Since budget shortfalls and nonsensical deadlines brought about by lack of diversification and general fiscal irresponsibility seem to be the topic of the year, let's talk about money. Particularly, the University of Alaska Anchorage, that $318-million-a-year behemoth between Providence and Northern Lights Boulevard.
The current draft of the strategic plan through 2025 for the University of Alaska system shows some rather interesting organizational goals. Fairbanks will focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. UAA will be stripped back to health, social and policy sciences; education; and engineering. University of Alaska Southeast will in turn focus on marine biology, marine trades, mining, liberal arts and education. It's an organizational program along the lines of what the U.S. Army did a few years back, moving the Armor School to Fort Benning to create a Maneuver "Center of Excellence."
A strategy like that saves money by reducing a lot of redundancy. But here it would critically wound UAA's ability to gather funding, and it doesn't address a gargantuan reason that the university system is drowning in its own fat: Administration.
We have a quadruple-redundant administration system. I had quadruple-redundant systems when I ran a Tactical Operation Center the last time I went to Afghanistan, but that was necessary because I was the guy who called in medevac birds and A-10s. Alaska's universities are critical to the economic and social health of our state, but not as critical as life and death in a combat zone.
Consider this: UAA as a whole was awarded $20 million in research grants in fiscal year 2012, according to a report submitted to the Board of Regents. The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), upon whose head the ax will fall, was responsible for $8 million of that total. Over half of that money came from federal grant sources such as the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
While that is small beer compared to UAF's gargantuan research grant pool of over $160 million a year, half of that money goes to pay the wages and benefits of the CAS faculty that would otherwise have to be paid from the university's normal budget, which has a third-order effect of lowering student tuition.
If the College of Arts and Sciences is hollowed out, there will be much less research money rolling in, and the professors remaining to teach will represent a comparative fiscal loss for UAA.
UAA's College of Arts and Sciences research program is basically a money-making machine for the university, with each of the labs bettering the cause of their fellow man in such endeavors as discovering the leukemia-fighting properties of devil's club, fighting Alzheimer's and studying the rodent gut microbes governing hibernation that could get us to Mars and beyond.
UAA is ideal for STEM for many reasons. Fairbanks lacks the internship, job, and team research potentials afforded to UAA students by virtue of our colocation with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Alaska's Fish and Game and Natural Resources departments and dozens of private outfits. Our professors can easily work hand in hand with any of those organizations in major projects that can be critically important to state and federal policy, in every field from game management to energy. Making scientific research the priority at a school hundreds of miles away from the industrial, commercial and research center of the state will make even the smallest project prohibitively expensive, not to mention all of the government offices that will lose future employees through readily available internships, like the federal Pathways Program. Additionally, UAA's serious financial straits will only get worse once the focus on scientific research shifts to UAF.
As far as solutions go, I may not have a silver bullet, but perhaps these suggestions are a good start for a statewide conversation.
1: Eliminate UA admin. If organic chemistry lab classes taught at UAA don't count at UAF, there is no point for a statewide administration, president or regents. None. Model the UA system like the University of California, decentralized, with the same schedule and course credit reciprocity.
2: We could consolidate a massive portion of the university system's administrative responsibilities, reducing the overhead of each campus. That would preserve the statewide system hierarchy, but if the beast must stay, it should pull some weight. Some of the employees could be transferred to this higher echelon, and perhaps one or two could be sent over to help out the veteran financial aid team. Seriously, we have only three people doing the paperwork for 2,100 veterans, spouses and dependents. That's absurd.
3: Modify the current proposal by making each department a separate school. Allow these independent schools to be headquartered as is laid out by the proposal, but with associated research professors at all three campuses in specialized "Centers of Excellence." This will make sure UAA's lab space at the ConocoPhillips Building, the Ecosystem Biomedical Lab and the Stable Isotope Lab continues to be used at maximum capacity. A program like that could allow students to complete a large percentage of their courses at the school's "home" campus, and move out to the location of their specialty to finish their studies under the close guidance of professionals in their chosen field. Letting approximately half a billion dollars in UAA science facilities grow cobwebs and increase need for the same capacity elsewhere is insane.
UA Regents put up a comment hyperlink for this particular topic for people involved with the university system, but this isn't just an internal fight. Turning aside this reckless endeavor is the fight of every Alaskan looking to better their lot in life, and every industry in the state which will ever hire local professionals.
All of you have a sled in this race. Make your voices heard. Instructions for written or in-person public testimony are online at https://www.alaska.edu/bor/public-testimony/.
Bryan Box is a veteran of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and is currently using his Post-9/11 GI Bill at UAA to earn a bachelor's in biology, which he considers a gift from the American people for which he is truly grateful.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.