Monday, April 6 Augustana President Steven Bahls addressed over sixty community members from both sides of the river at a Rock Island Kiwanis Club luncheon hosted at the Quad City Botanical Center.

His presentation included a comparison of factors between community colleges, public state schools and independent private colleges including family income, four year graduation rates vs six year graduation rates, average student debt, minority enrollments as well as state and local economic impacts.

The Q&A after Mr. Bahls' presentation included a question regarding IBM's recent announcement to move 1600 jobs to Dubuque. The questioner posited that institutions of higher learning were integrally involved in the IBM recruitment process with IBM and are those same type of institutions in the Quad Cities missing an opportunity to do the same in order to grow our local economy?