occasion of the King’s 80th birthday. With President Craft were Paul Pribbenow, President of Augsburg University; Robert Oliver and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the outgoing and incoming presidents of Augustana University; and 2002 Concordia graduate Dan Lee, Vice President for Advancement at Pacific Lutheran University.
The conversation focused both on developments at the individual institutions and on the common cause we have with the contemporary leadership of Norway in peacemaking and in environmental sustainability.
“I had the pleasure of speaking about the new majors Concordia faculty have developed, the new Integrated Science Center, Concordia’s strong sustainability commitments, and the longstanding and ongoing ties with the people of Norway,” Craft says.
In addition, President Craft highlighted Concordia’s designation by the U.S. Department of Defense as a National Language Training Center through the Concordia Language Villages; the distinguished service of Tove Dahl, long-time Dean of Skogfjorden and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Tromsø who was knighted by King Harald in 2008 for the “advancement of Norwegian language and culture in the United States”; and the memorable introduction of the Dalai Lama at the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Form by Concordia’s Anastasia Young, then a Concordia senior and a Peace Scholar. The Peace Scholars program, created by the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, is a seven-week experience (with academic credit), which includes one week at The Nansen Dialogue Network in Lillehammer and followed by six weeks at the University of Oslo.
“I was struck by how engaged King Harald was with us in genuine conversation about mutual aspirations for learning and for peacemaking in a world increasingly dependent on collaboration across nations for the common good,” Craft says.
After the meeting with the King, President Craft and his wife, Anne, continued on to Germany to lead an alumni cycling tour.
King Harald image credit: Sølve Sundbrø/The Royal Court
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