Klaus Solko, co-executive editor

As many people know, Augsburg Seminar (AugSem) has changed the way it runs this year. In previous years, the way that AugSem worked was that first-year students had a day of the week when their AugSem class would be, and they would go to the class where both their professor and their AugSem leader would be. This made it so AugSem leaders were like teachers’ assistants and a bridge for first-year students to interact with an upperclassman.

This year, however, the system has changed to first years having two different time commitments to go to AugSem, both going to their AugSem class with their professor, and the AugSem community time, which is run by the AugSem leader. This new system was poorly communicated to students, some of whom, even after having their third AugSem community time, think the AugSem Leader conducting the class is the professor. 

This new system has come with a lot of challenges. “We didn’t get trained on how to make lesson plans or run a class. In fact, we only found out that we had to make everything ourselves less than a week before the first AugSem class,” said one AugSem Leader. However, they did add that they have been given more materials to assist recently. 

It seems like the thing that has broken down the most with this new system is communication. With AugSem leaders and professors no longer being in the same classroom, there is far less connection and understanding of each other. This is true both lesson plan-wise, but more importantly, on a personal level. 

Communication with upper management has also been a struggle for the AugSem leaders. It has been reported that one of the people in the upper management of Augsem doesn’t read the emails sent to them but plugs them into ChatGPT and has the AI write a response email for them. It is insulting to not have the care for your employees to do the basic task of reading the words they send you and responding. ChatGPT might as well be getting paid for their job.  

The AugSem leaders were further insulted on Tuesday, Sept. 16. “A lot of us AugSem leaders were required to go to the symposium but […] were unable to go because we were seen just as AugSem leaders, not as students first,” another AugSem leader shared. The option was given for leaders to have an asynchronous lesson. However, this option was given only a day before. This option felt like a poor excuse to make up for making it clear to students that they don’t matter past their job. This further ties in with the lack of connection between AugSem leaders and anyone else they have to work with, as they are pushed into an “us vs them” situation of standing up for themselves. 

Even with all of this chaos and struggle with management the AugSem leaders are still working hard and standing together. “I feel like […] I [kind of] had to step in… Everyone else was just pushed in the deep end and I don’t think that was fair to the other AugSem leaders,” an AugSem leader recounted. While that is a terrible place to feel yourself in, it shows how much the AugSem leaders care about each other and how truly everyone is trying their best to make something out of what they were given.