This Week's Message
Welcome back!
Thank you for the warm welcome, words of encouragement, and support that so many of you have personally voiced to me in the past two months. I am truly grateful for the sense of community that you have worked hard to create and nurture at Augustana. I would also like to thank Dr. Ellen Hay for her exceptional service to the institution serving as the interim dean this last year and being available for me in the first few months to ensure a smooth transition.
As we begin our college's 151st year together, I want to us to reflect that in 1921, a Swedish male immigrant, Dr. Jules Mauritzson, professor of Swedish, was named the first full-time dean of the college, and today, 90 years later, an Indian immigrant woman and professor of Economics starts at Augustana as its new dean. I am certain that our life experiences were very different temporally, culturally, and in myriad other dimensions. In the past 90 years the world has changed and so has our student body, but our mission to develop qualities of the mind, spirit and body remains unchanged with an assiduous focus on student learning.
The 151st year brings many important issues to attend to:
- Moving forward with the curriculum and workload reform proposal that is focused on student learning and enriching the educational experience
- Re-envisioning advising and mentoring of our students
- Working to recruit a more diverse faculty
- Meeting the different needs of our faculty to help them be successful here
- The Higher Learning Commission visit in 2015-16 that will expect us to clearly define student learning outcomes for all our programs and map them to our curriculum
I am confident that we will work together on these issues as we build a shared vision of our academic priorities to ensure a robust and vibrant future for Augustana. I look forward to the year that lies ahead of us. Wishing you the best for the 2011-12 academic year.
Sincerely,
Pareena
Dean of the College