Convocation 2018

Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018 

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for attending today, and thank you for choosing UAF. Let's thank, once more, our Ensemble 64.8 for the music today.

                                    [Gwich’in] Shijyàa nąįį, Jùk vành gwinzįį. Shoozhrì’ Dan White oozhii. UAF Chancellor ihłįį.

I welcome you. It's an honor, really, to welcome you by emphasizing the importance of Alaska Native language and culture to all of us here at UAF.

This is a picture from last year's Indigenous Peoples Day. If you didn't get a chance to go, I'd encourage you to attend. This coming year, October 8th, will be Indigenous Peoples Day. It's a celebration for everyone at UAF and everyone in the state, but here particularly at UAF where we have global leadership in Alaska Native and Indigenous studies.

You heard the safety minute, and the safety minute talks about the exits. But I'd like to emphasize UAF's culture of respect, diversity, inclusion and caring. And that's on all of us. It's on me. It's on you. Take your Title IX training. Every employee at the university and the students are required to take Title IX training by September 30th. I see a lot of our UAF athletes out in the audience, and I know that they have taken it. Please join them and join me in your Title IX training, because a culture of respect, diversity, inclusion and caring is on all of us.

I'd like to thank Drs. Anahita and Champagne, who are co‑chairing our IDEA task force. IDEA stands for inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility. This is a task force that I asked a year ago to look at some of the areas that we could improve in inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility. They will come back with some recommendations, and we will look to implement some of those things.

This is now my second year as chancellor. A lot of people ask me, "Dan, how did the first year go?" It was just great. There are so many things to celebrate here at UAF. It started out with Rev It Up. I thank Mary Kreta and all of her team for the outstanding work they do at orientation. Rev It Up is new student orientation, move‑in. Parents come, parents leave. That's the day that students all start their new life as an adult at UAF. Their new career, coming back for a new career — that's the first day. And that's the chance that all faculty staff have to influence that trajectory.

Again, I thank our university athletes who were there all week long helping out, helping the students move in. What a great week that is.

Another great week is commencement. Lots of ceremonies at all of our different campuses. At our commencement here, there were 600 students that walked across the stage, out of 1,400 graduates. When I was getting ready for commencement, people said, "Geez, Dan, you're going to have to stand up there. It's going to be like four hours you're going to stand up there. You're going to have to shake all these hands. Your hand is going to be tired, and your knees are going to be tired. Oh, what an ordeal."

And after 600, I thought, "Is that it?" That was great! Every single one of those students was happy. It was a great day for them, and a great day for all of you — faculty and staff and students. I know there are a lot of students here, so I thank you for that.

I got to attend a lot of athletic events, and it was wonderful. There wasn't a single athletic event that I left and wasn't enthused to be part of the Nanook Nation. Women's volleyball is at the beginning part of their season. As the chancellor, I have eight seats. Come and join me at an athletics event. Come and join me for women's volleyball or men's basketball. Come see a swimming meet with me. We've got Division 1 hockey. These hockey players — and I know there's some of them out there — these are the elite athletes in the country in hockey. Come watch them skate for the Nanooks.

Dr. Champagne and I were sitting at the Patty Center and looking up at the Division 1 rifle championship banners. Dr. Champagne said, "Isn't that a dynasty?" In most parts of the country, they call that a dynasty.

These athletes that we have, the shooters, Division 1, best in the country, national champions over and over again. They are taking real majors here at UAF, and they're excelling. They're very focused, and they're excelling in their academics. So join me for an event. I apologize if there are any skiers or cross‑country runners, because I don't have a picture of you up there, but you are great athletes as well.

One of my favorite things to do is to welcome people to UAF, and I get this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for choosing UAF. If you're a student, thank you.

I like to stop by the museum, and there are people that get off the buses. They're just here to go see the museum for a day. I stop and I say, "Thank you for choosing UAF. Thanks for choosing to spend your afternoon with us here." Whether it's a career, whether it's four years or five years or a two‑year or a one‑year certificate, thank you for choosing UAF. It's really a great honor to be able to do.

