Innovation puts mission to work

by Andrea Talentino
Oct. 30, 2026

How does a college with a mission that has endured for generations respond to a world that is changing so quickly?

It can be tempting to see these as competing obligations: preserve what makes an institution distinctive or adapt to the moment. I don't believe they are competing obligations. At Augustana College, our mission asks us to do both.

Our mission calls us to offer a challenging education in the liberal arts and sciences that develops the qualities of mind, spirit and body students need to discern their life's calling of leadership and service in a diverse and changing world.

That last phrase matters. A diverse and changing world is not new to Augustana's mission. It is part of the mission. Our responsibility has never been to hold still. It is to prepare students for lives of leadership and service in the world they will enter.

That is where innovation begins.

When I use the word innovation, I mean applying Augustana's enduring mission to the needs of students and communities today. It means bringing different ideas together to create new value, questioning practices that no longer serve students as well as they should, and building the systems that move promising ideas into action.

Innovation can mean creating an entirely new program. It can also mean changing how students experience advising, how faculty work together or how an institution uses its resources to expand opportunity. The measure is not how unusual an idea appears. It is whether the change advances our purpose and improves outcomes.

Consider access to education.

Through Augustana Possible, supported by the Gerber Grand Challenge, we have aligned philanthropy, financial aid and long-term institutional investment around a commitment to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for direct costs for qualifying students. By summer 2026, 676 enrolled students had benefited from Augustana Possible, including 299 first-generation college students.

Access becomes more than an aspiration when institutional resources and practices are organized to make it possible.

Our integration of Trinity College of Nursing & Health Sciences reflects another application of mission. Health care needs are changing, and students are seeking meaningful pathways into professions where their decisions will matter deeply. By bringing rigorous clinical preparation into a liberal arts institution, we are creating opportunities to prepare health professionals whose technical knowledge is strengthened by ethical reasoning, communication, disciplined inquiry and civic responsibility.

This is a consequential institutional change, one that requires us to think carefully about academic structures, professional preparation and the kind of education our students will need throughout their careers.

Innovation also shapes how students experience their education.

Through Augie Choice, faculty-mentored research, internships and community-engaged learning, students apply knowledge in settings where the questions are not always defined and the answers are not always known. Among the Class of 2025, 83.5% completed internships. Nearly 20% of Augustana students work with faculty on research.

We are strengthening these opportunities while redesigning student support through initiatives such as Success Teams, the STEM/Q Center and Augie Peer Mentors. These efforts reflect a common understanding: students need both meaningful challenges and the support to navigate them.

Our responsibility extends beyond campus as well. Through the Hilltop Community Development Corporation, established in 2025, Augustana is bringing institutional resources and community partnerships together around neighborhood revitalization, housing and economic opportunity in Rock Island. Our mission has always connected learning with leadership and service. Today, that commitment calls us to participate actively in the future of the community we call home.

These may sound like separate initiatives. I don't see them that way.

I see one story: Augustana asking what our mission requires of us now.

Making these changes requires more than good ideas. Through our Bold & Boundless strategic plan, we have created pathways for faculty and staff to propose initiatives, build partnerships, gain institutional support and move ideas into practice. Other changes move through academic governance, philanthropy and institutional partnerships.

The structures matter because mission needs pathways for action. Creativity must be accompanied by ownership, resources, collaboration and accountability.

In 2026, Augustana was recognized by Insight Into Academia as a Top College for Innovation. I am grateful for that recognition. I am even more grateful for the work behind it, and for the people across our institution who are willing to reconsider established practices when changing needs call for a better approach.

The work of innovation in higher education is, in many ways, the work of translation. We translate values into institutional choices. We translate student needs into strategy. We translate community partnership into shared progress. And we translate the liberal arts into learning experiences that prepare graduates to lead and serve.

That work requires a willingness to change, but also the discipline to evaluate what we have changed. Not every promising idea will work as expected. Some will need refinement. Others will require more time, resources or different approaches. We are still learning how to do this well, and that, too, is part of the responsibility.

The liberal arts remain at the center. Students preparing for careers in health care, business, education, research or public service need to think clearly, understand complexity, communicate well, work across differences and act with integrity. Those capacities become more important, not less, as technology, professional expectations and communities change.

Our task is to help students practice those capacities more intentionally and demonstrate them more clearly in the world.

I believe the colleges that will thrive in the years ahead will understand mission as a source of movement. They will use enduring commitments to guide new choices, shape investments and create educational experiences that respond to the world as it is taking shape.

At Augustana, innovation is not about becoming something other than ourselves.

It is about taking our mission seriously enough to keep putting it to work.