On Saturday, Oct. 15, seven faculty members and one student presented “Sweden as Our Classroom: Partnerships with Uppsala University and Beyond.” With the inauguration of a new president came a series of academic sessions to inform the campus community about new programs and the progress of ongoing projects.

This academic session was all about Augustana College’s partnership with Uppsala University, which includes faculty research, Swedish internships and study abroad trips for Augustana students.

The main goal of the partnership between Augustana and Uppsala is to create a long-lasting connection between the schools. Augustana and Uppsala both believe their students and schools can benefit from learning from one another and working together. Both schools bring a variety of specialties that the other can utilize and benefit from.

Augustana and Uppsala community members Dr. Mark Safstrom, Lisa Huntsha, Dr. Adam Hjorthén, Dr. David Thornblad, Dr. Wendy Hilton-Morrow, Dr. Lena Hann, Dr. Jenny Burnham and senior Maja Johnson were part of the panel which discussed Augustana’s partnership with Uppsala University. 

Uppsala University has been working with Augustana’s geology, business, public health and political science departments. Some of these departments have created study-abroad trips and others are working to create more collaborative classes for students from both schools.

“We want to look into ways that our students can learn from each other or how universities can learn from each other in terms of research, internships and collaborative courses,” Assistant Director and Head of Collections at the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center Lisa Huntsha said.

Augustana and Uppsala’s partnership includes travel abroad trips to Sweden as well as classes taught virtually by Swedish professors. This fall, there is a new class named SCAN-310A:  “Crisis in Sweden/U.S.” taught over Zoom by Uppsala professor Dr. Adam Hjorthén and Augustana professor Dr. Mariano Magalhães.

Currently, Augustana students are offered study-abroad opportunities to Sweden and Uppsala students are offered internship opportunities in the U.S.

“There are [Swedish] students seeking internships, and having an internship in the US looks good on their resume,” Huntsha said. “The fact that we collect Swedish-American materials is pretty unique. And they have the language skills to be able to work with some of these collection materials because a lot of people in the US don’t know Swedish.”

In Dec. 2021, a group of Augustana faculty traveled to Uppsala University. Dr. Magalhães traveled with this group, and he also returned to Uppsala a few months later to conduct research on how students contribute to decision-making at Uppsala University.

“We learned a lot about student participation,” Dr. Magalhães said. 

Several Augustana students have studied abroad at Uppsala University. Senior Maja Johnson studied at Uppsala throughout the 2021-2022 academic year.

“A lot of the places like universities and high schools in Sweden offer really interesting course options and a different perspective,” Johnson said. “It’s very much a college town, and the student life there is very different. Instead of sororities and fraternities, there are student nations which is a much different environment than Greek life.”

Students interested in studying abroad at Uppsala University can speak with their advisors and visit the Augustana website to read more about the trips. Upcoming classes accompanying summer study-abroad trips to Sweden are scheduled for spring of 2023 and J-term of 2024.

The partnership between Augustana College and Uppsala University has given students study abroad trips, collaborative classes and internships. As the partnership grows, it will also continue to shape how we work together as a community.