Senior Snapshots 2025
Portraits by Armando Jenkins-Vazquez ’21
Meet eight new grads from the class of 2025 who illustrate the power of a Luther experience.
Growing and sharing knowledge
Growing up, Chanya Butsayaturt’s parents would drive the family three hours away to an annual book fair in Bangkok. One year, Chanya’s interest was piqued by a book called A Bad Student in an Excellent Education System. The book kicked off an anti-authoritarian movement in Thailand. It also made Chanya decide to study political science.
After graduating from Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, she came to Luther, where she dove headfirst into her political science and international studies majors.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she says, “but I knew what I wanted to learn. I had academic questions. I wanted to know more, write more, interact more, especially on international development, environmental justice, and authoritarianism in Southeast Asia.”
One of Chanya’s goals at Luther was to engage in public scholarship. She presented multiple papers as a Luther student, including at off-campus conferences. She organized panels and brought a documentary screening to campus—not for course credit or as part of a work-study position, but just to enlighten her campus community. She also involved herself in local politics, attending town halls and helping people get to voting stations on election days.
Chanya had her heart set on inviting a prestigious lecturer to campus. When she came across a scholar who combined many of her interests, she took a chance and reached out to Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor at UC–Irvine. She secured funding from three campus departments in order to bring him to campus for a lecture. An avid webinar attendee herself, she wanted a hybrid event, with a virtual option, so she worked with Luther staff to make it happen. “I wanted to make it accessible. I wanted to make it possible for people living under censorship,” she says.
Chanya sees a future for herself as an academic researcher. “Doing research really humbles me,” she says, “and I think there’s a need for Southeast Asian scholarship by people who are Southeast Asian. The knowledge is concentrated in the Western hemisphere because we don’t have this access back home—not only do we not have enough funding, but also censorship there is heavy. So having this opportunity to go to a good college and speak fluent English—I can utilize this privilege for something important.”
—Kate Frentzel
Gaining confidence through a student org
Jannie Gowdy, an English and Nordic studies major, is a stunning illustration of a student who grew both personally and professionally during their college years. One of the earliest and most profound ways was through involvement with the Student Activities Council (SAC).
“One of my biggest regrets about my time at Luther is that I wasn’t really involved in anything my first year. I was scared and introverted and hadn’t established deep friendships yet, so I kind of kept to myself,” she says. “But by the time sophomore year came around, I’d gained so much more confidence. I realized that I wanted to be heavily involved with things that happened on campus.”
Through SAC—where Jannie started as concert co-chair and ended as vice president—she developed skills like communicating and coordinating with campus departments and off-campus professionals. As she interacted with managers for major music performers like Hippo Campus, she says, “It made me so much more confident. I thought: If I can talk to these people, I can talk to anybody.”
During college, Jannie took this confidence and applied it to creating social media content at several jobs, including for Luther’s Center for Sustainable Communities; her own family’s Christmas tree farm in Melbourne, Iowa; and the Decorah Public Library (DPL).
The content that she scripted, performed, and edited for DPL won her local fans around town. “It was a fun way to showcase my passion for the library,” she says. “The people who work there are so dedicated to making the library a safe and welcoming place. And getting to know the staff and patrons there gave me new insight into the town.”
A lifelong reader and writer—and co-editor of Luther’s Oneota Review, and member of the Sigma Tau Delta English honor society—Jannie ended her time at Luther as a paid research assistant for English professor Andy Hageman, researching Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and the ecological implications embedded within it.
For her senior project, she penned a memoir of her time studying abroad in Norway, and she hopes to publish her own work someday. She sounds sure-footed when she declares, “I owe it to my younger self and to myself right now to see what I can do.”
—Kate Frentzel
Learning deeply through literature
Ryan Malecha has been enamored with the written word for as long as he can remember. “Reading has always been a passion of mine—I often had my head in a book growing up,” he says.
It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that Ryan, a native of Northfield, Minn., so enjoyed his first-semester Paideia class and the literature class he took the following semester that he declared an English major. “I just kept going with English literature classes because I was interested in them,” he says.
In the spring of his sophomore year, Ryan asked his academic advisor, Novian Whitsitt, professor of Africana studies and English, if he knew of any research opportunities for the coming summer. That simple inquiry secured him a position as a research assistant that would be any avid reader’s dream. For eight weeks that summer, and eight more weeks the following one, Ryan spent almost every weekday in Preus Library reading, and rereading, books by Black authors for the Color of Change project, an ongoing anthology by Whitsitt and Guy Nave, professor of religion, that explores how Black intellectual thought has evolved in the United States over the centuries. “I spent a lot of time with the books,” Ryan says with a smile. “And I learned a lot about Phillis Wheatley, bell hooks, Claudia Jones, Glenn Loury, Ibram X. Kendi, and Pauli Murray.”
The position, Ryan notes, also taught him quite a bit about the value of self-discipline, organization, and daily routines. He applied those lessons to not only his studies—he earned membership in the Sigma Tau Delta English honor society and completed a minor in visual communication—but also his other activities on campus, including positions as assistant hall director of Dieseth and captain of the Luther men’s swimming and diving team. (His favorite strokes? Backstroke and butterfly.)
