Legislature(2013 - 2014)SENATE FINANCE 532
01/30/2013 09:00 AM Senate FINANCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Governor's Fy14 Overview: University of Alaska | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
January 30, 2013
9:05 a.m.
9:05:39 AM
CALL TO ORDER
Co-Chair Kelly called the Senate Finance Committee meeting
to order at 9:05 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Pete Kelly, Co-Chair
Senator Kevin Meyer, Co-Chair
Senator Anna Fairclough, Vice-Chair
Senator Click Bishop
Senator Mike Dunleavy
Senator Lyman Hoffman
Senator Donny Olson
MEMBERS ABSENT
None
ALSO PRESENT
Patrick Gamble, President, University of Alaska; Michelle
Rizk, Associate Vice President, Statewide Planning and
Budget, University of Alaska.
SUMMARY
Governor's FY14 Overview: University of Alaska
Co-Chair Kelly requested that questions be held till the
end of the meeting.
9:06:34 AM
^Governor's FY14 Overview: University of Alaska
PATRICK GAMBLE, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, introduced
himself and staff for the record. He believed that most of
the committee members were familiar with the sequence of
budget events that had led up to the current budget. He
discussed assessing the needs of Alaska and comparing them
with what the University of Alaska was doing. He recalled
that through examining various reports on the university
and discussions during outreach meetings with students,
faculty, and staff, the university had compiled a list of
about 200 pages of comments regarding where it could
improve, what it was doing well, and ideas on how it could
be more efficient and effective; this effort was grouped
into 5 themes. He explained that for the first year, the
current budget was focused directly at those 5 themes. He
discussed the strategic direction initiative (SDI), which
took a more holistic view of how to systematically fix the
university instead of fixing each suggestion one at a time;
SDI would examine how many of the comments and
recommendations were interconnected and tie them together
to take a more holistic approach at systematically fixing
the university in a way that was enduring and lasting. He
pointed out that the university had come a long way in the
last year since he had spoken to committee and recalled in-
depth meetings the prior year in the House Finance
Committee. He stated that the coming presentation's charts
would show initiatives that had begun and were underway
that did not exist during the prior year's discussions.
President Gamble related that the University of Alaska was
about two-thirds of the way through SDI and stated that the
hardest part of SDI was probably the statement of what the
effect is in a particular theme area of the 5 themes. He
discussed a situation involving a transfer of credits and
mused what the effect was that the university wanted to
achieve. He explained that the university wanted the
credits to transfer, but that the question was what overall
system effect it wanted in place when the transfer of
credits was fixed; getting the effect statement right was
important because it determined the path and plan of
action. He related that the university was just entering
into the stage of determining an effect statement and
reiterated that SDI was ending phase 2 of 3. He explained
that as SDI made corrections, the need for it dwindled
because the approach was so different that the program
became who the university was and not really like a program
at all. He pointed out that the presentation would move
swiftly and that there was a lot in the briefing that would
not get mentioned. He urged members to ask questions.
9:11:36 AM
President Gamble spoke to the presentation titled "FY14
Budget Overview Senate Finance Committee January 30, 2013"
(copy on file) and discussed slide 2 titled "Many
Traditions, One Alaska." He pointed out that the University
of Alaska system included 3 main, separately-accredited
university campuses, underneath which were the community
campuses and the community college in Valdez.
President Gamble spoke to slide 3 titled "UA Organizational
Chart" and related that it depicted the main universities,
as well as the community campuses under them.
President Gamble addressed slide 4 titled "UA's Mission."
"The University of Alaska inspires learning, and
advances and disseminates knowledge through teaching,
research, and public service, emphasizing the North
and its diverse peoples."
President Gamble spoke to slide 4. He emphasized that the
business of teaching was undergoing a revolution and that
there was controversy sounding new ways of teaching and new
ideas that were underlined by technology. He explained that
the refresh rate of technology was much faster than the
traditional way of teaching and lecturing and that as a
result, the tempo of change had increased. He observed that
after 235 years of the same basic teaching methods, there
were many new ideas regarding how to connect with students,
most of which involved uses of technology. He stated that
the University of Alaska's community campuses were closely
tied and very important to the cause public service. He
related that the university had a niche with research in
the Arctic and that it could be competitive in that regard
with any other school in the country because it knew the
region and industries; furthermore, the university had
great researchers, graduate students, and classes. He
offered that beating the other major schools in the country
to win a competitive multi-million dollar grant for an
Alaskan research effort was impressive and pointed out the
university had been quite successful in the last year in
doing that. He stated that the university had a
responsibility to protect and enhance the culture of
Alaska, which included things like the preservation of
language; it was important to remember this aspect of the
university's mission.
