*** UPDATE: The new faculty mixer event announced previously for Aug. 24 has been canceled. ***

Dear faculty and staff,

I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. As we transition into the 2024-2025 academic year with renewed commitment to excellence, I have updates for you on the work that went on during the summer months and the plans in place for the fall semester.

Academic calendar: The UAF academic calendar is now available on the Office of the Registrar website in an easy-to-use, searchable, and subscribable format. Four important dates for you to keep in mind are:

• Aug. 26 (Monday): First day of instruction; add/drop period begins

• Sep. 2 (Monday): Labor Day (no classes, offices closed)

• Sep. 3 (Tuesday): This marks the start of the second week of classes and is a really important deadline. In this second week, students will require faculty approval to add all 100- and 200-level courses and any math or statistics course to their schedule. Students email their instructors to request permission. Instructors can approve students to enroll through UAOnline. For questions or help, faculty can email the Office of the Registrar at uaf-registrar@alaska.edu.

• Sep. 6 (Friday): Deadline for adding and dropping classes; 5 p.m. in person, 11:59 p.m. at UAOnline. This is the last day for student- and faculty-initiated drops with refund (course does not appear on academic record). The deadline for tuition and fee payment is 5 p.m. in person, and 11:59 p.m. at UAOnline.

Enrollments: UAF has joined the common application process and invested in other efforts to widen the enrollment funnel. As a result, compared to the corresponding week last year, applicants are up over 100% for first-time, first-year, degree-seeking students, up about 64% for all undergraduates, and up about 9% for graduates. Student credit hours are up 3.5%. Admission and advising teams are working hard to accept and enroll students for a timely start this fall. Our retention rates (defined as the percentage of first-time, full-time, undergraduate, degree-seeking students from the fall term who re-enrolled at UAF in the next fall term) have increased by 1.2% for first-year baccalaureate students and 1.9% for associate degree-seeking students.

Weekly enrollment updates, with details on college-level enrollments are available on our institutional research website.

Course modalities - Online, hybrid, in-person: The Center for Teaching and Learning continues to provide excellent support to faculty to create and deliver high quality academic courses, and drive enrollments with distance learning options through its eCampus. In spring 2024, asynchronous course enrollments made up 48% and synchronous course enrollments 7.4% of UAF’s total enrollment. For fall 2024, we currently have a ~50-50 mix in course modalities (1,072 unique face-to-face course sections and 989 online and hybrid course sections). If you are a faculty member interested in creating a new course or revising your existing course, including more regular and substantive interactions in your classes (a requirement for online classes, and encouraged for all classes), you can book a time with a CTL Instructional designer, make use of the online resources, or visit The MILL to access and create materials and resources. 

New faculty orientation  (Aug. 19-21) and mixer (Aug. 24): A three-day new faculty orientation is scheduled for Aug. 19-21 in the BP Design Theater, ELIF401. Aug. 19-20 will be for new faculty members, and Aug. 21 is reserved for new postdoctoral fellow orientation. If you are a new faculty member, or a faculty member who was hired in the last two years but could not attend orientation, or are a postdoctoral fellow – this orientation is for you. If you believe you belong to this group and have not received an invitation, please reach out to Jen Hoppough at the earliest.

In addition, the provost’s office will be hosting a new faculty mixer at The Pub – a catered event that will be held on Aug. 24 from 4-6 p.m. All new faculty and postdoctoral fellows are encouraged to attend and mingle with your peers as well as administrators.

Faculty promotion/tenure workshops (Aug. 27 and 30): A promotion/tenure file organization workshop organized by the Office of the Provost will be held on Aug. 27. This workshop will concentrate on the technical aspects of the contents in a promotion/tenure file and how to put together a complete file. A separate Provost Promotion-Tenure Workshop will be held on Aug. 30. This workshop will have a diverse panel that will offer guidance on preparing an effective package and will discuss what to expect at each level of review. Both workshops will be at the Usibelli building 401 BP Design Theater, and will be available via Zoom. Faculty standing for pre-tenure, promotion/tenure, and post-tenure in AY24-25 will benefit the most from both workshops. However any interested faculty member is welcome to attend. 

Faculty Annual Activities Report AY23-24 (AAR) Submission Training (Aug. 30): The AY23-24 AAR Submission Training will be held on Aug. 30 from 10-11:30 a.m. at Usibelli Building 401 BP Design Theater. This training session is for all faculty and postdocs who are required to submit their AAR for the academic year 2023-24.

Academic Leadership Institute (deadline Aug. 16): To ensure sufficient faculty participation in the 2024-25 Academic Leadership Institute (ALI), I am re-opening the application process until Aug. 16, 2024. Faculty and staff who missed the opportunity will have the week of Aug. 12-16 to fill out the application form for this popular and exciting higher academia leadership development opportunity. ALI is free for the participants, seats are limited, and an application is required for the competitive selection to ALI.

We are fully on Canvas: Canvas is the official Learning Management System for UAF and we no longer support any other LMS. Technical management of the Canvas software platform is now managed through Nanook Technology Services. Faculty should reach out to NTS for help with copying or stacking a course(s) and for all integration requests. Students and faculty should contact NTS for help finding a course or any browser issues. All faculty support for Instructional Design and pedagogical use of Canvas continues with CTL.

