Established on 02.15.2015 by Anita Anderson
Albert Bernt Anderson was born April 3, 1928, to Albert and Agnes Anderson in Wahpeton, N.D., and had three older siblings, Edward, Delores, and Dorothea. After graduation from high school in 1946, he entered the U.S. Marine Corps, where he earned the rank of sergeant before being discharged in 1948. That fall, Albert followed his siblings and entered Concordia College with an interest in professional music. In time, he was drawn to philosophy by the energetic Socratic teaching of Reidar Thomte. Upon graduation from Concordia in 1951, Thomte encouraged Albert to study for a year at the University of Copenhagen to deepen his knowledge of Soren Kierkegaard and to learn Danish in preparation for graduate study.
Albert continued his education at Luther Theological Seminary, the University of Minnesota, and Harvard University. He joined the department of philosophy at Concordia College in 1960. Although he taught for just six years, Albert grew the department and was a lifelong mentor to many students. An abiding commitment to making things better led him to administrative service, which he began in 1968 as associate academic dean. A year later, he became the first provost of the Tri-College University. In 1976, Albert was appointed president of Lenoir Rhyne College in Hickory, N.C., where he served for six years. For the remainder of his career, Albert held various executive leadership positions at church-related liberal arts colleges and the University of Minnesota.
His published writings include works on Soren Kierkegaard, the ethics of philanthropy and fundraising, and higher education leadership. In 1999, Albert received the Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognized his multifaceted career. At his death on August 5, 2014, he was finishing a book on Johann Georg Hamann, the subject of his doctoral dissertation, and was editor for the Theology for Life series of Lutheran University Press. Late in life, Albert recorded summative reflections for his children. He spoke to the role Concordia College played in broadening his world through philosophical thinking and setting him on a path of teaching and leadership that ever returned to the examined life and to questions of beauty, goodness, and truth.
Anita shared her itinerant life for nearly seventy years with Albert, who she courted in high school through band and church and married on August 7, 1952, after graduating from Concordia College with a major in home economics. Anita and Albert raised five children, Per, Solveig, Dagny, Thor, and Berit, and have 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. As Albert devoted his work life to scholarship, teaching, and leadership in higher education, Anita embraced the callings of marriage, homemaking, and parenting while being continually involved in women's groups and social service. Following her mother, Anita perfected the self-reliant arts of cooking, sewing, and knitting to meet family and community needs and never missed the opportunity to feed and entertain others, whether as first lady of a college or welcoming a neighbor. She started or joined book and knitting clubs wherever she and Albert lived.
At age 50, Anita took an Outward Bound course in the Blue Ridge Mountains that confirmed her belief that confident risk-taking coupled with strong collaboration, whether in marriage or civic action, can do great things. This experience prepared Anita for the challenges of aging and the loss of Albert in 2014. Anita faithfully observed an inner life of daily devotions and prayer for the needs of the world and rose to see each day as a wondrous gift from God until her passing in 2021.
The purpose of the Dr. Albert and Anita Anderson Endowed Fund for Philosophy and Band is to support Concordia’s philosophy department in memory of Dr. Albert Anderson and band program in memory of Anita Anderson, who played percussion in The Concordia Band.