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During her four years as a theatre major at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Ahnika Lexvold has done it all, both on and off the stage, when it comes to working with her fellow students on the Winona Campus.

So when it came to completing a project for her senior capstone course, Lexvold wanted to work with a younger audience in two of her favorite types of productions: improvisation and devised theatre. 

Ahnika Lexvold provides instruction to Winona area students Lillian Bublitz and Anastasia Shutz.

Since late January, the native of St. Cloud, Minn., has been directing a group of 10 local grade school students ages 10 to 14 at the Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts (MCA) in a workshop called “Create Your Own Comedy.” 

“It’s an age range that I don’t have experience teaching, so I wanted a challenge,” said Lexvold, who has been directing in various capacities for five years and is working under the advisement of Walter Elder, assistant professor of Theatre and Dance.

“I love working with children and getting them to realize their own creativity. Each day, they get more and more into it, and more and more willing to be silly. That really excites me. Every time they come in and they just get a little bit crazier, because that’s what theater should do: Let you feel comfortable being your crazy, wacky self.”

Through the class, Lexvold has been helping the students create an original play with props and costumes based around the premise of a comedic, whodunit murder mystery. The show will take place at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 27, at the Winona Public Library. The performance, which is free and open to the public, will be preceded by an improvisation session, where the students will demonstrate the skills they have picked up in working with Lexvold.

“We’re using improv to practice different techniques on how to work together, so it’s like learning collaboration because that’s how we’re writing the show,” said Lexvold, who has also been hired by MCA to direct “Seussical the Musical” on Tuesday, April 28, in partnership with Winona Public Schools.

Featured image: Ahnika Lexvold, a senior from St. Cloud, Minn., does a team exercise with the group of grade school students she has been working with an in acting workshop, “Create Your Own Comedy,” at the Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts.” The students are, from left, Uvonne Olcott, Greyson Kemp, Zoe HIll, and Lillian Bublitz.

It was a Tuesday morning like any other, back in 1988. Paul Kotz, Ph.D.,had been washing windows when he heard a homeless man across the street yell, “Hey, you!” 

Dr. Kotz came to know the homeless man as Joe, and from that encounter, their friendship grew until one day Dr. Kotz found himself playing cribbage with popcorn kernels in a dumpster that Joe called home. When he first climbed down into the dumpster, Joe offered to share a banana with him.

Paul Kotz

Dr. Kotz’s interesting tale about finding grace in the most unusual of locales was recently featured on the nationally syndicated radio show “Our American Stories,” hosted by Lee Habeeb.

In the 8-minute segment, “Playing Cards in a Dumpster,” Dr. Kotz, who serves as a core associate professor in the Ed.D. in Leadership program, explained how he began engaging in conversation with Joe while working as a volunteer at the Holy Family House in midtown Kansas City, Mo., in 1988. 

As Dr. Kotz learned more about Joe and his situation, he developed both a sense of gratitude for the blessings in his life and a list of questions of how he would cope with the same daily challenges that his newfound friend faced — like the possibility of a trash compactor hauling away all of his personal possessions every Tuesday morning.

“This was a moment of grace in my life, a wake-up call, an awakening to a world that I never knew nor previously wanted to see,” Dr. Kotz narrated in the audio segment, which was recorded on the Twin Cities Campus with the help of Bob Andersen, director of instructional technology, and his team. 

“This was a moment of grace in my life, a wake-up call, an awakening to a world that I never knew nor previously wanted to see.”

 

—Paul Kotz

“I will never forget that man’s generosity, who offered his temporary home, part of his sustenance, a game to play, his creative adaptation of life, and his daily appreciation of the moment,” Dr. Kotz’s narrative concluded.

The narrative also included a mention of a De La Salle Christian Brother named Louis Rodemann, FSC, a well-known community advocate who worked at the center.

“He taught us a lot about the things that we don’t see on the surface,” Dr. Kotz said, referencing how Brother Rodemann explained that 10% of food being thrown out in a container may be spoiled at the top, but that 90% of the food was still fine to eat. 

For years, Dr. Kotz has been a loyal listener to WCCO (830 AM) as a source of news and weather. About a year ago, after having a hard time sleeping, he bumped into an edition of “Our American Stories,”, which airs in the Twin Cities Tuesday through Saturday from 1 to 2 a.m. He was taken by how all of the stories revolved around the idea of redemption and seeing the bright side of any situation. His mind drifted to his encounter with Joe and he realized he wanted to submit a story.

