Friday Focus: Tempus fugit

Jan. 13, 2023

— By Jenn Pedersen, executive director of eCampus

My love affair with musicals began at five years old when my mom introduced me to The Music Man. When Hugh Jackman announced he would be returning to Broadway as Professor Harold Hill, well, what else was a girl to do? A year ago, I flew to New York City with Broadway tickets burning a hole in my pocket. Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, the mayor’s wife, remains one of my favorite characters of the play; and while the phrase didn’t originate with her, she liked to use it liberally - tempus fugit (time flies)! 

Spending a few days seeing multiple Broadway musicals isn’t the only thing that happened a year ago. I can hardly believe that I’ve served as executive director of eCampus (first as interim, now in an official capacity) for one full year. Time really does fly.

Some say time flies when you're having fun and while I agree, this year has flown because we've been hard at work strengthening relationships, programs, and a hopeful future for our UAF community. As I reflect on the past twelve months one persistent core theme stands out: partnership. When it comes right down to it, partnership is what I’m most proud of and passionate about looking back over the year. 

eCampus is a support unit. Who and what we are lies within supporting faculty, students, staff, and our community. But words matter. If we’re not careful, it can be easy to become complacent with the idea of “support” and slip into the habit of thinking of it in a passive manner – waiting for someone to walk in the door, or for the phone to ring, or for the next email to arrive before some action is taken. One of my initial challenges to eCampus was to not think of ourselves in that passive capacity, but to proactively look for opportunities for collaboration across the university.

Our team took that challenge and ran with it. Here are just a few notable partnerships with: 

• Faculty Accelerator to diversify and expand faculty development offerings – many of them open to include staff. 
• Leaders at the Kuskokwim Campus and across UAF to co-sponsor an Indigenizing Pedagogy initiative.
• The Honors College and STEAM initiatives to re-envision our signature iTeach program and offer a "Transdisciplinary iTeach."
• CRCD and CTC to make it easier for students looking for online learning opportunities to find all courses – synchronous and asynchronous – in a single location.
• The Student Success Center to offer the High-Impact Practices seminar series (watch for four more workshops this spring).
• The Office of the Vice Provost and PAIR to help revamp the Academic Program Review process using Airtable Interfaces.
• Faculty on OER initiatives saving students an estimated $300,000 in textbook and material costs this year.
• OIT to continue stewarding our university's transition to the Canvas LMS.
• Students and faculty to launch the LEAP program to improve the online learning experience for students across UAF.
• AlaskaX course teams to double our portfolio of MOOC offerings to expand UAF’s footprint to 193 countries.

This list is not exhaustive, and you can read more about eCampus’s academic achievements, innovation, specialty programs and (of course) partnerships among our best AY 22 milestone accomplishments. 

One of my favorite character interactions in "The Music Man" happens when the entire population of River City, Iowa, chases after the Wells Fargo Wagon. They all knew what they’d ordered but that didn’t stop the pure joy of anticipation. They held out hope that there was something unexpected on that wagon just for them and they embraced that possibility as they ran.

As I look forward to what’s to come in 2023, we have a few really amazing  partnerships we’re already working on - ones I can hardly wait to share with you. But even more than that, I’m excited to chase after the things we can accomplish together that can’t be accomplished alone - maybe something  unexpected with you?

Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week. On occasion, a guest writer is invited to contribute a column.