One of the things that I get to do is make remarks. We just had a lot of construction this summer, in case you missed it,. I get the opportunity to cut ribbons and throw ceremonial switches. We had the CHP, the Combined Heat and Power Plant, ceremonial switch‑throw the other day. We have, of course, a fabulous photographer, JR Ancheta. And if you don't know JR, at some point he will take a picture of you, too.

I've noticed that he takes a lot of pictures of me. Unfortunately, not all of JR's subject matter is that cooperative. Surely I didn't have my eyes closed the whole time, but obviously I did there. No fewer than six times did JR take my picture with my eyes closed, but I've been told on good credibility that I actually was there, and I did flip the switch, and my eyes were open for at least part of that.

In case your eyes were closed this summer also, you might have missed the Yukon Drive reconstruction. Now there are sidewalks on both sides of the road. It's a nice walk and an easy drive.

In case you didn't smell it, they redid the roof of the Lola Tilly Commons. Lots of changes in the Chapman Building, if any of the students have classes in there. There's been a whole renovation there. Improvements to the dorms — this is what's called a super‑single, which is a double room, but used as a single. There are lots of improvements for our students.

We got to cut the ribbon on the Engineering, Learning and Innovation Facility, a project near and dear to my heart as I worked on that when I was director of INE. I'd like to thank all of our design and construction staff, including Jenny Campbell and Cam Wohlford and Kari Burrell. Thank you so much to our design and construction and our facilities for all of the work that they did. Thanks for all that work, because it makes us great, and gives us great facilities to do our teaching, research and service.

And, of course, out here in the Great Hall, after convocation there will be ice cream served by the vice chancellors. The vice chancellors are all sitting here in the front row, so you'll have to  give them to get out to serve ice cream.

Out there in Davis there's been a great facelift. New construction in the Great Hall. And, of course, if you're out in the Northwest Campus, Bob Metcalf and the crew out there got some renovations, so they're seeing improvements out in Nome.

There are some new roles and faces across campus, and I'd like to just take a minute and start with Dr. Anupma Prakash, who is here as our new provost and executive vice chancellor. An executive vice chancellor means that if something happens to me, she's in charge. So be nice to Dr. Prakash.

I know that Dr. Henrichs is here, our former provost, so thank you, Susan, for coming in.

As Dr. Prakash moved into the provost role, that left a vacancy in the College of Natural Science and Math, and I'd just like to thank Dr. Leah Berman for stepping in as the interim dean of CNSM. Thank you, Leah.

Pat Druckenmiller took over as the museum director for Aldona Jonaitis. And Sarah Andrew, in Dillingham, took over as our director of the Bristol Bay Campus.

I just had the opportunity this year to go out with or Evon Peter out to the Dillingham campus in Bristol Bay. What a great opportunity it is for all of the rural students to be able to go to a hub for their education, whether it's in construction trades, bachelor's, master's, or Ph.D. So thanks for all of the service to all of our rural campuses.

This is what we call the core cabinet. This is a diverse and hardworking group that are working every day for you. On the left, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Keith Champagne; Vice Chancellor for Rural, Community and Native Education Evon Peter; Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services Kari Burrell; Provost Anupma Prakash; Director of University Relations Michelle Renfrew; and Vice Chancellor for Research Larry Hinzman.

Thanks to that group for all of the support that they provide to me, and all of the support that they provide to you. And they'll be serving ice cream later.

A few other changes — Heather Brandon, our Sea Grant director; and Jodie Anderson, Matanuska Experimental Farm director; and Stacy Rasmus CANHR interim director. CANHR is the Center for Alaska Native Health Research, and that is a key part of our One Health initiative. I'll talk more about that a little bit later.

One of those people who will remain nameless, Jodie Anderson, is going to receive this Alaska Nanooks baseball cap in the mail. So she can join the Nanook Nation with the rest of us. There have been a few other changes. Of course, we had a change in our School of Education, which is now in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics. Thank you, Amy Vinlove, for serving as the director of that. You may know Theresa Bakker, because she has for years written fabulous articles in the Daily News‑Miner about the museum. She has just recently moved from the museum to take over as the alumni association director. Thank you, Theresa.

