The Martin Luther Schule Teacher Award seeks to advance the German-American exchange tradition at the Martin Luther Schule in Rimbach, Germany, about 40 minutes away from the university town of Heidelberg. Rimbach is located in the Odenwald, a rural area with rolling hills, lots of walking trails, and many town centers that date to medieval times. The Martin Luther Schule (GoogleMaps) was founded in 1887, and it shares with St. Olaf College a heritage grounded in the values of the Lutheran Church. Today, the Martin Luther Schule is a well-regarded, publicly funded Gymnasium known especially for its music program, a “Schule mit Schwerpunkt Musik”. The school also has a large English faculty, offers multiple English-German dual-language academic tracks, and its global outreach includes a program in east India. The campus consists of three connected buildings that emphasize library and media resources, natural sciences, and art and music.
The program of Rimbach teachers was established in 1947 with the facilitation of St. Olaf Professor Howard Hong. At that time, the Martin Luther Schule was short on two things: lightbulbs and English teachers. In his capacity as Senior Field Representative for the Lutheran World Federation Service to Refugees, Dr. Hong helped to supply both: he procured lightbulbs from Switzerland and forged the agreement with the St. Olaf student body association to provide travel funds for one teacher per year. The first “Rimbach Ole” was Josephine Haugen, who taught for two years at the school before becoming a LWF Welfare Officer and marrying LWF US Zone Director, Kenneth Senft. Between 1948 and 1968, each class of St. Olaf students sent a teacher to the Martin Luther Schule. After a period of dormancy, the program was re-established in 2002 thanks to the enthusiastic initiative of St. Olaf alumnus James V. Anderson ’51, who worked with Howard Hong in postwar Germany as a volunteer for the LWF Service to Refugees.
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