Plans for post-pandemic days at Augustana

March 15, 2021

In the year since Augustana pivoted to remote learning, we as a community have learned a great deal. COVID-19 has shown us to be more resilient than we perhaps thought we were, and has underscored strengths of our community we might not have known we possessed.

I am grateful to the entire Augustana workforce for what each of us has done to help the college co- exist with COVID-19. For those who have returned to campus even when transmission rates were elevated, thank you for serving our students in so many ways. For those who have worked from home, thank you for making the adjustment and keeping Augustana as strong as possible.

Now, with some light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, we use the lessons we’ve learned to help chart our path forward. We keep in mind two long-held beliefs at Augustana that the experience of the past 12 months has reinforced. First, that face-to-face interaction with our students is the foundation of our effectiveness as an educational institution; and second, that working in community on the Augustana campus provides the best means of supporting our students and each other in the important work that we do.

For these reasons, and those I enumerate below, we will call the Augustana community, including our workforce, back to the Augustana campus when public health considerations allow us to do so. I expect that we will not make that call for a number of weeks, or possibly months.

As part of its response to the pandemic, the college provided the flexibility for some of our employees to work primarily from home in response to public health guidance and, later, to provide flexibility, when possible, for employees with children at home who were impacted by changed schedules.

As a residential college of the liberal arts and sciences, Augustana is defined by the interactions that occur between community members, both students and employees. We value close relationship with students and with co-workers — and we understand that they are best developed face-to-face. Augustana thrives because of a deeply collaborative environment facilitated by as many formal and informal face-to-face interactions between community members as possible.

We all participate in building the culture of the Augustana community through our presence in it. There is significant value in being physically present, given the breadth of engagement with our students, whether as faculty members, members of our team serving students, or team members with students working in their offices. We require students to be on campus and we should expect that of each other, as well. The social capital we develop through work in physical proximity to each other helps sustain us during difficult times. And we are better ambassadors for Augustana when we personally witness (and take part in!) the magic that takes place on campus.

Many of the best interactions are not through email or Zoom meetings, but through those unscheduled social interactions, sidewalk conversations and impromptu meetings with co-workers that define our culture and our high-performing workplace. I agree with Satya Nadella, CEO of  Microsoft, when he says: “Video meetings are more transactional. Work happens before meetings, after meetings.”

I am mindful that most employees came to Augustana to work side-by-side with others and not for a culture in which some work at the office and others at home. Such a culture promotes segmentation of employees, constricts the free flow of ideas, and risks the segregation of knowledge into silos.

Although we can’t be certain when the transition back to campus will occur, our Human Resources office will continue to monitor public health considerations and report on the status of our plans.

Respectfully, Steve Bahls