Augustana congratulates 483 new graduates
Four hundred and eighty-three students participated in Augustana College's 157th Commencement Convocation on Sunday.
Dr. Al Bowman, president emeritus of Illinois State University and a 1975 Augustana graduate, was the featured speaker.
"I want to remind you, this is a major accomplishment," he told graduates. "Only one in three adults in the U.S. holds a bachelor's degree or higher."
The college conferred an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree on Dr. Bowman and Lee Selander '72, retired executive vice president of Northern Trust Company.
Augustana President Steve Bahls told students that it was a joy and privilege for him and the college faculty and staff to see students' academic progress.
He especially praised the Class of 2017 for its nearly 20,000 hours of community service.
"On behalf of your home community, let me thank you for making the Quad Cities, and Augustana College, a better place," he said.
The Augie Way
Michael Daniels, an accounting and business major speaking as the representative of the Class of 2017, said that as he reflected back over the last four years, one moment stood out.
“After nine weeks in a 200-level class, I hadn't missed many points, so the night before the last quiz, instead of opening my textbook, I reached for my calculator to find out how many points I could miss without dropping my overall grade below an A,” he said. “I crunched the numbers and felt confident I could score above the threshold without studying. So my books were not open that night.
“A few days later, I received the quiz back. Eighty-five percent, well above the score I needed to keep my A. So I thought to myself 'Good enough.'
“But on the last page of the quiz there was a short handwritten note from the teacher. It said, 'Michael, this is not your best work.' And I was offended at first. I'd earned an A in this teacher's course. What more did she want from me? But she wasn't concerned about my grade. She was concerned about me, and she knew that I had more to give."
Daniels, an Academic All-American in football, mentioned that the team has, in recent years, begun using the phrase “The Augie Way.” It seemed to him a bit “abstract” and open to interpretation.
“But, after four years I think I have an idea of what has been hiding in plain sight all along,” he said. “Augustana is a special place because the people here do not subscribe to the notion of ‘good enough.’
“Whatever we do and wherever we go,” he told his classmates, “Let's do it the Augie Way.”