Scott Jaschik once again covers an important topic in a useful way. His story of the institutional direction planning for Augustana College (IL) touches all the bases. It's a story that has its parallels in the major challenges faced by small private institutions which did not, pre-recession, have large, highly noticed brands:

Now, in the face of the economic downturn, the college is making some adjustments -- which Steven C. Bahls, its president, calls the "post-recession strategic plan" for a liberal arts college. That means several new majors focused on pre-professional interests. With new majors, Bahls says the college may need, over time, to move away from a tradition (rare among American colleges) of paying faculty members equivalent salaries across disciplines; the plan also means symbolic and real steps to be sure that the college can attract diverse students, beyond its historic (and shrinking) base of Swedish Lutheran families.

No one will mistake Augustana for a vocational institute. Even with the changes, this is a college that offers numerous modern foreign languages as well as the classics, a college that, true to its immigrant roots, has a Scandinavian major and instruction in Swedish, a college with majors in philosophy and art history and theater at a time when such programs are being threatened at much larger and wealthier institutions. But the changes are nonetheless significant and, to some, jarring.