President’s goals for 2021-2022
Major goals for the year
• Support the Board of Trustees and Presidential Search Committee in preparing for a successful presidential transition. Ensure continued strong finances at the college and strong working relationships with trustees, faculty, staff, administration and students. Empower our strong and effective cabinet. Prepare the campus to support and embrace a new administration.
• Provide for resumption, with gusto, of in-person activities and in-person-only classes at Augustana in accordance with the safety standards of the Centers for Disease Control, State of Illinois and the American College Health Association.
Recognizing the importance of nurturing physical community, all employees will return to work at the Rock Island campus and we will reset our culture of live interactions among and between students, faculty and staff, while studying the feasibility of providing additional flexibility in scheduling.
• Develop robust programming concerning issues of racial justice, inclusion and equity.
• Finalize implementation of Augustana Forward and its three priorities: (a) prepare Augustana for growth through 2025; (b) maintain Augustana’s distinction as a best college value; and (c) further strengthen and leverage high levels of faculty/staff, board of trustees, alumni and student engagement (unfinished priorities are included in the items below).
• Focus on these Fit for the Future priorities for the near-term: (a) Infuse inclusion into everything we do; (b) Place the character, skills, and the attributes our students will need at the center of our liberal arts education and exploration; (c) Create the necessary framework to facilitate new programs and renew/transform existing programs; and (d) Reimagine CORE (Careers, Opportunities, Research, Exploration).
• Fully leverage the benefits of the Peter J. Lindberg, M.D., Center for Health and Human Performance, including the hiring of a director to develop programs for student and community well-being — physical, mental, spiritual, relational and environmental.
Augustana 2020 Platform One: Student Outcomes
• Recognizing the pedagogical limitations of hybrid learning on student engagement and its burden on our faculty, return to in-person classes with limited exceptions.
• Implement federal grant programs to advance student learning opportunities and outcomes.
• Complete development of an engineering program, as funds are identified for start-up expenses.
• Advance a Business Administration program review and revitalization.
Augustana 2020 Platform Two: Integration Agenda
• Reintroduce CORE to achieve exceptional student experiences, outstanding career and employment outcomes, and a recognized distinction for Augustana College.
• Implement women’s water polo, men’s water polo, women’s wrestling and e-sports.
• Assess implemented integration initiatives to measure their success in achieving desired student learning and other outcomes.
Augustana 2020 Platform Three: Financial Sustainability
• Increase revenue from first-year class when compared with first-year class entering in 2019.
• Implement next phase of Carnegie Dartlet implementation, including space for experimentation.
• Implement strategy to continue to recover international enrollment.
• Enroll at least 40 new students between the fall and spring semesters.
• Implement articulation agreements to ease transfer with Black Hawk College and Eastern Iowa Community Colleges. Assess similar agreements with other community colleges.
• Leverage, from a program and reputation level, the completion of the Lindberg Center. Assess additional ways to ensure that well-being is a core Augustana value.
• Break ground for Bergendoff renovation in the summer of 2021 and complete Phase One of the renovation, while preparing to break ground for Phase Two in 2022.
• Update review of student retention, with an objective of increasing first- to second-year retention to 88%.
• Undo many of the actions taken in summer of 2020 to address the COVID-19 crisis — resume employee pay increases, restore the retirement plan contribution to 7% or 8%, restore two-thirds of the reserve for depreciation.
• Finalize structures of advisory councils in Chicago.
• Focus the president’s fundraising efforts on deferred giving, support for CORE, one or two smaller capital projects, emphasis on the value of unrestricted giving, and creation of a new, more robust presidential discretionary fund.
• Evaluate the addition of competitive cheerleading and/or dance.
• Complete implementation of Blue, Gold & Beautiful plans for central campus.
• Increase annual giving by 10% to 15%, challenging the board to lead the way.
Augustana 2020 Platform Four: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Assess next phases of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan. Engage in a board study of the AGB’s Statement on Justice, Equity and Inclusion.
• Implement plans to advance sense of belonging among all students. Assess appropriate response to climate survey.
• Further strengthen Augustana’s position as a Quad Cities leader in exploring issues of justice, equity and inclusion.
• Hire full-time Title IX and Civil Rights director to best ensure our policies are fully implemented and complied with.
• Review policies and structures around bias reporting to ensure our work in this regard reinforces the sense of belonging of all members of the campus, and particularly those from underrepresented communities.
Other items
• Assess faculty workload within a framework of returning to 12:1 student/faculty ratio. Work with supervisors to develop ways of "working smarter" to continue to offer high quality services with current and anticipated resource constraints.
• Develop next phase of environmental sustainability plans to maximize the impact of our investments on campus.
• Continue to build both risk management and compliance cultures.
• Engage in a board study of the AGB’s new statements related to board service.