“He had the courage to reach out,” Dr. Kotz said. “A lot of us don’t. We avoid those situations like the plague instead of embracing them, because there’s danger involved sometimes. For me, I was just a volunteer, and I said, ‘Ah, what the heck, I’ll just go over there.’ But I didn’t realize that he actually had two chairs, a makeshift table, and a blanket.”

A larger collection

The story is just one of several that make up the book Dr. Kotz published in 2018, “Something Happened Today: A Collection of the Unexpected,” as a way to inspire his two daughters, who are now ages 29 and 31. The book focuses on the miracles and goodness people can come across in their everyday lives, by sharing the ones that have provided color to his own. He started writing the vignettes about 18 years ago before finally deciding to gather all of them together to form the book, which was published by Outskirts Press. 

“I thought because my daughters were really young, maybe they could see a different side of their dad that they didn’t get to see as infants. So that’s how it emanated,” Dr. Kotz said. “And then after that, it just became ‘look for the good’ because sometimes we’re human ‘doings’ instead of human beings. Sometimes you have to break the ice with people because we get so inundated with our daily tasks.”

“Volunteering is really important to me. You can be a teacher or professor or business practitioner, and sometimes you can lose sight of everyday humanity. It keeps me grounded.”

 

—Paul Kotz

He hopes to have a second book published through the same press later this year: “Profiles in Kindness: Stories of Servant Leadership and Inspiration.” Joe’s story is also featured in that book as well, Dr. Kotz said.

Dr. Kotz has been teaching in a full-time capacity at Saint Mary’s since 2013, the same amount of time he has served as a volunteer on Wednesday mornings at the Minneapolis Veterans Home, a nursing home for veterans near Minnehaha Falls. In that capacity, he pushes those in wheelchairs from the nursing station to their physical therapy appointments.

“Those individuals inspire me. And it’s helped me to really grow and change as a person,” Dr. Kotz said. “Volunteering is really important to me. You can be a teacher or professor or business practitioner, and sometimes you can lose sight of everyday humanity. It keeps me grounded.

“It was always instilled in me from an early age that you have to give back. You’ve been given gifts, and you need to utilize some of them for service — if not all.”

Featured image: The radio program “Our American Stories” created the above graphic to accompany Paul Kotz story, “Playing Cards in a Dumpster,” which aired on Jan. 29.

Looking at the group photo, the members’ smiles are almost as bright as the orange vests they wear. 

Those gathered in the Central Business District of Freetown, Sierra Leone, are all part of a service organization that has been handing out meals every Sunday to the area’s homeless for two years. 

“I provided all of those from the purchases I made,” said Sylvester Amara Lamin, Ph.D., looking at the photo. 

Sylvester Amara Lamin (middle) poses with two workers from Social Workers Sierra Leone. Lamin spent a Sunday handing out food to the homeless and mentally ill who live on the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on a recent trip back to his native country.

Lamin serves as a core associate professor for the newly started Master of Social Work (MSW) online program at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, which will host its first MSW Field Fair on Wednesday, March 25, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the University Center on the Twin Cities Campus. The program, which welcomed its first students in fall 2019, had the largest initial enrollment of any online program in the history of Saint Mary’s University.

“With the expertise of our professors, we focus on more of the clinical component, which is unique, especially when it comes to an online program,” said Dr. Lamin, who joined the Saint Mary’s community in January 2019.

Dr. Lamin makes an annual pilgrimage to his home country every year during winter break. On his most recent trip, he was invited to give a lecture at his undergraduate alma mater, Fourah Bay College (FBC), and take care part in the service group’s ministry on Jan. 5.

Many volunteers come every Sunday. Thanks to Dr. Lamin buying them at the hunting season’s conclusion, the regulars have their own personal vests embroidered with the group’s name, Social Workers Sierra Leone. Dr. Lamin also sends monetary donations to support the group’s mission. In addition, the group was able to hand out small toiletries such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, after Dr. Lamin’s wife gathered up the supplies to disperse.

The organization was founded in 2018 by Hassan Koroma after he witnessed a food vendor refusing to sell food to a homeless woman. Koroma gave the woman the food he was eating.

Sylvester Amara Lamin in his office.

“That was what motivated him to start feeding the homeless. He knew that her situation was not unique to her alone in the Central Business District of Freetown,” Dr. Lamin said.

Through donations, the group is able to hire a cook who makes meals — usually consisting of rice with various sauces — and then hand them out to people on the streets.

The organization also provides meals for those dealing with mental health issues who have nowhere to go given that the city’s own psychiatric center — one of the oldest in Africa, having been established in 1820 — is over capacity. 

