By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Alaska System’s top official has emerged as the only finalist for the University of Wisconsin System president opening, University of Wisconsin officials announced Tuesday.
University of Alaska System President Jim Johnsen will go through an interview on June 9. A search committee will meet after the interview and make a hiring recommendation to the University of Wisconsin System’s board of regents.
The university system has been searching for a new president since October, when Ray Cross announced he would step down as soon as a replacement could be found. They said in a statement that a number of candidates removed themselves from consideration after expressing concern over being publicly named as a finalist during the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnsen holds a doctorate in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as president of the University of Alaska System since 2015. He worked as assistant labor relations director for the University of Minnesota from 1992 to 1996, negotiating staff and faculty contracts. He became labor relations director for the Alaska system in 1996 and went on to serve the system in various roles, including vice president of administration and vice president of faculty and staff relations.
He became senior vice president of Doyon, Limited, an Alaska Native land management company, in 2008. He led the company’s government relations, human resources and marketing efforts.
Three years later, he became senior vice president of human resources for Alaska Communications, where he oversaw recruitment, compliance and labor relations. He left that job to return to the University of Alaska System as its president. He currently oversees three universities and 13 community colleges with an annual operating budget of around $900 million. The system has about 7,000 faculty and staff and nearly 30,000 students.
If he’s hired as the Wisconsin system’s leader, Johnsen would inherit a much larger university system — the system enrolled about 167,000 students as of last fall — that’s struggling with a host of issues, including declining enrollment, dwindling state aid, animosity from Republican legislators and deep questions about how the pandemic will reshape operations.
The system is entering its eighth year of a Republican-imposed freeze on in-state undergraduate tuition rates. Meanwhile, state aid for the system dropped 14% from 2008-09 to 2018-19, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The most recent state budget increased the system’s funding, but it was less than the rate of inflation. Cross said he felt like he had been “kicked in the shins”by Republican lawmakers who voted on the funding level.
The system anticipates losing as much as $102.3 million in revenue through the end of the summer semester as students stay home to avoid the coronavirus. Cross has ordered system schools to identify academic programs to cut by January and prepare for layoffs in the face of the pandemic.
Johnsen has grappled with similar challenges in Alaska, including declining enrollment. Last year was particularly difficult for the system, largely due to a $135 million proposed cut. An agreement was reached with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who had pushed for the cut, to reduce the cut to $70 million over three years.
• This is an Associated Press report.
