December 2020 President's Report

Interim CITO John Boucher shared that most of his experience is primarily with the State of Alaska, at both the policy and management levels. He has worked as an economist for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Office of Children Services, Office of Management and Budget, and CIO for the Walker administration. Boucher’s charge in this position at Statewide has three components: stabilize staffing, address the perceived breakdown between the central office and university business units that they serve, and serve in a strategic role as the system deals with the compact and moves forward with a strong IT foundation. Boucher shared that within the next week they will have a decision on moving Blackboard Learn to the cloud. The migration will likely take place around December 18th.

Chancellor White shared that there are rising cases of COVID-19 in Alaska, but there is a plan to  distribute a vaccine in Alaska next week. The current university plan for the spring semester is to operate in the same way as the fall semester. The System office is reviewing the onsite operations plan and looking to see if there are any updates that need to be made. Our current quarantine strategy has been working on campus. They continue to leave the door open for athletics competition, but this continues to get more complicated as other states have restrictions on travel. The CDC just changed its recommendations on quarantine. The current quarantine recommendation from the CDC is now 10 days instead of 14 days. We are evaluating to what extent we follow exactly CDC guidelines because we are a university with residence halls. We continue to have conversations about wellness as people are isolated or in quarantine during winter and over the holidays, which can be challenging for many people. There is already a lot of stress, so reach out to each other. The chancellor is encouraging the operations support team to do what we can to encourage each other and look at what things we can do at the university that can be done safely and promote wellness.

The strategic plan is back on the front burner, and those teams have gone through and updated their reports. They will start the public input process on the strategic goals soon, with the goal of rolling out the strategic plan formally in May.

Interim President Pitney submitted the budget to the board, which was approved. The budget was submitted to the governor, who is expected to approve the budget this month. President Pitney did not submit a budget different from the compact, but the board did ask for capital money for deferred maintenance and debt relief. It is expected that the governor will likely accept some deferred maintenance.

The Planning and Budget Committee meets in the spring. The Chancellor is also forming a Budget Options Task Force, composed of faculty and staff, who have been nominated by different vice chancellors. The task force will meet between now and when the Budget and Planning Committee starts their work. The task force will identify budget options for both cuts and revenues, with the intent to get faculty and staff thinking on the broad issues, and so that those ideas can get into the planning budget.

Check out the HR calendar for upcoming training opportunities. The supervisor training modules are currently in progress. 

UAF Faculty Senate President Jak Maier was recently elected chair of the UA System Governance Council. 

The Governance Coordinating Committee (GCC) has been meeting to discuss the expedited administrative management review. The GCC met with Chancellor White about giving the review committee more flexibility and having an opportunity to request more information for the review. The committee this year is chaired by Joan Braddock. 

Margo Griffith will be attending Staff Council in the spring semester to share the Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan. There are about 40 folks involved in the process. The group is developing 7 specific areas for strategic initiatives, including initiatives for curriculum change, aligning with existing justice and equity movements, training for leadership, the student experience, building capacity, aquisition of additional resources, and resource prioritization. The group has set one year goals with a deadline of October 2021.