NetVUE Regional Conference Presenters

    Plenary Speakers

    Paul Pribbenow

    Dr. Paul Pribbenow is the 10th president of Augsburg University, and is recognized as one of the country’s most engaging commentators and teachers on ethics, philanthropy, and American public life.

    Dr. Pribbenow has become a leader among the 27 colleges and universities of the ELCA, helping to articulate the gifts shaping and supporting Lutheran higher education in the 21st century.

    Dr. Pribbenow serves on the national boards of the Coalition for Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) and Campus Compact. He is also active in the Anchor Institutions Task Force. Locally, he chairs the Cedar-Riverside Partnership and serves on the executive committee of the Minnesota Private College Council. In January 2025, he was elected as chair of the Network of ELCA Colleges and Universities.

    Dr. Pribbenow received the William Burke Award for Presidential Leadership in Experiential Education from the National Society for Experiential Education in 2012. He was named a McCormick Presidential Civic Leader Fellow for 2003–04 and 2005–06. And, under his leadership, Augsburg University became the first higher education institution in Minnesota to earn the prestigious Presidential Award for Community Service, the highest honor possible for service work.

    Dr. Pribbenow is the author of numerous articles on philanthropy, ethics, and not-for-profit management. He is the co-author of Radical Roots: How One Professor Changed a University’s Legacy (Myers Education Press, 2023) and co-editor of Through Truth to Freedom: Reconciling a University’s Past, Present, and Future (Myers Education Press, 2024). He publishes a bimonthly email newsletter titled, “Notes for the Reflective Practitioner.”

    Anthony Bateza

    Rev. Dr. Anthony Bateza is a specialist in Martin Luther, moral theology, and Christian ethics.

    Luther’s political theology is his primary area of research, focusing on the reformer’s understanding of human agency and his relationship with the virtue tradition and Augustinian thought. He is also personally and professionally invested in questions of race, identity, and social justice. He has written on Black liberation theology and connections between Lutheran teaching and confronting racism in the United States.

    Dr. Bateza teaches a variety of courses in the religion department that connect theological and historical questions with contemporary challenges. He has taught in the Enduring Conversations program and currently serves as the program director of the Race and Ethnic Studies program (RACE) and chair of the Race, Ethnic, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department (REGSS).

    Outside of the classroom, Dr. Bateza is involved in a number of important projects at St. Olaf that center the college’s strategic efforts to center character and leadership. With the support of an Academic Leadership Fellowship from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, he serves as the Special Assistant to the Provost and is helping to develop an Academy for Leadership and Character.

    He is also the principal investigator on the college’s “Character in Community” project, a three-year effort designed to foster the disposition and capacity of St. Olaf students to engage in intentional character development, oriented to discern and pursue the common good, by working in community to identify, assess, and apply learning from exemplars. This project is supported through the Educating Character Initiative, a part of Wake Forest University Program for Leadership and Character, funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc., which aims to support a wide community of more than 400 institutions to educate character within colleges and universities.

    Deanna Thompson

    Dr. Deanna A. Thompson is recently retired from 29 years in higher education. Most recently she was the Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community and Martin E. Marty Regents Chair of Religion and the Academy at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

    Dr. Thompson’s research focuses on topics ranging from Martin Luther and feminism to the intersections of cancer, trauma, and faith, and what it means to be rooted in Christian faith while also being committed to interfaith engagement. She is author of five books, including The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World and most recently, Glimpsing Resurrection: Cancer, Trauma, and Ministry.

     

    Eduardo Pazos

    Mr. Pazos is St. Olaf’s Vice-President for Community and Belonging. Previously, he was the assistant dean of student affairs for identity and culture as well as the director of the Center for Multicultural Life at Bowdoin College. Earlier in his career, Pazos worked with immigrant families in Texas as a pastor and chaplain, where he led a Spanish-speaking ministry and counseled students and parents in moments of crisis.

    Mr. Pazos earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston Baptist College and a master’s degree in religion from Yale University, and he is currently working on his Ph.D in leadership and organizational management from the University of Southern Maine. He also holds certifications in building a diverse workforce from Cornell University and mental health first aid from the National Alliance on Mental Illness.