“Many of them are on the streets because not all of them can go to the hospital,” Dr. Lamin said.

This is the reality of Sierra Leone, a West African country that has approximately 7.5 million citizens, with over a million of whom live in the Freetown area. As such, there is a significant resource issue, given that there is a large imbalance of social services in Freetown compared to the rest of the country — in spite of the fact that a majority of people work for the country’s government in various capacities, Dr. Lamin said. 

“There is some form of decentralization going on, but not at the speed you really want,” he said.

Establishing a foundation

Sylvester Amara Lamin with Patrick Walker, head of the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Fourah Bay College, on the college campus in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Patrick Walker, head of the Department of Sociology and Social Work at FBC, invited Dr. Lamin to give the Jan. 7 lecture. The talk provided an overview of the history and current trends of social work practices and education in the U.S., as well as lessons that could be learned and models emulated by Sierra Leone.

As Dr. Lamin explained in his lecture, the concept of modern-day social work largely came from the criticism of an American educator named Abraham Flexner, who in 1915 stated in an essay titled, “Is Social Work a Profession?” that social workers needed professional qualities and classifications.  

Flexner’s comments, in part, led to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) being founded in 1952, for accrediting social work education programs in the U.S. Three years later, the National Association of Social Workers began as a professional resource. In 1979, the American Association of State Social Workers (later called the Association of Social Work Boards) started  providing accreditation exams. All of these institutions have created structure within the profession, Dr. Lamin said.

It is the hope of those at FBC, which is a part of the University of Sierra Leone system, to create a master’s level social work program similar to the ones that have been established in the U.S.  

Based on the crowded, large room full of teachers and faculty where he spoke, the interest is certainly there — but the structure and the resources needed are not.

On the day of his lecture at Fourah Bay College, Sylvester Amara Lamin took time for photos with students from the college. Patrick Walker is on the far left.

As opposed to the specialized, clinical focus of the MSW program at Saint Mary’s, the greatest need in Sierra Leone, Dr. Lamin said, is to have a master’s program with a generalist focus, allowing graduates to work anywhere they are needed.

Perhaps the greatest issue is what Dr. Lamin referred to as title protection, meaning that someone in a certain field, such as social work, has the proper credentials to back up the claim of their title, harkening back to Flexner’s sentiments from 105 years ago. 

In 2016, a group that included Koroma took the initial steps to establish a Sierra Leone chapter of the International Federation of Social Workers, but that effort is still very much in its infancy. 

“You can’t just call yourself a social worker. You have to have the requisite educational training backed by your licensure,” Dr. Lamin said. “The professional title needs protection.”

Featured image: Members of Social Workers Sierra Leone take a group photo clad in their bright orange gifts, which were donated from Sylvester Amara Lamin, associate professor of the MSW program.

When it comes to his work for Alexandria Public Schools, Lukas Gotto M’17 has a phrase that sums up his teaching philosophy: Cool is exciting. Exciting is engaging. Engaging leads to learning.

“That slipped out of my mouth one day when I was explaining it to somebody, and I’m like, ‘Oh, that sounded better than I intended,’” added Gotto, with his typical self-deprecating humor. 

Lukas Gotto M’17 stands with the 2019 Technology Leader of the Year award at the Impact Education Conference in December in Minneapolis. Above, Gotto stands with Chad Coauette, executive director/CEO of Sourcewell Technology, after being presented with the award.

In December, Gotto was named the 2019 Technology Leader of the Year (watch a video made for the award ceremony) at the statewide Impact Education Conference, sponsored by Sourcewell Technology, two years after he earned his M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology (LDT) from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota and became Alexandria Public Schools’ first instructional design technologist.

What was one of his immediate thoughts when he heard the news?

“What? Really? Who messed up?,” Gotto said with a laugh. “I was just shocked and very humbled and honored.” 

What cannot be downplayed, though, is the impact on the school district’s students, faculty, and staff both within the classroom space and outside of it. 

“His disposition, zeal, and accomplishments are illustrations of one of the goals of the LDT program, which is to help students develop skills, mindsets, and capacities so they can be change agents in their schools, organizations, and communities,” said Nancy Van Erp, Ph.D., the LDT program director.

Setting a new course

Gotto first arrived in Alexandria in 2014 as an eighth-grade social studies teacher, a position he served for three years. In 2016, Gotto decided he wanted to pursue a master’s degree but had to find one that was completely online given his coaching commitments with football, baseball, and boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. He came across information about the LDT program, which piqued his interest, given that it merged his passion for social studies with educational technology.

