Charge to Augustana Bold Planning Group
President Steve Bahls, June 2020
COVID-19 disrupted higher education, and Augustana College is no exception.
Add to that the recent, painful acknowledgement of the historic racial and societal disparities that divide our nation, and how that will impact the climate for higher education for many years to come.
And, we cannot forget that the “demographic cliff” for which we’ve begun planning will be upon us in a short time.
Responding to each of these challenges is daunting; responding to all three is nearly overwhelming. Perhaps the only certainty is that 2020 will be a dividing line between what was and what will be.
But what I’ve witnessed in the past six months assures me this community possesses the nimbleness, resilience, grit, creativity and analytic ability to ensure that Augustana College will continue to educate graduates who can meet the challenges of today’s world.
In order to rise to this moment, we must approach planning in a different way to prepare for today, tomorrow and years from now.
A traditional planning process, with pages of bullet point actions, is insufficient to meet the moment and to launch the college boldly out of this difficult period. We need to think differently, with both strategy and creativity, about what we can do, how we can do it and how we will remain strong in the process.
We need to remain faithful to our mission and our values. And we must begin to think beyond those limitations that have ordered our thinking in the past. We must ask difficult and inconvenient questions:
1. Higher education has been criticized for being too expensive, not accessible and not effective in preparing students with the skills they after graduation. Our sector has largely ignored these criticisms because liberal arts colleges only need to enroll one in 33 college students in America.
Yet we see particular enrollment pressure on our sector indicating we are not immune from these larger concerns. Is this criticism fair with respect to the liberal arts sector? How should we respond?
2. I welcome the heightened discussion of justice and social change issues including racial justice, economic justice and environmental justice. These issues are in urgent need of attention. Is Augustana equipped to help our students lead for a more just society?
3. The strategy of this administration has been to develop new programs (both academic and athletic) within the confines of a typical liberal arts college. It has eschewed dramatic change for incremental change. Will this strategy be sufficient to keep Augustana strong and true to its mission in five to 10 years?
4. Augustana has been steadfastly committed to face-to-face education. Is there a role for online education after the COVID-19 crisis ends? If so, have we made a sufficient investment to support online education?
5. Augustana has believed that it is relatively immune from competition by online and lower-cost providers because of the value we provide as a residential campus. Might other forms of education be a threat to Augustana? Are there other disrupters to higher education that we are ignoring? Should Augustana be a disrupter?
6. Augustana has been committed to adding services to meet student needs. Have we become too expensive for our students?
7. Augustana has excelled at teaching its students critical thinking skills and equipping them to become advocates for justice. We have rejected majors such as criminal justice and social work, professions that have great capacity to deliver a more justice society.
Should we reconsider these majors as new opportunities? What if we had more law enforcement officers and social workers with a liberal arts background and the sense of calling our students have?
Are there majors or programs we should offer to prepare those who provide direct service like law enforcement, social work, developmental education, etc.?
8. Augustana is one of 80 independent colleges in Illinois. Most agree that there will be significantly fewer in five years. Higher education institutions have shunned mergers, acquisitions, and deep partnerships with campuses elsewhere. Should Augustana pursue any of these strategies?
9. We have viewed Augustana as a college that serves almost exclusively traditional-aged students. Yet this population is projected to decrease in our market area.
Should we offer more graduate programs, certificate programs and other programs? Is our mission narrowly defined to help B.A. students from 18-23 years of age grow in mind, spirit and body? Or should our mission extend to such things as education programs at employers, partnerships with community colleges, non-degree certificate programs, and the like?
10. Augustana, like most liberal arts colleges, has not diversified its revenue streams. If we cannot reopen to live instruction, we expect to lose 75% of our revenues, resulting in structural damage to Augustana. Can we afford not to diversify revenues?
11. Most of Augustana’s capital expenditures have been for building improvements and renovations. With our 2004 campus master plan essentially completed, how should the excess resources (beyond those needed for operating expense) be invested?
Have we made appropriate investments in technology? Should we develop a deeper source of funds for new program development? Partnerships with or acquisition of other institutions?
Ken Kaufman, chair of Kaufman, Hall and Associates, L.L.C., writes about disruption in health care. He states that health care systems, to survive disruption, must develop linked strategies for the now, the near and the far.
His thinking, I believe, applies with equal force to higher education. Kaufman Hall has used similar terms for higher education responding to the COVID-19 crisis: respond, recover, and reimagine.
For Augustana, the now is getting through the damage done by the COVID-19 crisis during the next year. The near for Augustana is the next two years as we seek to strengthen Augustana after COVID-19 and before the demographic cliff. The far is two, five or more years when Augustana must confront the questions above, as well as other difficult questions.
Kaufman, I believe, would say that Augustana can’t much influence what the market will create for the far in higher education. What we can do is to understand what scenarios the far might hold for higher education, keep ourselves strong in the present, and invest strategically in the near so we can be ready for the far, recognizing that our predictions now are subject to change because of competitive and other factors largely beyond our control.
I have agreed with the Augustana Board of Trustees that over the next two years, I will facilitate progress toward two objectives:
1. We will develop strategies for the near: What can Augustana do to recover from the COVID-19 crisis that will also allow it to survive the demographic cliff and the painful decisions that we will face? What can Augustana do now to prepare for the far?
2. Five- to ten-year horizon, the far: With a probable presidential transition two years away, what is Augustana prepared to advise a new president about our willingness to address the important questions above? If we are prepared to address some of these questions, it will help guide a presidential search committee in developing a list of competencies required of a new president.
Form of report to the board:
Part One: The Far – Reimagine?
• Of the above questions, what should Augustana’s stance be? We will prepare a one- to two-page report on each, to address the likely impact on Augustana and possible high-level responses.
• Which issues are so important that a presidential search ccmmittee should consider them when preparing a prospectus for a new president?
• What are the barriers to fully and appropriately considering these questions, and how can we remove these barriers?
It is not the objective of this exercise to develop a detailed five-year strategic plan to address these issues. The board sees that process starting in fall of 2022. The question is, how do we prepare fertile ground for the next larger term strategic plan?
Part Two: The Near – Recover!
• What can Augustana do to improve its competitive position as it rebuilds and prepares for the demographic cliff? What actions should be taken in six months, 12 months and 18 months?
• What are the two or three steps Augustana can take now to prepare Augustana for alternative scenarios for the far? How do we ensure these two or three initiatives have a critical mass of resources to ensure high impact?
• Do any of the "temporary" changes we are making in response to COVID-19 provide opportunities to bridge to the far?
• How can Augustana best prepare graduates to address the urgent issues that will heal the divisions in our country and address issues of inequality?
• What are the metrics that we could use at the end of six to 24 months to determine whether we achieved the impact we intended?
Now is the time for us to think about today, tomorrow and 10 years from now, and I believe these questions can help guide a process that will embolden Augustana College.
The process will be different than those in the past. I will be working with my Cabinet, two trustees, two elected faculty members and one student I appoint to develop a blueprint to address the issues above. I hope to present a preliminary plan to the board in October and a final plan in January.
I expect everyone to suspend judgment about what has traditionally represented best practices and think creatively about our future and how we can improve, change and further strengthen what we do best.
Throughout the process, we will challenge ourselves to ask: What’s possible here and how does it advance our enduring mission in new ways? We will challenge ourselves to think globally, rather than parochially, about the possibilities that exist for Augustana. It is time to send some sacred cows out to pasture.
Members of the community will be invited to share ideas, perspectives and input at various intervals through the process. But this process is likely to feel different to those of you who have been through previous strategic planning processes at Augustana College. Now is the time to challenge our traditional thinking about what we do and how we do it.