Augustana University News

As part of a ceremony hosted by the Sioux Falls Development Foundation, Augustana broke ground on Foundation Heights, a new apartment building for students located on the northeast corner of 28th Street and Grange Avenue. The approximately $12 million project is part of the university’s strategic plan — Viking Bold: The Journey to 2030 — to transform the physical campus to include new and enhanced facilities. Construction on Foundation Heights is expected to be complete by Fall 2026.

Augustana University's ninth annual Giving Day will take place on Friday, May 9 — a 24-hour fundraising event that encourages alumni, parents, staff, faculty, coaches, administrators and friends to go “All in for AU.” Giving Day 2025 invites the Augustana community to go “All in” in support of the university's enduring commitments with several featured initiatives. For more information on where and how to give, visit augie.edu/GivingDay.

Augustana University is hosting Dr. David Chalmers, renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist, for a lecture entitled “Can ChatGPT Think?” on Tuesday, April 29, at 5:30 p.m. in the Froiland Science Complex, Room 113. This free public event will complete Chlamers’ tour of all 50 states. The lecture is the finale in a series of events intended to raise awareness about the brain throughout the month of April.

Beginning Friday, April 25, the Augustana University Art Department will celebrate the hard work of its graduating seniors with its annual Senior Show “Echoes of Experience” that will showcase their capstone projects. This year, the Augustana Senior Show will be displayed across two different venues: the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana University and Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls.

Augustana has raised $2.1 of the estimated $2.9 million needed to revitalize the Elmen Center, located on the southwest corner of 33rd Street and Grange Avenue on the university’s campus. The Bob ‘52 & Rita (Hale) Elmen Family Foundation and the James ‘60 & Eloise (Saugstad) ‘61 Elmen Foundation recently contributed $2 million to the project. With the funds the university has already received, Augustana will begin making updates this spring with the anticipated project completion by Summer 2026.

In preparation of the 100th anniversary of Ole Rølvaag’s novel and telling the story of the region, Augustana is celebrating Giants in the Earth in a big way. The theme of this year’s Dakota Conference, “Settling and Resettling the Plains” isn’t a coincidence, but a deliberate way for the CWS to celebrate the bicentennial of the Norwegian emigration to America, which began in 1825, as well as the anniversary of Rølvaag’s novel. The Ole Rølvaag Writing Cabin, where Rølvaag wrote Giants got a facelift in time for the 100th-year celebration — viewable to the public during the Dakota Conference.