Opening Convocation, Aug. 30, 2024
Remarks by President Andrea Talentino
Welcome students, families, staff, faculty, and guests. It’s wonderful to greet you all here and feel your energy on campus.
This summer I had an unusual privilege, which was to raft through the Grand Canyon with 13 Augustana students and two professors. Eleven of those students sit among you today—they are incoming first years, like you, who had not spent a semester at Augustana before the trip. They signed up for Geology 105 to get a science credit, and what they got was a transformational experience.
They also experienced the most fundamental part of an Augustana education—engaged learning that addresses complex challenges and encourages students to understand the social, economic, political, and ecological controversies they encounter. For those of you parents who might be thinking ahead to your student’s eventual career, this is exactly the kind of education that will prepare them to be successful in their chosen field and tap into the vocational inspiration that will make them impactful citizens.
The Grand Canyon is one of the crown jewels of our National Park System. It was even designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1979. To journey through it is something of an otherworldly experience. It is magnificent—breathtaking in scope, color, and history. As you progress along the river you journey through the millennia of earth’s history, encountering the rock formations that tell the stories of earth as clearly as a photo album tells the stories of a human life.
And it remains unspoiled wilderness. Although nearly 6 million visitors come to the Grand Canyon every year, only 27,000 of them, less than one percent, have the privilege to raft down its heart. It is true exploration, following the footsteps of John Wesley Powell and the early adventurers who rafted into the unknown. At the end I asked the students if the trip had made them more excited about Augustana. They said yes, but they also asked, what can ever live up to this?
That is of course the romance of the Grand Canyon, but its magnificence hides the legacy of conquest, controversy, and resource competition that is also part of its story. It may seem strange from our vantage point today, but the path to becoming a National Park was difficult. Theodore Roosevelt first proposed making it a national park in the early 1900s, but was opposed by Congress. Mining, tourism, and railroad interests all sought to establish businesses in the area, and pressed their representatives to prevent any type of wilderness designation. Laws at the time, most notably the Homestead Act of 1862, encouraged the claiming of new land for settlement and commercial use, which meant that preservation interests clashed with commercial interests from the very first.
For much of the 19th century the only way to access the area was via stagecoach, which kept tourism limited. But after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, attention shifted to expanding service to and through the Grand Canyon. In 1901 the Santa Fe Railroad opened its Grand Canyon route, which kicked off a tourism boom and brought leisure visitors into conflict with the miners, ranchers, and timber producers. That intensified the conflict between those who saw the Canyon as a prime location for extractive business and those who wanted to keep it in a natural state. But Roosevelt found a loophole around Congress. He used the Antiquities Act to designate the Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908, saying, "You cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."
The business of the Grand Canyon was just one controversy. Eleven Native American tribes have lived in or around the Grand Canyon since before recorded time. As the Canyon gradually came under federal protection tribes were moved off and away and their use of the land was increasingly restricted, first by commercial interests applying the Homestead Act, which allowed the claiming of 160 acres, and then after 1908 by the Federal Government. Woodrow Wilson signed the bill making the Grand Canyon a national park in 1919, setting it apart "as a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." But of course, the people mentioned in that sentence only included some. Those Native Americans who had been enjoying and protecting the area for years were forcibly removed, with the last Havasupai farmer forced out of the Canyon in 1928.
Since 1919 resource allocation has been another topic of controversy for Grand Canyon. The Colorado River provides critical water access for 40 million people across seven US states and parts of Mexico. The original plan to ensure equitable distribution of water was based on inflated expectations of water flow, and the Colorado Basin is now in what are considered drought conditions. The river’s average flow has decreased 20% since the year 2000 and is predicted to decrease by another 20% by 20501. And not only water is at risk. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two lakes formed by the damming of the Colorado, have lost 34% of their capacity and are coming close to dropping below the needed level to produce hydroelectric energy.
I tell you all this because this is the set of conundrums that our students encountered. The majestic setting masks critical economic, social, and ecological questions that can never be fully resolved, simply managed. Luckily, at Augustana we believe that the purpose of education is to engage with difficult questions to make society better. The Lutheran tradition that is the heart of our founding calls on students to serve their neighbor, and specifies that "to be a neighbor means to seek to understand people, communities, and their needs….and work toward a common good"2. The Grand Canyon laid out that task for us as neatly as any place could, and introduced me and my 13 fellow travelers to complex questions that have no easy right or wrong answers.
Our strategic plan, Bold & Boundless, pledges to engage students in local and global challenges, support them in their journey of self-discovery, and be a good partner with the neighborhood in which we operate. One of its most distinctive features is that it focuses on you, our students and eventual graduates, and preparing you for success and impact in your time after Augustana. That means teaching you to engage with complexity, because solving the problems that confront our world is not easy.
The Grand Canyon is a magnificent resource, yet it is pushed and pulled between different needs and uses. What role should commercial interests have in a globally unique area we deem worthy of preservation? How do we manage water so that communities can thrive? How do we both preserve the Grand Canyon and yet make it available to communities for which it is a sacred home? How do we preserve ecological health while also providing access for people to enjoy the grandeur of the nature? These are questions that many communities across the globe struggle to answer, and just some of the conundrums that you will encounter in your time at Augustana. Where we go next, in this country and others, will depend upon you bringing to bear the most important principles of your Augustana education and working collaboratively to solve these and other challenges of our time.
So while you may think of your time at Augustana as a personal journey, and to some extent it is, the bedrock of an Augustana education is that it is an education with purpose, an education designed not only to bring you knowledge and fulfillment but also to equip you, inspire you, and even gently compel you to apply your skills and knowledge in ways that help others.
You, the class of 2028, come from 26 different states, 33 countries, and every corner of Illinois. You speak 19 different first languages. You bring an incredible breadth of experience and perspective to this campus, along with academic excellence. What we ask of you today is that starting now, and over your next several years at Augustana, you find your own pathway, defined by your own passions. Ask the difficult questions and expect a journey to the answers. Just as our trip through the Grand Canyon was shaped by periods of rough water and periods of calm, your pursuit of purpose will at times be uncomfortable and difficult. There will be moments when you wonder how you will make it through, and when you hold on for dear life as the waves wash over you. There will be other times when you relax and bask in the beauty of your journey.
Rest assured, we don’t expect you to have the answers today. But we do expect you to be open to the questions, to be curious about finding answers, and eager to work with others. Our faculty and staff are committed to helping you find your way, introducing you to new opportunities and ideas, and opening pathways that will spark your own inspiration and motivation. Your time at Augustana will be a journey of self-discovery and engaged citizenship. One student who graduated last year talked about his experiences at Augustana and said, "I came as a student, and I left as a community member."
For all of you to achieve that, I urge you to pursue questions boldly, wherever they may lead. Ask questions, engage in debate, and think about how your areas of study connect to, support, complement and at times contradict one another. That is how our Grand Canyon trip was. We started with geology, but our topics and reflections moved far beyond the rocks and river. We had to think about the many communities that connect to and benefit from the Canyon and how we might help determine the health and success of those communities.
I have spent two years now at Augustana, and I can tell you that this is a special community indeed. Commitment and connection to neighbor are its hallmarks, and we are delighted to have you join us as the newest Augustana Vikings. Over your next several years this campus will mold and shape you as you mold and shape it, and prepare you to add to our great legacy of producing impactful citizens.
Welcome to Augustana.
Sources:
1 Nature Conservancy, The. (2022). A River in Crisis.
2 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (2018). Rooted and Open.