Concordia College (Minnesota)

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For other academic institutions named Concordia, see Concordia University (disambiguation).
Concordia College
Motto: Soli Deo Gloria
Established: 1891
Type: Private
Religious affiliation: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
President: Dr. Pamela Jolicoeur
Faculty: 220
Location: Moorhead, Minnesota, USA
Colors: Maroon, Gold
Nickname: Cobbers
Affiliations: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Website: www.cord.edu

Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota is a private, four year liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). It is famous for its Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Contents

[edit] History

Concordia College was dedicated Oct. 31, 1891, by some of the first Norwegian settlers to the Red River Valley region of the U.S. (North Dakota and Minnesota). Twenty-one students graduated June 7, 1893, during the college's first Commencement. A complete liberal arts college was then formally organized in 1913. From the beginning Concordia has been closely allied with the Lutheran Church. Today, it is one of 28 college and universities associated with the ELCA.

[edit] Academics

The new student center under construction as of October, 2006
The new student center under construction as of October, 2006

There are 24 departments includes 78 majors.

Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees are offered. There are also 12 preprofessional programs (including medicine, law, engineering, and dentistry).

Concordia is ranked among the top 10 U.S. liberal arts colleges for the number of students who gain global experience abroad. Concordia students study abroad at a rate 25 times the national average. According to the school's website: Concordia graduates get into medical school at twice the national average. Also, over 93 percent of Concordia graduates applying to law school are accepted. And, more than 95 percent of surveyed Concordia graduates have jobs in their fields or have been admitted to graduate school within six months of graduation.

More Concordia graduates become ordained Lutheran clergy than from any other U.S. college.

In addition to the degrees offered, Concordia is home to a number of student-run organizations. These include The Concordian, the campus newspaper, Concordia On Air, the campus television show and KORD Radio, the campus radio station. Alongside these campus-wide organizations, there are multiple niche groups. If there is not currently a group for a certain interest, it is relatively easy to form one and join the student community.

[edit] Athletics

Concordia College is a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC). Cobber Athletics have a proud tradition claiming NCAA and NAIA national titles in football, swimming and diving, track and field, and basketball and the teams perennially compete at the national level with success. Sports offered include football, soccer, vollyeball, golf, cross country, hockey, basketball, wrestling, swimming, baseball, softball, and track and field. Concordia has also produced professional athletes as well as olympians. Gary Larsen and Barry Bennett has successful careers in the NFL, Chris Coste currently plays professional baseball and Kris Kruehl competed in the 2000 Olympics in the discus.

Former Cobber athlete and football coach, Jim Christopherson was inducted in the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame in 2007. Christopherson coached the Cobbers for 32 season from 1969-2000 and compiled a record of 218-101-7. He guided the Cobbers to two NAIA National Championships (1978 & 1981), and won 11 MIAC Conference Titles during his tenure. When Christopherson retired in 2000 he was third in wins among active NCAA Division III coaches. He was among an elite group of coaches who have coached for over 30 years at the same school. Christopherson, who played for the Minnesota Vikings for two seasons, is the first player or coach from Concordia College to receive the college's games highest honor. Christopherson coached 16 All-Americans during his time at Concordia College and produced over 120 athletes that were named to the MIAC All-Conference Team, including his son Reid.

Concordia's beloved mascot is the "Cobber". The history given on the school's official website is: "Swedish students at Hope Academy, another institution in Moorhead at the time, developed a taunting cheer - in mock Norwegian -about Concordia students during the early years, playing off of Concordia's location near fields of corn:

"Corncobs! Corncobs! Hva' ska' di ha? (What will they have?) Lutefisk og lefse! (Lutefisk and Lefse) Ya! Ya! Ya!" (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!)

"Corncobs" gradually became "Corncobbers" and then "Cobbers" as Concordia students decided to embrace, rather than avoid, the term. Today, students and alumni are proud to call themselves Cobbers."

[edit] May Seminars

Many departments including Math, History, Music, Business, Biology, French, Political Science, Russian, Theatre, Sociology, Spanish, Education and Family & Nutritional Sciences offer May Seminars. In providing the opportunity to travel abroad and visit locations of true scholarly importance, the May Seminar programs seek to bring students closer to the things they study in class. May seminars begin at the end of the spring semester and typically last four weeks.

[edit] Music

Come to the Living Water, the 2007 Concordia Christmas Concert
Come to the Living Water, the 2007 Concordia Christmas Concert

The college is also renowned for its excellent Music Department and associated touring ensembles. The Concordia Choir, critically-acclaimed as ranking among the world's finest a cappella choirs, tours annually throughout the United States as well as abroad every few years. The college also maintains four other choirs, two concert bands, two full orchestras, two handbell choirs, and chamber and jazz ensembles. World renowned conductor and composer, René Clausen, is the conductor of the choir. The choir was founded in 1920 and has performed all over the world. Paul J. Christiansen was conductor of The Concordia Choir for 49 years (until 1986).

The college also presents a well-known Christmas Concert series performed before capacity audiences in Moorhead and at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis each December, with over 20,000 in total attendance over the multiple performances. The concert features the choirs, orchestra and handbell ensemble of Concordia staged before an impressive, unique mural reflecting the theme of each yearly concert. Over 400 students perform in the concert. The first Concordia Christmas Concert was held in 1927.

