Scene Magazine | Spring 2022
Friends,
As we celebrate a new group of St. Ambrose University graduates, our campus community is invigorated by what we have accomplished this past year and energized by the work that lies ahead.
Higher education, and St. Ambrose University, have entered a period of liminality. There are significant changes and factors that we must incorporate in order to remain the vibrant institution that has served our community and region for 140 years. The challenges that lie before us are not merely technical in nature, but adaptive, demanding creative solutions and a renewed commitment to the common good.
These challenges demand an orientation that understands the work of higher education not merely as that of granting diplomas, but that of facilitating personal transformation and economic, social, and spiritual mobility. Opportunities for new approaches and new solutions lie before us, and I believe that St. Ambrose is well-positioned to serve as an innovative and compassionate leader, prepared to serve learners across their lifespans.
In recent months Ambrosians have come to the table and embraced challenge and change through strategic planning input sessions. Their invaluable insight allows us to set the foundation for a future that will require innovation, imagination, and agility to serve new generations of learners in a fast-changing world.
- We are finalizing a multi-layered strategic plan that can make us a transformative and agile institution prepared to teach future students in the distinctly different ways they learn in the digital age.
- Thanks to the remarkable generosity of Tom Higgins '67, work is starting on the Higgins Hall for Innovation and Human-Centered Design, which will serve as an incubator for the new approaches to teaching and learning referred to above.
- We hosted our first Innovation Summit, engaging more than 120 Quad Cities and regional business leaders to help identify the ways we can prepare St. Ambrose graduates to be skilled and ready workforce leaders in a new age of human work. We also sought industry input on how we can best meet the lifelong learning needs of their employees as technology continues to change the nature of work.
Much work lies ahead as we strive to be the St. Ambrose we want to be. Yet, as I encounter brave and committed students such as those you will read about in this Scene, I am reminded that this is the kind of accessible institution we must be.
Accessible education inextricably links to hope for many of our potential students. Many young adults or older seasoned professionals have never invested in a hope of a St. Ambrose degree or certificate. Our challenge is to understand the barriers to that hope and let them know that Ambrosians will bridge their dreams with specific innovative efforts.
The courage in the face of challenge displayed by Arielle Williams, Grace Johanns, Selena Lopez, Jayden Rodgers, and Jacob Le, and the hope they have found on our campus, is the benchmark for the courageous risks we must take to fully serve others like them, now and into the future.
This is a collective effort – all of us are called to build this bridge.
With Christ's blessings and under the guidance of St. Ambrose,
Amy
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