Ryan is currently taking a gap year to travel (books in hand!), work odd jobs, and apply to graduate programs in media and communications, including several in the British Isles. “I just want to keep learning in a field I enjoy,” he says, in true liberal arts fashion. “I don’t feel like I’m at all done yet.”
—Sara Friedl-Putnam
Preparing for a career in medicine
Ricky Portilla Ruiz traveled more than 3,000 miles from his native Quito, Ecuador, to attend Luther, but the campus felt like home right from the start. “Playing tennis for the Norse [under Adam Strand ’04] was the best decision I made at Luther because of how welcoming the team was,” he says.
Skilled in singles and doubles play, Ricky was a focused and driven competitor. He helped the Norse capture four consecutive conference titles and four consecutive national tournament berths while earning honorable mention all-conference accolades his junior and senior years.
His unwavering drive also brought success in the classroom. Ricky’s stellar work as a global health major and biology minor secured him both an on-campus summer research position with Stephanie Fretham ’05, associate professor of biology, and a prestigious clinical immersion internship with Gundersen (now Emplify) Health in January 2024 in La Crosse, Wis.
The internship—during which he spent more than 100 hours shadowing medical rotations, observing surgeries, and attending lectures—helped Ricky better understand how the role of a physician assistant differs from that of a physician, especially in the surgical arena. It also helped him confirm that his calling lies in medicine, and perhaps in surgery. “I’ve always enjoyed being part of a team, and I learned that surgery requires a whole lot of teamwork,” he says.
During his free time, Ricky volunteered at the Decorah Free Clinic as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients. “The medical system here can be very intimidating, so it felt good to help patients feel more at ease,” he says of that experience. (He also served as co-project manager of the 2025 Decoride, a fundraising event to support the clinic.)
In June, Ricky began work at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., as a patient care assistant in surgical services. There, he’s responsible for patients’ needs, pre-op and post-op. His long-term goal is to apply to physician assistant programs.
“Besides playing tennis, my major passions have always been studying science and helping others,” Ricky says. “That’s why I chose to major in global health, and that’s why my dream is to become a healthcare provider.”
—Sara Friedl-Putnam
Bettering systems through leadership
Chloe Rozga wants to make things better. It’s part of why she got deeply involved in campus leadership.
Her senior year, she served as president of the Student Senate, saying, “I’m so optimistic about what Luther can accomplish and how it can be even better for students. That’s my driving force.”
Chloe’s focus in Student Senate was on increasing transparency at the institutional level. “It’s been fantastic this year,” she says. “We’ve had cabinet members setting up meetings with us monthly to share a bit about their work and take questions from the student body. Sometimes it gets heated and there’s tension, but it’s all for the improvement and the bettering of our campus community.”
Early in Chloe’s time at Luther, she experienced both stalking and sexual violence. She struggled to navigate the formal reporting processes around it, which led to her becoming the two-year president of Norse Against Sexual Assault (NASA) and also a member of Luther’s Title IX Advisory Board and Task Force. “My experience as a survivor who was so angry at the school processes shaped my ability to bring a voice to these groups,” she says. “We need to understand that survivors are going through such a difficult emotional time that it’s not easy for them to comprehend what is in the school’s control and what’s regulated by the federal or state government.” By working to ensure more and earlier education around sexual assault and sexual health, Chloe believes Luther students will better navigate their college years.
While Chloe, a communication studies and law and values major, has long been interested in improving unjust or faulty systems, she wasn’t sure what shape that would take until an internship with the Third District Public Defender in Rochester, Minn. It confirmed for her that she’d like to work within the legal system. She was accepted into several top law schools—UCLA and Vanderbilt among them—and decided on the University of Minnesota.
“Eventually my goal is to work my way into government,” she says. “After I work with people who I’ll be representing as a lawyer, I’ll be able to voice what I’ve learned on a higher stage and advocate for policy reform. That’s the path I feel like I’m on.”
—Kate Frentzel
Heeding a call toward social work—with a side of music and dance
Anna Stenerson’s four years at Luther were truly transformative.
A talented alto with a deep love of music, she chose Luther for its stellar music education program. Partway through her first year on campus, however, Anna discovered a passion for community and social-justice issues.
“While doing my Paideia paper on unaccompanied immigrant children, I found that I really liked doing research on important issues,” she says. Soon, she was combing through the Luther website exploring other majors and seeking advice from a few professors. “I realized pretty quickly that social work was what I really wanted to do,” says Anna, who also minored in dance and music and served as Nordic Choir president while at Luther.
Two internships in Decorah—a J-Term at the Northeast Iowa Peace and Justice Center and a semester at Northeast Iowa Behavioral Health—confirmed her social work calling. While at NEIBH, Anna assisted with administrative work, observed group sessions, wrote requests to secure federal funding, and helped open the affiliated Chrysalis Children’s Center.
