Friday Focus: What we bring to the table
March 6, 2020
— by Evon Peter, vice chancellor for rural, community and Native education
We are a world-class university with some of the most visionary, passionate, brilliant, compassionate, innovative, professional and committed people I have met in my 25-year career. I am not saying this lightly or without first-hand knowledge of this fact. It is these qualities within our ranks that we will need to continue to activate, and at higher levels, to successfully navigate the coming months and years. Let me explain.
This past year, and really these past five years, have been challenging for our university. We have experienced significant declines in state funding and lower enrollments, as well as catastrophic threats to our fiscal and organizational viability. Many of these challenges are generated from external factors that we do not control, yet we must respond to them. And these challenges have not been easy for any of us, independent of our status as staff, faculty, administrator or student.
This is my sixth year as a vice chancellor and member of our core leadership team at UAF. In this capacity I have taken part in hundreds of conversations, committee and workshop meetings, strategy sessions, and decisions within my unit, our university, and across the UA system to help navigate these challenging set of years. I have experienced and witnessed frustration, confusion, dismay, disbelief and heartbreak about some of the realities we have encountered and continue to encounter.
But far more importantly, I have been able to experience first-hand the real caliber of our students, staff, faculty and administrators across UAF. In nearly every instance, whether it was in a moment of advocacy, strategy, planning, discussion or presentation, we demonstrated professionalism, capacity and heart in inspiring and critical ways. You all have certainly made me feel great pride in our university, and I thank you for that leadership.
Now is the time, more than ever in our history (except perhaps during the earliest years of our university’s creation) that we must tap into our belief in what is possible and into the aforementioned qualities to make it happen.
I witnessed this happen in the incredible work to establish the North Star College at the Troth Yeddha’ Campus. The North Star College will be a middle college program physically located on campus for 40 high school seniors from the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District this coming fall semester. This is just the beginning, and I expect the program to grow as we do our part in expanding opportunities and pathways for high school students into postsecondary education and training.
The Nanook Pledge was also launched in 2020, which is offering up to four years of scholarships to first-year, transfer and readmitted students. The awards will be between $1,000 and $10,000 per year. This scholarship is just one action item from a multi-year strategic enrollment planning process that will continue to generate innovative and positive outcomes for UAF.
At the UAF Center for Alaska Native Health Research, a team is leading one of three National Institute of Mental Health hubs for Alaska Native and Native American youth suicide prevention. The UAF Alaska Native Collaborative Hub for Research on Resilience project is on the leading edge in transforming the way universities conduct research in collaboration and partnership with Indigenous peoples. For example, Alaska Native undergraduate students in UAF’s rural human services, human services and social work programs provided feedback on interview questions and then conducted 243 interviews in 63 communities. The preliminary outcomes of research methods and data is very promising.
While I would like to share more about the incredible and dynamic work I have been exposed to in our Honors College, research institutes and community campuses, as well as many other parts of our institution, I think you get the idea. We are making moves that are making a difference in Alaska and for our university. We are positioning ourselves to make it through these challenging times and innovating in critical ways. And this is happening because of the dedication and qualities you all bring to the table.
While we are not yet out of the weeds and will need to make hard decisions along the way, my perspective is that we will be resilient as an institution and transform in the necessary ways to deliver on our mission for Alaska and beyond. Thank you for your role in helping to make this happen.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week.