Augsburg historian has students spend a week living the life of a monk: No texting, no social media, no nothing

Phillip Adamo could see the panic in his students’ faces.

The class from Augsburg College had just arrived for a week’s stay at a remote 13th-century monastery in northern Scotland. Then it dawned on them.

No TV. No Internet. No texting mom five times a day.

Nothing to do but live like a monk. Which, for a medieval historian like Adamo, is almost as good as time traveling.

The idea of going to such lengths to channel the Middle Ages may seem frivolous to some, especially at today’s college tuition rates. Yet Adamo has drawn national honors for the way he brings history to life for students at Augsburg, one of Minnesota’s oldest liberal arts colleges. Just last fall, he was named Minnesota Professor of the Year by the prestigious Carnegie Foundation.

“He is a gifted and natural-born teacher; it’s embedded in his DNA,” says Amy Livingstone, a longtime friend and history professor at Wittenberg University in Ohio. Some of his techniques, she admits, may seem gimmicky, but there’s no question that his enthusiasm is infectious. ...