This June, Anna began work not far from her hometown of Maple Grove, Minn., as a case manager at Hammer & NER for adults with disabilities. There, she helps clients navigate the social services system and find employment and housing. “My goal is to help them have a more independent, meaningful life,” Anna says.
As she entered the working world, Anna also completed certification in Movement Fundamentals, a dance paradigm developed by Jane Hawley ’87, professor of dance. “It’s all about encouraging people to tap into their bodies and move,” says Anna. (She is currently drawing upon her deep dance knowledge to help teach an adaptive class for children with disabilities at her home dance studio.)
Looking back on the last four years, Anna says she’s thankful for the opportunities the college afforded her to explore dance, music, and social work and find connections among the three disciplines. “Luther gave me the opportunity to discover my interests and take them, and myself, seriously,” she says. “I feel very prepared for whatever comes next.”
—Sara Friedl-Putnam
Combining wrestling wins with Iowa DNR internships
Walter West couldn’t have asked for a better stage on which to record his 100th career wrestling victory for the Norse. With Iowa PBS broadcasters in the house, the Luther heavyweight (285 pounds) made quick work of his Central College opponent last February in front of an enthusiastic home crowd to become just the 17th wrestler in Luther history to achieve the monumental 100-win mark.
“It was a fantastic environment to get that win,” says Walter, a Plymouth, Minn., native who overcame a torn ACL his sophomore year to earn 106 total career wins, two national tournament berths (2024 and 2025), All-American honors (2024), and Scholar All-American honors (2024 and 2025) over five seasons at Luther.
Walter cites wrestling for the Norse as one of two main reasons he enrolled at Luther. The other, which he weighed in equal measure, was its strong environmental studies program. “I have always loved being outdoors, and I knew majoring in environmental studies would involve challenging classes like biogeochemistry and a lot of outdoor labs and field trips,” he says.
The opportunity to be immersed in nature inspired Walter to spend January 2023 interning with the Iowa DNR at the Chuck Gipp [’70] Decorah Fish Hatchery. Over four cold weeks, he donned an electrofishing backpack to collect sculpins—“their presence indicates the stream is healthy,” he explains—and combed the surrounds of Volga Lake to measure buffer space along cornfields with an eye for areas of improvement. That experience led directly to a summer internship, again with the Iowa DNR, during which he interviewed trout fishers to gauge how familiar they were with area aquatic invasive species. “The fun part was educating them on how to prevent those species,” he says.
Last summer, Walter enforced navigation laws along the Mighty Mississippi as a seasonal water patrol officer for the Iowa DNR. This summer, degree now in hand, Walter is—no surprise!—spending his days outdoors doing landscaping work while seeking a position in conservation in or near Rochester, Minn. While he may not yet know what job that will be, he is sure of at least one thing: “I know my next job won’t be behind a desk.”
—Sara Friedl-Putnam
Deepening community connections
Sophie Yakes has a lot of love in her heart, and it’s driven her to engage deeply with community needs of all stripes.
It started with animals. Growing up, she had a cumulative total of six guinea pigs, four gerbils, two cats, several beta fish, snails, and a bearded dragon. She gave them, she says, “the best diets my elementary and middle school budget could buy, and they taught me companionship too profound to learn from a human.”
For three years in college, Sophie worked as an animal care lead at the Humane Society of Northeast Iowa. “It helped me avoid keeping a thousand different animals in my dorm,” she jokes. More seriously, she loved that it was hands-on, intentional, purposeful work that connected animals with homes and families. She also appreciated the structured time off campus, in the community. “I loved the opportunity to turn my brain off from academics. And having a completely different set of responsibilities was motivating and challenging,” she says.
A second job that embedded Sophie deeply in Decorah was as interim co-youth ministry coordinator at First Lutheran Church during her senior year. She’d previously worked at a Bible camp in Minnesota, where she met Pastor David Severtson ’01. When First Lutheran had a youth ministry position to fill, David naturally thought of Sophie (who’d been playing guitar for worship services) and her partner, Ethan. “My youth group was so formative for me when I was in middle and high school, and so I really understood the importance of it,” she says.
Sophie’s deep interest in people rivals her love of animals and is part of why she majored in sociology and identity studies. She spent her final semester in Rochester, Minn., interning with a public defenders office. She specifically worked with dispositional advisors, helping to flesh out clients’ social backgrounds and argue for case resolutions that best serve them. In this work, she visited clients in jail, attended court hearings, and even completed a social history for a client who spoke only Spanish (Sophie also speaks Spanish).
Sophie and Ethan recently relocated to Wilmar, Minn., where she’s working as a bilingual (English/Spanish) childcare programs navigator at United Community Action Partnership, helping connect community members with young children to early education opportunities and childcare. Because of her combination of majors, and with a Luther experience behind her, Sophie feels like “there are no boundaries I can’t reach. I don’t have to know exactly what I envision or what I want—I know I have supports and connections and networks that I bring with me.”
—Kate Frentzel