Kaydee Van Flein has stepped in at the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities. That's a great big job. Thank you, Kaydee, for your efforts there.

We are a military community, and this is a military‑friendly campus. We have active duty military across the campus in the classrooms and online. Retired military, ROTC, spouses and dependents — thanks to all of them for the service to our country. Thank you to Jackie Morton, who is our new director of the Department of Military and Veterans Services. This is on the first floor of Eielson when you walk in. Stop in there sometime. Whether you're a military veteran or not, stop in and say hi to Jackie and get connected with our military community.

We have some changes in athletics. Our new AD, Sterling Steward, will be here next month. We also have a new assistant coach in swimming, Rebecca Weiland. Kerri Nakamoto, head coach of women's basketball. Erik Largen, new hockey coach, Division 1. And Jesse Brown, who is our assistant men's basketball coach, along with with Greg Sparling, who is our new head coach for men's basketball. We've got some local athletes — I know Daniel Hornbuckle is here, and Jalon McCullough, some of our local athletes who are excelling in UAF basketball and Nanook Nation. 

I'd like to thank Mary Kreta. If you don't know what strategic enrollment planning is, you soon will. We have a big enrollment initiative. Mary Kreta is in charge of that. She has stepped in as the associate vice chancellor for enrollment management. Strategic enrollment planning is targeting how we go about recruiting and retaining students. There will be more to come on that.

I'd like to thank Arleigh Reynolds, who has stepped in as the One Health director. I'll talk a little bit more about One Health later, but that's an initiative that I think can really lift all parts of UAF in the future.

Cody Rogers is our Center for Student Engagement director — thank you, Cody. Stop by the Wood Center and see Cody and learn about the new things we're doing for students on our campus.

A great opportunity I get to do is to celebrate some of the achievements. I will start out with our student firefighters. We have a long history of producing firefighters through our student‑led program. And, of course, they will be keeping me and the rest of you safe at Starvation Gulch this weekend.

They have, of course, occasion to administer CPR. Their success rate at administering life‑saving CPR is twice that of the state in general. Twice that. They are twice as effective at administering CPR as the rest of state of Alaska. So congratulations to them.

I want to thank Michele Stalder and Keith Swarner and all of the team down at CTC. They produced this film called Success Discovered. Go down to CTC. Watch this film, and try to leave there without signing up for a course. It is really inspiring, and it received the Gold Paragon Award for video. Well done, Michele, and the rest of the team down at CTC.

UAF is part of the University of Alaska system, which includes UAA and the University of Alaska Southeast. The UA system gives out one award for the staff who makes students count. This year that was given to Wanda Wahl out in Dillingham at the Bristol Bay Campus. So, Wanda, if you are watching out in Bristol Bay live‑streaming this, thank you for putting students first and making students count.

Again down at CTC, our law enforcement academy had the largest graduating class in the last ten years.

Upward Bound is a program for high school students that gets students interested in science and math. They just got their grant renewed — I think it's close to $2 million — to continue that important work of getting high school students into fields that are going to get them a profession. They also might be able to take advantage of a lot of the research opportunities we have here at UAF.

One program that just continues to grow and grow and grow is eLearning. Eighty percent they grew this year. Last year they grew 10 percent. Over the last five years they have grown 56 percent.

Right now we are offering 16,000 credit hours by distance education. I'd like to congratulate all of the eLearning team for meeting students where they are. It gives students choice. It gives students opportunity. Thank you, Carol Gering, for your leadership in that important role.

It says "eCampus" up there in the upper right‑hand corner of your screen. They're rebranding from  eLearning and Distance Ed to just the eCampus. Come visit us at the eCampus.

At Alaska Native Language Revitalization Institute there were nine or 10 Alaska Native languages that were focused on earlier this year, with about 200 participants. This was an opportunity to really focus on saving and revitalizing and encouraging Alaska Native languages.

Lots of Indigenous languages across the world have been lost, but UAF and Alaska in general has the opportunity to revitalize some of these languages. I want to thank Evon Peter for his important work in this Alaska Native language revitalization. Thanks, Evon.

