 I met Mika when she was a sophomore. I remember being so impressed by her because she was already in the world doing things and it wasn't too far into that first semester that she asked permission to be to miss a few days of classes and it was because she was part of a national organization that was a commission for the status of women in the ELCA and so she had to go to a board meeting and talk about things like gender violence and preventing domestic violence and the HIV AIDS crisis and she was one of six people from the entire country who were part of this group and so I remember just being impressed by her from the very beginning. She has accomplished more in her short life than I think most people do in a whole lifetime. The amount of impact she's had domestically but also internationally in terms of things like fighting against world hunger is just astounding. I remember watching the video of her at the ELCA Youth Gathering a few years ago and she was speaking in front of a group of 30,000 young adults from around the country and she was talking about how people view her and think that she's a little naive or maybe crazy for thinking that she could end world hunger and poverty and and yet that's what she's driven to do and she's the type of person that I think could actually accomplish that. I admire how she's used her personal story as inspiration for the work that she does. I admire how she's fearless about entering into the world of powerful people. I admire the wisdom that she brings in those situations and I admire her perseverance that she absolutely never loses sight of her goal and she keeps working towards it. Mika is a reminder of the potential that's in every student that we have. She came from a small town in northern Minnesota and she's changing the world. Well she was instrumental in the May Day Conference that brought Lema Bowie to Gustavus Nobel Prize winner. She met Bowie when she was organizing another conference for the ELCA in Washington and so she got to help bring that connection to Gustavus and that was I think one of the most powerful events I've ever been a part of at Gustavus. She was an incredible speaker and Bowie was so inspirational and the students loved it but one of my favorite memories of that event was at the Friends of the Library luncheon that happened right after it and Mika spoke there and introduced Lema Bowie and she shared a little bit about her story and about how she came, how Mika came to be passionate about the issue of hunger and poverty and and her personal story as an adoptee and getting to meet her birth father and I think at the end of that I was crying I'm sure other people were as well but just to hear how her life, the track that her life is taken and the way that she gives back to the Gustavus community through all of that is just a really special thing.