Looking back at his time in the program, Gotto was impressed with the attention that was being paid to design thinking. Although the concept is now found in educational settings everywhere, that was not the case when Van Erp first presented it to Gotto and his classmates, he said.

Lukas Gotto M’17 works with staff members of Alexandria Public Schools during a professional development session. Gotto has created a “Technology Champions” program within the district in which he teaches faculty and staff members throughout the school year about the latest technology so they can, in turn, introduce it to their students.

“It was fun because I was sending articles and books to our assistant superintendent and people several years ago before they were talking about it and now it’s such a big thing,” Gotto said.

As he was finishing up his degree at Saint Mary’s, talk surfaced of creating an instructional technologist within the school district, based out of Discovery Middle School. Eventually he was offered the position, a decision that was tough given his love of teaching in a traditional classroom setting.

“I do miss it, but there’s something about this job that’s always new and different,” Gotto said. “I really enjoy that aspect of it.”

For his capstone project, Gotto created a professional development model for what would become known as “Technology Champions.” Given that he is the only person of his position within the entire district, that model would turn into a program in which faculty spend four half-days being taught by Gotto about the latest educational technology devices using a motto he picked up in the LDT program: I do. We do. You do.

He uses the same practice when working with students by getting in front of the class for the first class period, then standing next to the teachers as they provide instruction.  

“So that way, if they have questions, I’m still right there,” Gotto explained. “And then by the last hour of the day, I’m typically out of the classroom. They’ve done it by themselves.”

With the assistance of the local Alexandria Education Foundation, Gotto has been able to secure more than $10,000 in grants to introduce students to a variety of educational-based technology including drones, augmented reality headsets, and little robotic balls known as Spheros, which students work with through mathematical, scientific, and coding platforms to program their movement (read an article that Gotto wrote about them for EdTechTeam).

The importance of unplugging

Lukas Gotto M’17 works with second grader Archer Swaggert with a large saw during the recent construction of a bridge/boardwalk behind Discovery Middle School in Alexandria this past summer.

Gotto grew up as the oldest of three brothers in Windom, Minn., a 90-minute drive east of Sioux Falls, S.D. Interestingly enough, his parents would set hard limits on video games or other types of technology for their children, which often involved competitions of “Guitar Hero” on PlayStation 2.

“We grew up on an acreage with horses, so there was always something that needed to be done outside,” Gotto said. “That was their mindset, ‘You don’t need that. You can just go outside.’”

As a result, Gotto held a fascination for technology, while maintaining a love to be outside and work with his hands. 

Gotto’s love for the outdoors led to an idea to build a bridge/boardwalk structure that would extend a trail beyond some marshy lands in the back of the middle school. He had worked on previous projects for other school districts during the summers, so it was only fitting that he would help construct one for his own school, which sits on more than 100 acres of land. 

Gotto met with members of the community who agreed to donate either time, money, expertise, or equipment to make the project a reality this past summer. In total, six different businesses stepped forward, including a bridge company that donated four 30-foot steel beams.

Fourth grader Nate Fuglestad, left, and third grader Avery Olson help construct part of the bridge/boardwalk behind Discovery Middle School. They were just two of the students Lukas Gotto M’17 enlisted to help with the project.

“We installed those without the kids because that’s some heavy metal going around, but then they did the rest of it,” Gotto said of the numerous students who worked side-by-side with their teacher’s assistance.

“The kids absolutely rocked it,” Gotto said. “It was fun to see them use a saw or a screw gun for the first time.”

Given how busy his life is — he and his wife, Alicia, have a one-year-old daughter — Gotto appreciated how seamlessly his degree from Saint Mary’s fit into this life. He has encouraged fellow educators who are thinking about pursuing a master’s degree to look into the program.

“I really enjoyed not having to meet in person. That was really high on my list,” he said. “And so if that’s really high on your list — whether you’re doing it during the Vikings game on Sunday, or you’re trying to get it all done on Thursday so you don’t have to miss the Vikings game  — it’s nice to have that option.”

The Minneapolis Saint Paul Business Journal reported that, per federal data from the U.S. Department of Education, Minnesota’s highest first-year earners are certified registered nurse anesthetists who earned their master’s degrees from Saint Mary’s University.

Leah Gordon, director of the Saint Mary’s M.S. in Nurse Anesthesia Program, said it’s a specialization that can bill independently for services, which contributes to its high earnings. She also said Saint Mary’s graduates are in demand right now.

Saint Mary’s B.S. in Nursing is also at the top of the list, and many other Saint Mary’s programs rank high in comparable first-year earning lists. Read more about these rankings.