I don't know if Jerry Johnson is here, but Jerry Johnson is a research professor in the Institute of Northern Engineering. And he's an inventor. One of the things students, faculty, and staff have at this university is the opportunity to invent.

These are some of Jerry's students, and they're working on a finite element code. That is a code that looks at how materials interact with each other. That code is something that Jerry invented, and then the university copyrights that code, because the university owns that intellectual property.

Jerry is the inventor. He and his colleague, Anton Kulchitsky, started a company called Coupi to produce and sell that software that he then licensed from the university. The university owns this copyright. We license it to Jerry's company. Jerry's company creates wealth with this. It sells it. It makes money. And then because it's a license with the university, Jerry pays the university for the right to use that.

That money comes to the university, and then it's divided up in between his unit, and then it goes to all of the inventors, all of the people that had a role in inventing that code. Jerry is, of course, one of them.

This is a great opportunity for all of us at the university to create economic development in our community, and I thank Jerry. Peter Webley is here. He has done the same thing. Thank you, Peter. And Trey Coker from IAB is here. Kelly Drew is here. This is a group of people who are right at the cutting edge in developing new inventions, creating companies to then market and sell that product. It's a relationship with the university that's good for everyone. So thank you to all of our entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are not always in science and math either. We have a lot of things going on in the liberal arts, and I'll just give a shout‑out here to Dr. Sarah Stanley, who has done wonderful things with the community of writing. This is a picture of Sarah and a group of her students at the Noel Wien Library. She works in the correctional facilities. She is somebody who is reaching out across our community to make people better. So thank you, Sarah.

I get to brag on UAF all the time. UAF has the largest fleet of unmanned aircraft of any university in the country. That is all operated out of the ACUASI, the Alaskan Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration, and Dr. Cathy Cahill is the director of that.

We received one of the very first test centers for the FAA. Right from the very beginning, UAF was in the lead. Dr. Cahill wrote a great proposal to the Department of Transportation to be one of the leaders in piloting over‑the‑horizon unmanned aircraft flight. For the most part, a commercial drone has to have line of sight. You have to be able to see the drone that you're flying. But the hope is, in the future, we'll be able to fly these out of line of sight. And Dr. Cahill and all of her crew at ACUASI are leading the way.

Incidentally, she received one of ten proposals in the country. There were 150 universities that were vying for these coveted roles, and Dr. Cahill received one. Dr. Cahill knows, as many of you know, that if you write the best proposal, your success rate is 100 percent. So congratulations to her.

Two other people who understand that the best proposal gets 100 percent success rate are Dr. Srijan Aggarwal and Dr. Carie Green, two faculty at UAF who received a really coveted career award. This career award is given to the best new faculty in the country. The National Science Foundation takes a chunk of money, and they say, "This is going to go to building the careers of the best new faculty in the country."

That we have two of those this year is good on us and good on them. Thank you, Srijan and Carie, for your excellent work.

I mentioned One Health earlier. One Health is the health of animals, the health of the environment and the health of people. One thing we really have the opportunity to contribute to through all of the research all across the campus and the teaching is One Health.

I think about the work that is being done out of CANHR, the Center for Alaska Native Health Research, by Evon Peter and Stacy Rasmus, on suicide and addiction. That is an important part of the health of people, but it's not in isolation. It's not outside the environment. It's not unrelated to animals. It's not unrelated to kind of the dynamics in the Arctic. Over this next year or two, Dr. Arleigh Reynolds will be really leading this effort and looking to integrate the work that all of you are doing — faculty, staff, and students — into the One Health initiative.

The National Science Foundation has put a set of earthquake monitoring devices all across the country. That has moved across the country, and it's now in Alaska. I'd like the thank Mike West, who is the director of the Alaska Earthquake Center. He has worked tirelessly to get that equipment given to the university so that we can continue to operate it.

This is an image that he sent. There was an earthquake up in Kaktovik, where that star is. All of these sensors were gathering information about that. That's important for communities trying to understand the impact; for disaster relief and where are the disasters going to be; and for resource allocation. All of these kinds of functions rely on important and timely information. This is something that is really impacting Alaska. I thank Mike West and your work in getting this array to UAF.

