The next president of Augustana College, Rock Island, will be inaugurated during ceremonies on Oct. 15.
The inauguration ceremony, which will be part of the Augustana Homecoming weekend, will usher in Andrea Talentino as the ninth president of the college.
Augustana officials this week announced the upcoming inauguration date.
“We are planning a big weekend to show our collective support for Andrea and her administration,” said John Murabito, chair of both the board of trustees and the presidential search committee. “We anticipate alumni, friends, students, faculty and staff will join in the celebration.”
An inauguration committee, a schedule of activities and a list of speakers for inauguration weekend, will be announced this spring. The schedule will be released this summer.
Mr. Murabito also announced the formation of a transition committee. Made up of college trustees, faculty and administrators, this committee will support and assist Ms. Talentino in her new role, especially as she begins meeting with alumni, corporate and non-profit community leaders and groups, donors, foundations, local officeholders and policy makers. The committee will be co-chaired by Trustee Chris Coulter, Class of 1994, of Peoria, Illinois, and W. Kent Barnds, Augustana executive vice president.
Ms. Talentino, currently the provost of Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, was introduced as the next president during a ceremony Dec. 7, 2021, on the Augustana campus in Rock Island.
At that event, Mr. Murabito called Ms. Talentino the “right person to lead Augustana in this critical time.”
Before she became provost at Nazareth, Ms. Talentino was dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Norwich University in Vermont. Prior to that, she was associate dean at Drew University in New Jersey. She also held a faculty position at Tulane University.
She has earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Yale University, master’s and doctorate degrees in political science from UCLA, and earned an MBA with a concentration in organizational leadership while serving as dean at Norwich.