Student Success Center, Advising, and First Year Experience: The UAF Student Success Center, a brand new one-stop shop for student support located on the 6th floor of the Rasmuson Library, is ready for a grand opening in mid-September (Please look out for a cornerstone message for the date and time). The Center houses Central first-year academic advising, Career Services, Academic Coaching, the Math and Stat Lab, the Writing Center, the Communication Center, and Testing Services. The Center also has group and individual study areas, Zoom rooms, a family room, and a mother’s room. You can send an email to uaf-ssc@alaska.edu for any related questions.

Accreditation and SLOA workshops (Aug. 13-14): UAF as an institution has been accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities since 1934. During October 2023, the university underwent a successful peer-evaluation site visit from our accrediting body. An outcome of the site visit was that two of our four recommendations were removed, leaving two recommendations that need to be addressed prior to our year seven site evaluation (Evaluation of Institutional Effectiveness) in fall 2027. 

One of these two recommendations, continuous improvement of the Student Learning Outcomes Assessment process, will be addressed at a UAF-wide SLOA Training Workshop that will take place on Aug. 13 and 14 in the BP Design Theater (9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day). The training will cover essential topics, including understanding and assessing Student Learning Outcomes, identifying trends and equity gaps, and preparing for academic program review. We highly encourage participation by all deans, department and program chairs, and academic faculty and staff, particularly those involved in academic program review this academic year. NWCCU Vice President Ed Harri, who is also the main NWCCU contact/liaison for UAF,  will be the guest speaker and will lead the interactive workshops and committee training. Please bring your laptop and your SLO for feedback and development. Food and refreshments will be provided each day to in-person participants.

To RSVP and for additional questions, please contact uaf-accreditation@alaska.edu. If you are interested in contributing more actively to UAF’s accreditation efforts, please reach out to Vice Provost and Accreditation Liaison Officer Trent Sutton.

New federal regulations and what to know or do: In the past year the Department of Education has created several new regulations that impact both online and in-person programs. UAF’s compliance with these regulations is linked to our ability to offer Title IV Federal Financial Aid (like Pell Grants and most student loans). I have highlighted four regulations and the programs they impact:

1. (Online specific) Regular and Substantive Interaction is a federal requirement for all online courses to ensure that there are consistent and high-quality opportunities for students to connect with their instructors. Starting this semester, UAF’s resources for implementing RSI will be available via Canvas Commons. All faculty teaching online courses must ensure that their online classes have RSI built in.

2. (All programs) Internships/Practicum placement requirement: All UAF programs which include internships, practicums, externships or clinicals as part of their completion requirements must now provide geographically accessible placements for students within 45 days of completion of required coursework - it is no longer sufficient to just provide a list of employers for students to contact.

3. (Professional Licensure programs, all modalities): New regulations are intended to increase transparency for students who are in programs that can lead to a state license or certification and now require UAF to certify that our programs meet educational requirements for licensure in all states where we advertise programs or admit students. CTL staff have been working with faculty in these programs to ensure UAF’s compliance.

4. (All programs) Gainful employment: Gainful employment regulations were created to enable students to more easily compare programs, actual student debt, and graduate income across institutions and to inform students about some endorsement and all certificate programs (undergraduate and graduate) that may not lead to income levels that would be expected for college graduates. UAF will be required to report an extraordinary amount of data for current and withdrawn students as well as program graduates and in 2026 low-earning, high-debt programs may be impacted. This data collection and reporting effort is underway by PAIR and Financial Aid. There is nothing faculty need to do at this time unless contacted for information.

This brief federal regulation slide deck provides additional information and UAF contact details for specific questions.

Academic plan updates: UAF Academic Plan (2024-2029) was rolled out in 2023 after receiving broad stakeholder input. In spring 2024, five teams composed of administrators, faculty, staff and students generated several ideas that would contribute to the four goals in the Academic Plan. This summer, the academic deans continued to work on a prioritized list of actionable recommendations, and now seek your feedback on this Academic Plan Implementation Update. Please review each goal and associated recommendations then provide your feedback on this Google form by end of day Friday, Sept. 13, 2024. Your input will allow us to refine the recommendations for ongoing and future implementation.

Selected personnel updates:

• Carl Bishop started as the dean of UAF Community and Technical College.

• Bryan Uher was named associate vice chancellor of rural, workforce education.

• Sarah Thomas (email: smthomas14@alaska.edu; phone: 907-474-6634) started as my assistant and serves as your contact point for scheduling, event request, academic MoU/MoA, and other administrative support from the provost office.

• Teisha Simmons (email: tmsimmons@alaska.edu) is starting as the interim dean for the College of Indigenous Studies. A longer announcement is forthcoming.

• Trent Sutton was named interim director of the Honors College.

Additional academic updates will be shared through the Cornerstone. I encourage you to look out for them. As always, should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact your dean or me at aprakash@alaska.edu. Here’s to a successful and inspiring fall semester!

— Anupma Prakash, provost and executive vice chancellor