Aaron Lauer
Class of 2007
Minister for Children, Youth and Families
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
"Diverse" is a great word to describe my life experiences since graduating with a BA in History and Religion from Hastings in 2007. I've earned a Master's in Religious Studies, worked in refugee resettlement, a bookstore, and church education, and all the while been dedicated to activism around social justice issues.
The whole time my history education from Hastings has been a major part of the groundwork for the work that I do. History plays an important role in understanding different cultures that come to the United States for resettlement, in learning from civil rights movements of the past and how we can mirror their successes, and in realizing how the history of Christianity influences the mission of the church today.
Without the guidance of the history professors at Hastings College, I would lack the skills of identifying how history informs our present time, how studying documents of the past is a discipline of interpretation, and how new ways of understanding history are always emerging and shaping our world today. My history education is something I always rely on for direction in discerning ways to live, work, and serve.
