The University of Alaska Board of Regents will vote at some point during its meetings today and tomorrow whether to establish a single system-wide College of Education based in Fairbanks. Many people in Juneau, including the city’s mayor, don’t think that’s a good idea.
University President Jim Johnsen proposed the consolidation as a cost-saving measure that will provide “a sharper focus on the state’s needs for more Alaska-prepared teachers and education leaders and a greater accountability for meeting those needs,” he wrote in a recent press release.
The move would reduce administrative redundancies, eliminating the need for three different deans of education within the university system. Under the consolidation, there would only be one dean of education operating out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The proposal hasn’t gone without a hitch. The University of Alaska Southeast Juneau Campus’ eight-member Advisory Council unanimously passed a resolution expressing “overwhelming disagreement” with Johnsen’s proposal at a meeting Monday.
“The Council is alarmed at the dissonance between the state objective (identifying programs that are ‘core to each university’s strengths in meeting state needs’) and UAS’ elimination as a lead university in teacher education, one of its most visible and viable programs,” the council wrote in the resolution, in which it urged the Board of Regents to reject Johnsen’s recommendation.
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Last spring, UAS graduated 656 students. About a quarter of them came out of the university’s School of Education.
The Student Council of UAS’ Juneau campus also wrote a resolution opposing the proposed consolidation. The proposal “leaves UAS students unclear as to which faculty, degrees, and program administrators might be retained in Juneau,” the resolution reads.
According to the UA press release about the consolidation, “since faculty will continue to deliver programs at current locations, all of the relationships developed with their students as well as local school districts will continue with little interruption.”
Those who oppose the change, such as Juneau Mayor Ken Koelsch, worry that in the long run, making Fairbanks the administrative hub of the university system’s education program will weaken UAS.
“We are concerned about the long-term viability of UAS if one of its most important programs is not administered here in Juneau,” Koelsch wrote in a letter to the UA Board of Regents asking them to reject Johnsen’s proposal.
Koelsch is a retired teacher who earned his Master’s in education from UAS. All of his fellow Assembly members expressed support for his letter during Monday’s Assembly meeting.
Before the weekend, the Board of Regents will decide whether to support the proposed consolidation. If it does, it will also have to put together a team to develop a more complete implementation plan, which will likely be presented to the board next spring.
The board is likely to make these decisions at some point between 9:15 a.m. and 5 p.m. today, the first day of its two-day meeting in Fairbanks. The meeting will be live streamed at http://www.alaska.edu/bor/live/
• Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.
