submitted by madden@augsburg.edu
Lifetime Achievement Award – Nancy Rodenborg, MSW, LGSW, MIA, PhD
Dr. Rodenborg was a United Nations volunteer in Somalia in the early 1980’s, setting the stage for her life-long commitment to transcultural relationships and international development with a global perspective. Since then, she has dedicated her research to understand the interactions between cultures and to apply that understanding particularly for the well-being of those who are newcomers, immigrants, refugees, people with disabilities, and/or from historically oppressed groups. Her dissertation research focused on the influence of institutional racism and discrimination in child welfare cases, building on her prior work as a child protection social worker or supervisor in Brown, Dakota and Hennepin Counties in Minnesota and a child protection trainer in Oregon. Her work embodies the link between theory and practice in the field of social work.
In addition to her teaching and research on diversity and inequality, Dr. Rodenborg has been a leader in global education, helping develop the Social Work in Mexico semester and leading student educational groups to Norway and Namibia, and implementing diversity curriculum programs including the Intergroup Dialogue method. Her research on intergroup dialogue and aversive racism is pioneering in the field and has helped frame the multicultural foundations of Augsburg’s MSW program. Dr. Rodenborg is also a remarkable collaborator who has partnered on numerous projects with faculty colleagues in her department, University, and with community partners, and has served on boards and commissions in community, nonprofit and educational settings.