Vice Chancellor Julie Queen

Vice Chancellor Julie Queen states we had committee meetings last week with the Facilities and Land Management Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Academic Committee, and this week the full Board will be happening in Fairbanks. These are open meetings and you can join in person or via livestream. 

Tuition Proposal 

The tuition proposal will be on the agenda for the Board and this proposal would simplify the rate structure to a common singular undergraduate rate. UAF has proposed for this year is to move the the lower division rate, which is a half step right now between the old lower division rate and the upper division rate, to join and meet the single rate at upper division and rename it essentially, so that it's one UAF undergraduate rate, moving forward one graduate rate and a non-resident rate. It's an attempt to simplify the structure, differentiate UAF based on its research mission, and its focus, and also allows differentiation for CTC and the community campuses which offer all lower division offerings, so that they're more appropriately positioned for their market and for cleaner communications with students as well. 

UAA and UAS are in the same informational packet, but they are not requesting any changes this year. They are holding steady with common rates. If approved, UAF will also still maintain common lower division or community campus rates, at the same rate as UAA and UAS, because those have not changed, the non-resident surcharge rate will remain the same. UAF will be different, for the undergraduate rate and the graduate rate to align with research university tuition, so moving forward will have a different rate structure if that's approved. 

The Board at the same time will be reviewing tuition philosophy, essentially there was not an allowance for differentiation based on mission. It has raised questions with the Board to say, Okay, how do we deal with this? What does our tuition policy need to look like? Does it allow for things like this? And how do we respond? And so they've had several meetings over the last year looking at the tuition policy to see if it can be simplified, if it was up to date, if it had the right wording and structure to allow for a framework like this. Regent Davies has been leading that committee and has taken a lot of feedback on those points. Faculty also provided comments, and I think staff governance or staff alliance as well have provided some comments. So that's being vetted and evaluated and discussed with Board members, and we'll see the outcomes of that, in the upcoming meeting, and if not this meeting, by February.

Board of Regents Terms 

There's also several Regents whose terms are ending with the Board, and there'll be resolutions of appreciation. Due to some turnover, there's an effort to wrap things up where it's possible, or transition to other regents who may be leading the effort after these regents terms have ended. Regent Davies is one of the ones whose term is coming to an end. Regent Lisa Parker, Regent Sherry Beretta, Regent Scott Jepsen, who stepped in for Regent Teuber after his passing. Essentially that will also be part of the Board agenda to show appreciation for the regents, an eight-year term is a huge commitment to the University, and we really appreciate their service. 

New Degree Program

Other things on the docket for UAF, the ASA committee approved, and is putting forward to the full Board UAF’s new degree in Earth System Sciences. Professor Carl Tape gave a presentation, and I was very well received. So that is a big deal. That's something that's very responsive to students in the climate sciences, and will really speak to the student market, and students are very excited about this. We even have one student give testimony about being super eager to transfer, to move into that degree program.

Budget Amendments

There were two things for the budget that the Facilities Committee put forward other than our standard updates. There were two amendments to the master plan that UAF made, and that were supported. One was an adjustment in the change of use for the Lola Tilly building, previously this was the old dining facility, then it became an office area for Design and  Construction. That's where those folks are located, and there's some shared student space upstairs. We are focusing on changing that to be a student welcoming space or a welcome center in concept. We don't know what that would look like yet, but there's some really great ideas around wanting to reinvigorate that space for student use, and so we put that forward in the master plan as an amendment, because anytime we have something like that where there's a change in use of the facility that needs to go forward to the Board to notify them and be supported.  Our capital budget also has a line item for funding from the state as part of the request to ask for that renovation funding, and so that is something we'll be championing, moving forward. But it's in the early stages of planning. 

The other supported amendment that the FLMC put forward was potential addition in the future. If a grant comes through, it would be next to the ACEP facility on Troth Yeddha campus, there's a site that's designated as an annexe building for an energy technology facility. That is something that the Alaska Center for Energy and Power has been working on for some time. This would support their request, we would have a site picked out for that building. 

Please note the Board is looking at changing their meeting schedule for FY23 and FY24.The President proposed, with the feedback from lots of groups, to condense the future meeting schedule over one week instead of spread over two weeks. Also making sure that there's opportunity for public testimony closer to the meeting, so that if folks want to attend and want to participate it's not so far apart.

Budget

President Pitney will give an overview of the operating capital budget that will go forward to the Governor's office in December, and then it will go through the legislative session beginning in January. Right now the operating request is around $24.5 million all inclusive of compensation for the groups that have reached negotiated agreement. We are very pleased to see that it looks like the UNAC agreement is headed that way, and the firefighters have an agreement that will be presented at the Board meeting for approval. Local 6070 is still under negotiation, and the adjuncts are also still in progress. The staff is also a part of that, based on the tentative agreement with UNAC for FY24 it's 2.75% wage increase for staff and firefighters which aligns with the UNAC agreement. They're under tentative agreement. There is one thing for supplemental, assuming that agreement is reached, and all this can be packaged to put forward. The President has committed to a 1% increase for staff as part of the supplemental request. It would align the increase with last year, which was 2%, with the faculty supplemental, which is 3%. So there's a gap of 1% between the staff amount and the approved faculty amount. So that is something the President has committed to seeking with legislative approval. So that's exciting. 

Outside of compensation, and fixed costs within the operating budget. There are some increases for program needs focused on building capacity for Alaska workforce. So it's faculty lines, critical student support, and it's things that really reinvigorate some key programs. 

On the capital side, there's funding for renewal and renovation, as well as deferred maintenance. The total that the system is putting forward is about $100 million. Last year we received funding from the State that was a partial deferred maintenance request, but we got a huge project in there. UAF got the MBS renewal for our residence halls, which is awesome. They're seeking the difference. We had put forward a $50 million request, we got about $20 million and change. So we're taking the difference from last year's deferred maintenance that was not funded, and adding it to the $50 million dollars that we would have requested normally this year, and adding to it some renewal and renovation funding for modernization of key spaces. So it's a big ask. We're not sure of the likelihood, but certainly the University is doing its best to make its needs known, because deferred maintenance is a large backlog. We don't want it to continue to crop up if we can address these big things. 

There are also a couple of other requests in there for a continuation of economic development projects that the governor funded this year. There's a continuation of funding for the drone program and some funding for food systems and food independence requests for Alaska that are some key concepts that the State is also very interested in. So we're putting forward some items there for consideration.

Bryan Hoppough with Human Resources

Bryan Hoppough states we will have some upcoming changes to the student hire process. HR leadership will review the memo and come out with 1 page on how to expedite the student hire process. We would like to streamline the process to have students set up and paid on time. 

HR recently had some internal changes, the customer service side will have a representative available to take questions, answer the phone lines, answer online ticket requests. 

HR will be hiring a Director of Special Projects that will be responsible for gathering leadership projects that need to be reviewed to help better serve the university. Underneath that would be a Training and Development Specialist and Employee Engagement Specialist. We will be combining ADA, FML and long term disability services. This will allow more internal alignment within HR and leadership.