Marz Kirchoff, contributor

“Artists at Augsburg are not barred from creating during a pandemic; the world, in its current state, might need them even more now,” says KAUG’s Event Coordinator Taylor Kramer in a statement to The Echo. 

Even during the midst of a global pandemic and unrest, KAUG Radio is holding strong to their mission: to give Auggies a voice, inspire creativity, encourage involvement in all artforms, showcase student talents, and meet people with similar interests. Kramer says, “KAUG wants to work with these artists to collaborate on new ways to share art digitally so that local artists can be recognized and celebrated in even the strangest and darkest times of our education.”  

KAUG President Ziz Immelman shares in a statement, “I’ve really been trying to find any positives I can with COVID. I was looking forward to all of the events we were going to have this year like open mics, a punk show, a disco, Turtlenecks and Jazz part two. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t bummed about that. However, I am SO stoked about some of our new budget plans! Alongside online events (more info coming soon), we will be monetarily supporting lots of BIPOC and queer artists to build up our music library and decorate the studio space.”

As KAUG transitions to virtual land, they plan to continue community engagement by featuring artists weekly on social media, hosting online open mics and possibly remote streaming. KAUG Web Lord, Jeron Lau, states, “I have been working on radio broadcast server software for KAUG to use that will allow students to go to a webpage on kaug.org and broadcast their radio show from anywhere. It’s very much a work in progress at the moment, but much of the ground work is done. My hope is to get a ‘minimum viable product’ (alpha version) ready very soon for KAUG members to test.” 

KAUG still plans to have biweekly meetings on Thursday evenings, starting September 17th at 6pm, to talk through updates on their current plan and to brainstorm ideas that they can incorporate into virtual member involvement and community engagement. KAUG Social Media Manager Ava Pederson says, “I’m super excited to start representing more local artists this year for KAUG. We started posting ‘local artist of the week’ posts last year on social media and it went really well, and I hope it can stay strong online again.” 

KAUG member Ebe Morales Delgado says, “I didn’t really get to do much with KAUG before COVID, but one thing that made me excited about it was how it made room for everyone to talk about their interests on a live radio show. It made it so people could be creative and collaborate with people outside of the Augsburg community, too. I hope that portion of KAUG can still stay the same because it also helps us stay connected.”

Interested in joining KAUG? Email kaug@augsburg.edu to be added to the email list.