President’s Goals for 2017-2018

May 9, 2017

Key Initiative:  Establish a Presidential Task Force of trustees, administrators and faculty to develop plans to keep Augustana financially healthy notwithstanding diminishing government aid and continuing pressures on small liberal arts colleges in Illinois.  The task force should address these issues:

• Assess our pricing model, developing alternatives for the board to consider.
• Develop alternative models to reliably increase net revenues by 3% per year in order to provide for compensation increases and other anticipated increases in expenses.
• Assess ways to meaningfully diversify revenue streams at the college.

Implement Augustana 2020

Platform One: Enhanced Preparation, to ensure students have distinguished career and graduate school successes

1. Successfully orient new provost, allowing her to hit the ground running.
2. Evaluate progress of CORE (Careers, Opportunities, Research and Exploration) Center toward the placement goals found in Augustana 2020.   Hire a new director to take CORE to the next level.
3. Complete a feasibility study of adding STEM (or STEAM, adding the arts as in liberal arts) major(s) with the potential to add 100 students.  Among the possibilities are a focused engineering major, data analytics, data science, design thinking.
4. Take further steps to offer a master’s degree in the CSD program.
5. Support conversion to semesters.
6. Implement suggestions of Transfer Student Taskforce to remove barriers to recruiting and retaining students.

Platform Two: Integrated Experiences, to facilitate transformative learning

1. Conduct program reviews of two administrative offices (Greek Life and Finance).
2. Hire and orient a chief diversity officer, at the vice presidential level.
3. Working with Faculty Council, implement new calendar with the highest quality and minimal disruption.
4. Continue to educate about Title IX issues and work toward becoming a campus free from sexual assault.
5. Successfully introduce men’s volleyball and women’s bowling.
6. Launch a summer academy for international students.
7. Celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in the 2017-2018 academic year.
8. Launch Presidential Center for Faith and Learning.

 Platform Three: Affordability and Value

1. Relaunch development and advancement efforts to build enhanced capacity to complete campaign in a timely way, increase annual giving, and building pipeline of younger alumni.
2. Continue to implement suggestions of Strategic Enrollment Task Force, with the goal of growing net tuition, room and board 2% per year for the first year class for 2018-2019.
3. Generate new "close the gap" scholarships in the amount of $500,000 for the incoming class of 2017 and/or a similar amount to offset the loss of MAP funds.
4. Assuming MAP is not funded in 2016-2017, develop a 2017-2018 budget funding all but $1 million in depreciation.  If MAP is fully funded in 2016-2017, develop a 2017-2018 budget that funds all but $1.6 million of depreciation.
5. Increase dollars raised for the annual fund (not considering bequests) by $250,000.
6. Implement relaunched and amended campaign plan for Augustana 2020, with the goal of $80 million in commitments and a public announcement in late 2018.
7. Refresh Alix Partner’s recommendations and continue to implement Alix Partners’ recommendations.
8. Reconstitute the Strengthening our Neighborhood Task Force.
9. Supporting creating a stronger effort to market our spaces for meetings and events.  Increase revenues correspondingly.  Develop a plan to increase revenues from meetings and events by $500,000 by 2020.
10. Revise budgeting process to provide additional flexibility for changes in the months before the fiscal year starts.  Continue monitoring process to eliminate inaccuracies and address budget variance early on.
11. Enhance our campus by:
    1. Complete third year of three-year renovation of Westerlin.
    2. Finalize plans to renovate Bergendoff and establish timetable for renovation.
    3. Begin expansion of Hanson Hall of Science.
    4. Finalize plans for addition to Brodahl to support the new master’s program.  Establish timetable.
    5. Complete work with necessary stakeholders to create a plan for campus beauty and aesthetic improvements in the academic quad.
    6. Develop plans and timetable for building a volleyball venue.

Board Matters

1. Facilitate smooth transition to the new board chair.
2. Ensure governance documents align with board committee work.
3. Review alternative structure for board meetings and committees to deepen trustee engagement.
4. Review alternatives for delivery of board materials to trustees.