Friday Focus: Accountability to our students

Nov. 22, 2024

— By Dan White, chancellor

Earlier this semester, we tried something new at Convocation. With some help from UAF student-athletes, almost 300 people got out their phones or logged onto their computers and made their voices heard with the new polling software. In warm-up rounds of the cell phone voting, 192 of you chose the sledding hill over the ice climbing wall, 145 of you asked to see more outdoor activities for employees on campus, and a surprising 14 of you did not predict UAF to own the Alaska Airlines Governor’s Cup this year (we are going for our 14th straight win this year!) And, relevant to this week, a plurality of you voted to see a Chancellor’s Forum on R1.

Last Tuesday, we hosted the Chancellor’s R1 Forum for close to 300 people (~60 in person). Thank you to everyone who attended and participated. It will take all of us: everyone who is working on one of the steering committee teams, participated in the workshop, attended the forum, or those just learning about R1. R1 is about improving our internal processes, supporting students, and ensuring UAF continues to meet the need for post-secondary education in Alaska. By setting our sights on R1 status, we are pursuing this larger vision with a tangible goal in sight.

The Carnegie metrics for R1 require schools to bring in $50M in research expenditures and graduate an average of 70 Ph.D. students annually. These numbers represent how Carnegie sees a typical R1 balance of research dollars and student Ph.D. graduates. Currently, our balance of research expenditures to Ph.D. graduates is very much weighted toward the dollars. While we consistently exceed the R1 expenditure bar several times over (and we don’t want to change this!), our Ph.D. graduation numbers are consistently below 50 and last spring dropped to a low of around 30! Thanks to a generous investment from the State of Alaska, we have infused student/faculty funding into the system and provided over 85 students with funding to complete their degrees. Removing financial barriers will help many students reach graduation and bring us closer to our goal.

In the process of pursuing R1, we have found some barriers to student success in our processes as well as weak spots in our situational awareness of student progress toward their degree. While it may not feel great to learn these things, admitting you have an opportunity to grow is the first step to making it better. This is one of the benefits of focusing on metrics and bringing together smart, thoughtful people to get us there. The R1 Steering Committee and Working Groups have identified our strengths and areas in need of improvement. In the coming year, we all can get to work on implementing solutions and improving our processes. While actually achieving R1 may need to occur in the 2030 review instead of the 2027 as we hoped, the work is critical to our future: making UAF a better place to work and learn. It is also about holding ourselves accountable to students.

In my opening remarks at the forum earlier this week, I spoke about accountability. Accountability to ourselves, to our state, and most importantly, to our students. When students choose to come to UAF, they are entrusting us with their education. This is a huge responsibility and not one we can take lightly. Furthermore, pursuing a Ph.D. is a big deal! Only about 2% of the U.S. population holds a Ph.D. Students who choose this path at UAF are committing several years of their lives, their professional development, as well as their time and treasure. They come to pursue knowledge and advance their field. Many of them bring their families here and invest in our community. They enrich our campus and our community, bring in research dollars to UAF, and conduct research that benefits the state of Alaska. Most students come here and give their best to their education, and we owe it to them to give the same in return.

So how do we do that? How do we ensure we are upholding our end of the bargain and remaining accountable to our students? To start, we need to get a better understanding of who our students are and what barriers they face en route to graduation. There are currently 313 (299 active) students enrolled in a Ph.D. program at UAF. Each one of them is on a slightly different path, and may face different barriers. In the coming weeks, we seek to develop individualized plans to help every student graduate in a timely manner. In addition, we need to ensure that those individuals supporting the students have the resources they need to ensure the academic journey is a timely one. The R1 Steering Committee rolled out faculty support funding this fall, and there is currently a survey open for all faculty to provide insight on additional needs. The R1 Steering Committee is also implementing initiatives to improve communication and address sustainability. On the individual level, I encourage everyone at UAF to think about how you can ensure your accountability to students. Whether you are advising a Ph.D. student, processing grants and contracts, managing communications, or maintaining our facilities, you have a role to play. You are the one in R1.

Thanks for choosing UAF.

Friday Focus is written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week.