[edit] The Cobber Ring

The Cobber Ring is a longstanding symbol of Cobber pride. Once a student has obtained Junior status they are allowed to purchase a Cobber Ring which is Gold and on the face it has a gold Cobber "C" with the class year inset in it on a maroon stone. As stated by Dr. Carroll L. Engelhardt, Professor of History, Concordia College, "It eventually became an important symbol and a ready means of recognition for family members worldwide."[1]

[edit] Notable alumni

The bell tower, called Campanile
The bell tower, called Campanile

[edit] Past Presidents of Concordia College

  • Ingebrikt F. Grose 1891-1893
  • Hans H. Aaker 1893-1902
  • Rasmus R. Bogstad 1902-1909
  • Henry O. Shurson 1909-1911
  • Johan A. Aasgaard 1911-1925
  • John N. Brown 1925-1951
  • Joseph L. Knutson 1951-1975
  • Paul J. Dovre 1975-1999
  • Thomas W. Thomsen 1999-2003
  • Paul J. Dovre 2003-04
  • Pamela Jolicoeur 2004-current

[edit] Tri-College University

Students who are enrolled at North Dakota State University and Minnesota State University Moorhead can take classes at Concordia without going through additional admission procedures and paying extra costs.

[edit] Traditions

  • First year students are given a bright yellow beanie hat during orientation upon arrival to campus and are supposed to wear them throughout their orientation week until the last day when everyone gathers on Olin Hill and throws them up into the air. This marks their official beginning of college. (Transfer students receive burgundy beanies and luckily don't have to wear them at all because their orientation is so short). (Also, during the week of orientation, MSUM students come to Concordia College's campus frequently to try to steal their beanies.)
  • There is a long standing tradition of skinny dipping in Prexy's Pond after graduation. The most notorious occurrence of this happened on May 7th, 2007 when between 50 and 80 students were caught but not apprehended fleeing the pond unclothed/partially unclothed. No charges were filed for the swim but may still be filed regarding damage to a security guard's golf cart, which the seniors tossed into the pond. Rumors may have thrown this incident out of proportion; Different reports have said up to 200 students were skinny dipping while others have said that 20 to 50 were 'skivvy dipping' (in their underwear), and the golf cart rolled in on its own. [2]

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
Old Main, One of Concordia's First Building, was built in 1906
Old Main, One of Concordia's First Building, was built in 1906
  • One of the school's first building, Old Main, was originally surrounded by corn fields when Moorhead was still a mostly rural area. It seemed logical to the school's founders that Concordia's mascot should then be an ear of corn and that the students should be known as "Cobbers".
  • There is a sculpture by the regionally distinctive sculptor Paul Granlund in the library.
  • Concordia College is located next to Prairie Home Cemetery. Humorist Garrison Keillor derived the name of his popular radio show, A Prairie Home Companion from this cemetery.
  • The rivalry between students from Minnesota State University Moorhead, a neighboring campus, and Cobbers sometimes results in beanie-stealing attempts. Some attempts have gone so far as MSUM students even attending Cobber orientation posing as Cobber freshman in order to make friends with the new unknowing students. These students are then very surprised later on in the day when there is a knock on their dorm room door and their beanie is swiftly snatched from their head by their new found "friend" from orientation, who then runs outside and hops into a waiting getaway car. MSUM football players are the usual perpetrators and wear their stolen beanies as badges of honor. Freshman Cobber football players are supposed to wear their beanies up until they win their first football game, so depriving them of their beanies is considered a great prize. However, all Cobber freshman are potential targets.
  • The bell tower was finished in 1991 to celebrate the school's hundredth birthday.
  • The bell tower goes as deep into the ground as it does into the sky.
  • Students often walk around the bell tower rather than through it because of a superstition holding that Cobbers who walk through it alone will not get married, and Cobbers who walk as a pair will get married to each other.
  • The word "UFF-DA" can be found in the mosaic upon entering the Carl B. Ylvisaker Library.
  • A statue of former college president Joseph L. Knutson is referred to as "The Chocolate Man" and is a common meeting place for students.
  • There are also two large modern art granite statues on a round base between Old Main, the Knutson Center and Academy Hall that are referred to as "Ole and Lena," named for the famous Minnesotan-Norwegian couple whose misunderstandings and marital problems are known to jokers throughout the upper midwest.
  • The campus is said to hold the highest point in Moorhead, MN, Olin Hill, a manmade hill in the middle of the campus.
  • Concordia means "Our hearts together" in Latin.
  • Concordia holds the only Lambda Delta Sigma chapter in the nation.
  • Polar explorer Roald Amundsen's teeth are housed in the Carl B Ylvisaker Library's Fourth Floor Archives. They were extracted by a Fargo dentist days before his disappearance. They were then donated to Concordia College.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Concordia On-Air [Student News]. Moorhead, Minnesota: Concordia College Communications Studies and Theatre Art Department.
  2. ^ Star Tribune article

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
v • d • e
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference