New $18-Million, 52,000-Square-Foot Center for Health and Human Performance Opens At Augustana
The new 52,000-square-foot Peter J. Lindberg, M.D., Center for Health and Human Performance at Augustana College not only stands at Rock Island’s intersection of 7th Avenue and 35th Street, but stands at a key intersection of academics and athletics.
The 52,000-square-foot center will house the college’s public health, kinesiology, swimming and water polo programs.
The gleaming $18-million building was celebrated and opened Monday morning, on the first day of classes for the 2021-22 year at the private school.
The Lindberg Center’s primary objective will be to prepare graduates for health-related careers requiring a major in kinesiology or public health. Kinesiology, derived from the Greek word for movement, “kinesis,” is the study of the mechanics of bodily movements. The new center will house a complementary aquatic center and natatorium, in October replacing the pool in the adjacent Carver P.E. Center, and bringing with it new teams in men’s and women’s water polo.
The center was named for Dr. Lindberg, who devoted his life to serving others as a medical
Augustana College president Steve Bahls spoke at Monday morning’s celebration of the new center.
oncologist. He graduated from Augustana in 1961 and then the University of Chicago Medical School. He served in the U.S. Air Force in the mid-1960s. In 1972, he began practice at Los Alamos Medical Center and served there until 2014, when he joined the New Mexico Cancer Center in Albuquerque. Lindberg passed away from esophageal cancer on Sept. 13, 2016, at 76.
“He had a deep, deep interest in holistic health and lived a life that represents the very best of a liberally educated person,” Augustana president Steve Bahls said Monday. “He spent his career helping thousands of persons and patients as an oncologist. Just as Dr. Lindberg’s life touched so many lives, so will this building.”
Stained glass in the center’s meditation room.
Features of the two-story center include:
- Five state-of-the-art classrooms
- Two laboratories/active learning spaces
- Eight offices, including for the executive director of the center, director of student well-being, and faculty in the programs of kinesiology and public health
- Student and faculty gathering and studying spaces
- Hydrotherapy rehabilitation pool
- Meeting room and locker rooms
- Student well-being and meditation room
- Aquatic center and natatorium with 10-lane, 25-yard, 7-foot depth pool
- Diving well and 250-seat spectator viewing area
- Offices for aquatic center director, swimming and water polo coaches
- Swim performance lab
“It is our hope and prayer that this building will shape generations of Augustana College students, as they grow in mind, body and spirit,” Bahls said, and he thanked Russell Construction and Legat Architects for doing a “wonderful job.” It’s become a “symbol for Augustana’s excellence in the areas of health, health care, wellness, human performance, kinesiology and public health,” he said. “This really was a community effort to design this building in a way that will advantage a generation of students.”
The coaches and admission staff have already begun to attract new students to Augie, to study and compete inside this building, he said.
Steve Bahls thanked many people for the project, including the Austin E. Knowlton Foundation, which donated $10 million of the $18-million total cost.
“You’ve been able to translate the vision and I hope coaches and admissions team, this surpasses your wildest dreams.”
Bahls specially thanked head water polo coach Ryan Pryor and head swimming and diving coach Dan Lloyd. “These two coaches are incredible in what they have done for our students at Augustana,” he said. “I know these coaches are excited to host their first practice and their first competition in the pool, and we expect that to happen in early October.”
Bahls also thanked the many donors for the center, who believed that “a better tomorrow at Augustana College is facilitated, in part, by outstanding buildings.” He specifically thanked the Austin E. Knowlton Foundation, which gave $10 million for the project.
An avid sportsman, Knowlton was an original founding partner of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, where he served as chairman. He also held a major ownership interest in baseball’s Cincinnati
The new Peter J. Lindberg, MD, Center for Health and Human Performance opened Monday on Augustana College’s campus on 7th Avenue in Rock Island.
Reds for many years. A graduate of The Ohio State University, Knowlton in 1981 established his namesake foundation to empower future generations of students and to support the institutions dedicated to educating them.
Given his passion for football, the foundation partnered with Augustana in 2013 to create the Austin E. Knowlton Outdoor Athletic Complex, which includes the Charles D. Lindberg Stadium and the Ken Anderson Club, which have been called “the best Division III football and track & field facilities in the nation,” according to aekfoundation.org.
In addition to the $9-million grant for these athletic facilities, Austin Knowlton also funded Augustana’s large Austin E. Knowlton Memorial Scholarship, as well as the college’s Honors program. One of his lifelong friends was Charlie Lindberg, a 1950 Augie alum (older brother of Peter Lindberg) who was a Cincinnati lawyer, a founding trustee of the Knowlton Foundation, and became Augie’s longest-serving trustee, on the board for 29 years.
Augie biology professor excited for new center
Dr. Kimberly Murphy, a 10-year biology professor, will be the inaugural director of Augustana’s Center for the Advancement of Community Health and Wellness.
“It is Dr. Murphy’s ambition and her intelligence and background that makes her an ideal leader for this role,” Bahls said. “In this role, Dr.
Kimberly Murphy is Augustana’s first director for the Center for the Advancement of Community Health and Wellness (which encompasses the new center and other programs).
