News Archives - 1997

William V. Frame will be inaugurated as the 10th president of Augsburg College in a public ceremony Saturday on campus at Melby Hall. The ceremony--the featured event of Augsburg's Homecoming 1997--will begin with a procession at 4:15 p.m.

The procession will gather the multi-faceted groups and symbols that have influenced and defined Augsburg over the years. To acknowledge the College's Norwegian heritage, members of the Augsburg Associates will be dressed in traditional Norwegian bunads. Other participants will include more than 30 delegates representing institutions of higher education and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America offices and congregations.

During the ceremony special recognition will be given to Augsburg's graduating classes of 1947 and 1972. There will be also be a mix of music, readings and addresses by various members of the Augsburg community.

At 6:30 p.m., a homecoming inauguration celebration with an array of food and festive music will begin in Augsburg's Christensen Center. At 8:30 p.m., there will be a "Zero-to-Eight Hands" piano concert. This whimsical concert will feature various combinations of hands by some of Augsburg's outstanding pianists from past and present.

At the same time, there will be a dance under a tent in Murphy Square Park, adjacent to Augsburg's campus.

The weekend activities will continue Sunday at 11 a.m. with an inauguration worship service in Augsburg's Hoversten Chapel. The guest sermon will be delivered by Mark S. Hanson, a 1968 Augsburg graduate who is currently the Bishop of the ELCA's St. Paul Area Synod.

Frame took office at Augsburg on Aug. 1 after being named president on May 30 by Augsburg's board of regents. He succeeded Charles S. Anderson, Augsburg's president since 1980.

Prior to coming to Augsburg, Frame was vice president for finance and operations at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., since 1993.

William Frame was born in Philadelphia in 1938 and raised in southeastern Ohio. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from the University of Hawaii in 1962 and 1964 and his doctorate in political science in 1969 at the University of Washington.

Frame began teaching political science as an instructor at Kenyon College in Ohio in 1967. He taught there until 1982, rising through the academic ranks, gaining tenure and becoming chair of the department. In 1980-81, during a fellowship at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Frame's career took a turn into the business sector.

From 1981 to 1989 he was with the First National Bank of Chicago, serving variously as officer, assistant vice president, vice president and senior corporate banker. During this time he also was on the adjunct faculty of the School for New Learning at DePaul University. From 1989 to 1992 Frame was vice president and corporate treasurer with the Tonka Corporation in Minneapolis.