 I'd like to thank Scott Rupp for his work with the Boreal Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring project, another big multimillion-dollar project.

We don't thank our arts enough, whether it's the performing arts, the symphony here, performances, film, creative arts, and quantitative and qualitative research. Well done to CLA, and well done to all the performing arts for giving us so many great ways to come and be educated and learn about arts across UAF.

There are four long‑term ecological research sites in Alaska. There's one in the Beaufort Sea up north. There's one in the gulf, this one that I have pictured — the North Gulf of Alaska. There is one in Bonanza Creek, which is just down the road, and there is one at Toolik. Two of them are led by UAF researchers, one by a former UAF researcher who is a Ph.D. student, who is now at the University of Texas, and one by a marine biological lab on the East Coast, and we have a significant involvement in all four of them.

I'd like to thank Russ Hopcroft and his crew for writing the successful proposal for the northern Gulf of Alaska LTER. If you don't recognize this deck, I'll just show you, it's a deck on the Sikuliaq. The Sikuliaq is the only ice‑capable vessel in the entire UNOLS fleet. So UNOLS is an organization that schedules all of the ships — ships that are owned by the National Science Foundation, but they're operated by universities.

This is a ship, the only one in the country, that is ice‑capable. It is not operated by the University of Washington, which operates some of them. It is not flying the flag of Oregon State or Scripps, but it turns out that it's flying the UAF flag. So I will thank Brad Moran, the dean of the college, and all of his crew who are operating this ship and making — doing great things for science and doing great things for UAF.

I know student athletes are here, and you have busy schedules. If you get a chance, participate in undergraduate research. We lead all of our peers in the percentage of students who do a research project. Some of that is done informally. Some of that is done through the URSA program, the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity.

URSA has a day where all of these undergraduate research projects are presented in a competition. If you are doing undergraduate research, if you're a faculty and you have undergraduate researchers, get them involved in this. It is a really fun day. Students all kind present their posters, and there's a competition. Good on UAF for its encouragement of undergraduate research.

I'd like to just spend a few minutes talking about goals and measures. As I mentioned, UAF is part of the UA system. As the chancellor of UAF, I report to the president, Jim Johnsen, who is the president of the UA system. He reports to the board of regents, and the board of regents is appointed by the governor.

The board has a set of goals and metrics for the system, and those trickle down to us. If you're not familiar with those, I'd encourage you to look them up on the system's website.

For example, on increased degree attainment, the board has said, "We would like to see, by 2025, an increase in enrollment of 55 percent and an increase in the completions by 126 percent," which, for UAF, by 2025, would be 13,000 students and 3,500, rough numbers, graduates.

Those are stretch goals. All the things we do contribute to the goals that the board has set in one way or another. I'm not going to list all of them up, but these are the metrics and the goals. Providing Alaska skilled workforce specifically refers to teachers and healthcare workers. Growing our world‑class research.

I'll note that one of their metrics is that this UA system retain its number‑one standing in Arctic research. As you may know, UAF is the number‑one university in the world in Arctic research. We lead the world. So kudos to us, and that is recognized by the board.

Contribute to Alaska's economic development and operate more cost effectively. These are board goals, and why are they important? Well, as we look at the budgets — all of these goals have an impact on what budget requests we have that go forward.

For example, this year, the board gave a 25 percent discount to all qualifying occupational endorsements. So anybody that signed up for welding, for example, this year at CTC got a 25 percent discount on their tuition. There are a lot of things that are done at that board level that then impact us here at the university.

Last year we had a budget of $158 million from the state. Our overall budget was much larger because of tuition and research. In FY19 — this year — was $163 million. That's a slight increase, which is nice, because we of had a little bit of a downward trend, but we're bouncing back up. All of the money there kind of went to specific initiatives towards meeting those goals.

UAF is starting a new strategic planning effort this fall, and I'll be appointing teams. I would encourage anyone who wants to be part of this to submit a nomination for oneself or somebody else to participate in our strategic planning.

We will start this fall and hopefully end in around February or March. We'll focus on some strategic themes. I'll be asking the groups that are working on specific themes to come up with some specific goals and metrics around the theme.

