For an institution that tries to project itself as a place of higher learning, the University of Alaska is failing its own students who are still showing up to class. The teaching program has already lost its accreditation. Regents have decided to increase tuition, which is already bloated, and friends in the School of Nursing can’t work on their clinical training because the program keeps dropping the ball on getting adjunct faculty their contracts so they can actually work and instruct nursing students.
Meanwhile, the chancellor is dropping pucks at the University of Alaska Anchorage hockey game instead of holding programs accountable for their oversight. Everyone’s so focused on cutting services and possibly sports, instead of preparing students for their professional career with quality education.
Stop with the nonsense. Stop looking at cutting sports, because anyone who understands the situation knows you can’t cut the sports you have. Every team is tied together to the newly built Alaska Airlines Center. The teams aren’t going anywhere, because you still have to pay for the basketball arena. The university “leadership” — or lack thereof — needs to focus on selling off all its satellite campuses, consolidating and providing quality rather than quantity. UA has three major campuses. Focus on that.
There’s already online education in place for the rural areas, and when they need to further their education, they’ll need to move to Juneau, Fairbanks, or Anchorage.
If UA isn’t careful, it won’t have any students to focus on.
— Joe Stallone
Anchorage
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