Murphy will make meaningful connections between the college, the Rock Island community, the Quad-Cities and the world beyond. I’m excited to see how she sets goals, develops priorities in alignment with the college’s vision and mission, and how she advances student experiential learning, that Augustana is so known for.”
Murphy’s role will involve the new center, but also other programs, teams and facilities on campus. Eventually, there will be an executive center named for the Lindberg Center.
“This facility is a dream come true – of a dream I didn’t know I had until a couple years ago,” she said after Monday’s ribbon-cutting. “I was a student athlete, and I really appreciate how students learn both in the classroom, on the field, or in the pool – so to have those two together in the building, to get to really showcase two of our really strong programs, being public health and kinesiology, is extremely exciting.” Murphy earned her bachelor’s degree at Winona State in Minnesota.
This is the third year for Augie’s kinesiology program, and the increasing number of majors “has blown us out of the water,” she said. “I think what we thought we’d have, we have four times that number. It’s a very interdisciplinary program. The number of possibilities after Augustana with a kinesiology
A view of one of the training/workout rooms.
background is just endless. It’s definitely not a discipline that’s just for athletes.”
Some of the fastest growing fields for majors are physical therapy and occupational therapy, Murphy said, especially with our aging population. “Being wellness coaches, physical therapists for that population,” Murphy said. “There’s the business side of it, and maybe behind the scenes, even at your local gym – personal training, strength and conditioning. Maybe you want to work with a team, for example.”
The new center allowed the college to bring academics and athletics together, and move public health and kinesiology together – whether they were scattered across campus before, she said. “It really showcases those two programs, and the building, the physical space has the natatorium, but right behind the building is our athletic facilities – the football field and Carver Center, so having those in close proximity is important.”
The college also plans to add more faculty and staff for the center, Murphy said. “Public health and kinesiology are both, like I said, just growing like crazy. To provide our students with awesome opportunities, we need more faculty and staff.”
To the faculty in attendance Monday, Provost Wendy Hilton-Morrow, and Vice President of Academic Affairs, said:
“We know that you will help empower and shape the next generation of leaders in the fields of health and human performance. It’s also
Monica Smith — college vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion — spoke at Monday morning’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
because of you that our students have a 100-percent graduate school placement rate in the field of public health.”
“We are so thankful to so many of you, who have been with us every step of the way, so that this day would finally be here,” Hilton-Morrow said. “Today, I rejoice, because today we can so clearly see the work of many coming to life in a full and bright way.”
Monica Smith, Augustana’s vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, said with the Lindberg Center, the college honors two pioneers who “showed strength, courage and leadership, and who achieved much at Augustana College and the world.”
The natatorium is named for Anne Greve Lund and the functional training lab for Aben Emile Cooper. Lund graduated in 1926, and was the first director of women’s athletics at Augustana (1924-1934). She assumed faculty status while still a student and “almost single-handedly pushed women’s athletics toward the modern era,” Smith said.
Cooper graduated in 1993 with a major in biology and interest in physical therapy, “known for his work ethic, focus on academics, and his
The center’s functional training lab was named for Augie basketball star Abel Emile Cooper, Class of ’93.
fellow athletes recall, he was always the first in the gym and the last to leave,” she said. “He was a leader on the Augustana basketball team, averaging 17.1 points per game his senior year, and helping the Vikings win the CCIW championship with a 12-2 record.”
In the 1993 NCAA Division III championships, Cooper’s breakaway dunk sealed Augie’s 83-81 win, and put the team in the title game, Smith said. “I’m proud to say that Aben Emile Cooper was the first Black student from Augustana to be named an All-American. He’s one of the 177 Academic All-Americans from Augustana, who have helped Augustana be a longtime national leader among colleges for the number of Academic All-Americans. What a wonderful accomplishment, personally and for Augustana College. We’re grateful for these pioneers – like Anne Greve Lund and Aben Emile Cooper – and I look forward to seeing future leaders develop and grow inside this innovative new building.”
| “Our mission is to help the qualities of mind, body and spirit – to help students discern their life’s calling of leadership and service in a diverse and changing world; that’s our mission. Inside here, in this building, there is academic space for growth of mind and learning,” said Kent Barnds, Augustana’s executive vice president for external relations. “There’s a meditation space for one’s spiritual growth, and there’s a new natatorium – for body, strength and for human performance.” |
Kinesiology — the study of physical activities and human movement and its impact on health, society and quality of life — leads to high-demand career fields, according to Augustana.
These include medicine, occupational therapy, physician assistant, athletic training, cardiac rehabilitation, recreational therapy, strength and
A large Augustana “A” at the top of the stairs in the new center.
conditioning, exercise physiology, personal training, physical therapy, chiropractic medicine, sports and fitness management, exercise therapy, sports medicine, nutrition and wellness counseling, rehabilitation therapy, research and coaching.
The new center also will house Augustana’s growing public health major. This program will expand and offer five integrated tracks in health education and promotion, epidemiology, envonmental health, biostatistics and data analytics, and health policy and administration.
Public health is a fast-growing field that appeals to students interested in a pre-health profession with many perspectives: anthropology, biology, communication studies, environmental studies, ethics, geography, health economics, political science, sociology and women’s and gender studies.
For more information, visit www.augustana.edu.
