If you ask most students what makes a good business education, you’re likely to hear about finance, marketing, or maybe entrepreneurship. But at Augustana University, Professors Matthew Willard and David O’Hara are making the case that sustainability belongs at the center of it all.
In a recent episode of the Business Schooled podcast, the two professors shared how they’ve woven sustainability into Augustana’s DNA—not by building new programs from scratch, but by embedding sustainable thinking into what’s already there.
“We didn’t start by asking for money,” says O’Hara. “We asked what we already had that we could repurpose.” That meant infusing existing courses—from finance to philosophy—with the principles of the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.
The goal? Create a mindset where students don’t just learn to make a business profitable, but to make it meaningful and resilient. Willard’s finance students, for example, analyze capital projects like solar panel installations not just for their ROI, but for their impact on recruitment, marketing, and long-term brand value.
And there’s a deep philosophical underpinning to it all. O’Hara encourages students to ask what kind of ancestors they want to be, and to explore knowledge that has “no obvious use”—from poetry to insect migration—because in business, the best ideas often bloom from unexpected roots.
Their message to business students? Start small. Look around. Find a problem worth solving. And don’t wait for permission to act. As Willard puts it: “There’s going to be one crazy professor on your campus like Dave. Find them. Attach yourself.”