Friday Focus: Looking ahead: Keeping our eye on UAF’s impact

Dec. 15, 2023

— By Dan White, chancellor

The first rule when riding a bike is to look where you’re going. Aim your gaze on a spot down the path and let that guide you to where you want to go. If you are looking off to your right into the woods, then that is exactly where you will find yourself. Worse, if you get distracted by what dashed off the road to your left, a swerve across the lane of oncoming traffic could lead you into an even more dangerous situation. If you keep your eyes on the ground just in front of the bike, be prepared to find yourself there quickly. The same principle applies to skiing, snowmachining, and yes, to your job and mine. At UAF, our strategic goals lie ahead of us on our path and guide decision-making and priorities.

Today, UAF students and teaching faculty are celebrating the end of the semester and looking ahead to a well deserved break. Many researchers and staff who work over the break will probably see a welcomed reduction in pace. By the time everyone is back on campus again, 2023 will have come to a close and we will be starting a new year. This time of transition is an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come while maintaining our gaze on the trail ahead of us.

I often hear from community members, legislators, Regents, and others to focus, not on what UAF gained, but on what our impact is. As an institution, it’s easy to celebrate how many grants we received, how many papers we published, conferences we attended, students we enrolled and more. Make no mistake, these are important, valued, and celebrated metrics. I will shout it from the rooftops. Well done!

But celebrating what we got is less about the fact that we received something than it is about what we do next. We have to keep our attention on the goals ahead of us to make progress. This year we broke our research funding record (again), topping $200 million. That is awesome... but what did we do with this record breaking amount of funding? What is the impact? Each of you know your piece of what we’ve done, so the next step is telling these stories. How do each of the things we do contribute to our mission, vision, and strategic goals? And how do those things benefit the community, our friends and neighbors, the state, and society in general?

At UAF, we are doing great things with what we’ve got. We are making progress toward our strategic goal of modernizing the student experience by updating the Moore-Bartlett-Skarland residence halls and starting new academic programs such as our licensed practical nurse program at CTC. We are building strong relationships with our donors and our community, continuing to host successful Giving Days and initiating events such as Giving Tuesday campaigns or Athletics give-a-thons that connect new people with the UAF mission. The R1 Steering Committee recently convened all R1 working group members for its kickoff meeting, bringing a diverse group of UAF employees into the process of achieving R1. We are advancing academic excellence at the newly established Center for Teaching and Learning, and improving the employee experience with our New Employee Orientations. It is important to celebrate the impact of what we are doing. These actions and others tell our story and keep our focus on the path ahead.

Thank you to all staff and faculty for your continued commitment to UAF. I am proud of all the things you have accomplished and excited about what we are doing. I hope that you enjoy the holidays and look forward to reconnecting in the coming year. Thanks for choosing UAF.

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