Modernizing the student experience. I am confident that faculty and staff who are in our classrooms are teaching cutting‑edge material, cutting‑edge research. What is the cutting edge of the overall student experience, and how do we get that for people, for all of the students that are coming to UAF?

I'd like some goals and metrics around revitalizing academic programs. As the budget declined, we have had an opportunity to look and say, "What are the academic programs, and how are we going to deliver them into the future for the next seven years? What does that look like?"

Cementing global leadership in Alaska Native and indigenous programs. We are working really hard on Troth Yeddha’, which will be the Indigenous study center right next to the museum. We really are a global leader in Alaska Native and indigenous studies. We need to cement that. What does that look like? What are the goals and metrics that allow us to do that?

The Carnegie classification is how universities are rated in the amount of research that they to, and we are close to the top. We are a research higher university. The next level, and the only other level, is called the Tier 1. Tier 1 research universities — we're very close to that. But we could do that.

And why do that? Why be a Tier 1? When reviewers are reviewing proposals, they ask the question, "Can the researcher do the work?" If the answer is yes, "Is the budget sound? Can they do the work for the amount of money that we're going to give them? Yes." The last question that they ask is, "Does the university provide the environment that allows them to do the research?"

With a Tier 1 research university, the answer is always yes. Tier 1 universities know how to support them. As a Tier 2 university, we also do that. But I think if we just take that next step — and it's not a big step — I think that will benefit all of us here at UAF. So I'd like to see some goals and metrics associated with achieving this Tier 1 status.

Transforming UAF's IP development and commercialization enterprise. Alaska needs economic development, and we have a unique position that allows us to take inventions, commercialize them, and create new companies. I'd like to thank Gwen Holdmann and Nickole Conley for their work in creating Center ICE, which is the university's first‑ever small business incubator, as well as those innovators that I mentioned earlier who are participating in that. Thank you for that. We'll look to see some goals and metrics around that.

Finally, embracing and growing a culture of respect, diversity, inclusion and caring. This is a picture of Margo Griffith, who is our Title IX coordinator, giving a lecture about Title IX and what it is. We'll look for some goals and metrics there.

Finally, I'd just like to wrap up by asking you: What can you do? I got an opportunity to meet with a lot of units this year. We sat down, and we said, "What are all the things we could be doing?" People had tons of great ideas, and they said, "Well, we could be doing this, but we can't because of."

I said, "Let's hold the but‑fors, and let's focus on the we‑could‑be‑doings." We could create a long list of really great stuff that we could be doing. And then we set that aside, and we said, "OK. Now, what are all the but‑fors? What are all the things that are stopping us from doing that?" There's budget, and I'm wearing five hats as it is — a lot of things. But when we looked at them, and we took stock of all that stuff — there weren't that many big things. There were a lot of things that we could solve.

And so I'd ask you — faculty, staff, or students — what could we be doing? Put that in a box and give it to your supervisor, or give it to me to solve so that we could be doing great things.

When I looked, I thought, "Catch somebody doing something good." I thought I'd like to put a picture up here of all of the people that I caught this year doing something good, and there's just way too many. I can't put all those people up there. So I've put up one picture of three people I caught doing just something great for this university. Joanna Young is a student, Jane Wolken is a staff, and Jessie Young‑Robertson is a faculty. A student, a faculty, and a staff got together and created the Women in Science workshop. The Women in Science workshop led to a petition, which I think many of you signed, that just said, "You know what? Here's a bunch of things that the university could be doing."

They took all the but‑fors, and they wrapped them up in a box, and they put on a bow on it and said, "There are a lot of things that might stop us, but let's focus on what we could be doing."

They did that, and that's what created the IDEA Task Force that I mentioned at the beginning that's being led by Dr. Anahita and Dr. Champagne. Just this spring they held another conference called Mindful Leadership. These are three people who are changing UAF for all of us and for the better. So thank you to Joanna, Jane and Jessie for your leadership.

I'd like to wrap up there. Again, thank you for choosing UAF. There are some UAF T‑shirts that some of the athletes will be handing out. Nook is out in the Great Hall, and there's ice cream.

Thank you, and have a great day.