President Gamble pointed to slide 5 titled "Who Are We?"
· 34,000 students; more than 50 nationalities
· 3 urban campuses; thirteen community campuses;
numerous outreach centers
· More than 500 degrees
· 4,174 graduates (FY12)
9:14:24 AM
President Gamble discussed slide 6 titled "Core
Competencies."
· Higher Education
· PhD
· MA/MS
· BA/BS
· AA
· Workforce Development
· Licenses
· Certificates
· Skilled labor training
· Industry partnerships
· Research and Development (R&D)
· State needs
· Federal needs
· International needs
· Economic needs
· Cultural Priority and Integration
· Community Partners
President Gamble discussed slide 6. He shared that in the
last year, the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) had
become a doctoral university and had moved up from the
master's level with its first join-doctoral program with
the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
9:14:50 AM
President Gamble addressed slide 7 titled "Performance
Review" and stated that it depicted how the University of
Alaska normally examined itself at the end of the year. He
pointed out that the red and yellow arrows showed that the
university was peaking after about 10 to 12 years of
consistent growth. He surmised that the days of growth were
over and that there was not any funding for future
facilities planning in the university's current capital
budget. He stated that the university had plenty of work
that needed to be done before it would start new
constructions; however, the university had been endowed
with general obligation bonds from the public and had
received support from the legislature for the construction
of new buildings. He reiterated that the slide showed that
growth in the university was peaking. He stated that there
were some "good news" stories like the Veterinary Medicine
Program with Colorado State University and the honors
programs. He reported that the number of students in the
university's honors programs in one year was amazing and
that these students represented the best college students
in the state; course load was going up despite reductions
in the head count and the overall number of credit hours.
He explained that students who were seeking a 4-year degree
were taking more credit hours than before and reported that
taking more hours resulted in getting through college
faster and with less expense.
President Gamble discussed slide 8 titled "Challenges."
· Federal funding support - trending down
· State funding support - trending down
· Restrictions on internal budget reallocations
· Huge and aging facility complex
· Enrollment - leveling out
· Matching degrees and training to workforce needs
· Health care costs - unsustainable
· Bandwidth limitations - rural student impact
President Gamble spoke to slide 8. He related that although
he could write several lists of challenges, the slide was
meant as a cross section to illustrate the environment that
the University of Alaska was working in. He spoke to the
first bullet point and stated that the university expected
the trending down of federal funding to particularly affect
research. He stated that the university could take a guess
at what sequestration would do in terms of the potential
for budget cuts, but that it did not really know what would
happen at the national level. He spoke to the second bullet
point and related that state funding support was
problematic given the budgets that the state was currently
dealing with. He mentioned that the university represented
the third largest budget and surmised that it would be
affected by the state's budgetary decisions.
President Gamble continued to discuss slide 8 and spoke to
the final bullet point. He explained that as education
relied more and more on applications that were online,
bandwidth and latency became very important. He explained
that waiting for buffering when viewing a video or audio
file online were latency and bandwidth issues at work;
furthermore, a student who was having these types of
problems while attempting to take a final exam or a lab
online would not be able to take the course effectively. He
stated that bandwidth for education was as important as
runways for airplanes and highways for trucks and concluded
that for Alaskans in particular, it would be very important
for education. He related that there were initiatives in
the Interior of Alaska to increase bandwidth by joining
more fiber optics, but offered that the real question was
how much of the infrastructure work the University of
Alaska was supposed to pay for as opposed to connecting
into the basic bandwidth that was available to the
community and paying for the last 100 yards to hook up the
students and facilities; currently, the university was
expected to pay for "the whole thing," which was very
expensive. He related that about $25 million was needed in
order to level out bandwidth for 50 years across the
university and all of the community campuses; this was the
cost that the university would have to pay to get the
bandwidth it needed, which was probably not achievable by
the university alone. He pointed out that adding the
bandwidth would stretch fiber optics to the communities and
that the question would be whose job it would be to build
the infrastructure. He concluded that the fiber optics that
would be laid would become the new infrastructure.
9:20:13 AM
President Gamble spoke to slide 9 titled "Meeting UA's
Challenges- Strategic Direction Initiative (SDI)."
· Focus on Student Achievement
· Asking "Why…?"
· Standards, credit transfer - common complaints
· Student service - "hassle factor" very high
· Limits to e-Learning - rural impact growing
· Tuition can't keep up with cost of doing business
· Placing Emphasis Across UA System
· Value
· Quality
· Throughput
· Excellence
· Attainment
· 3 critical years
· Incorporate lessons learned - studies, reports
President Gamble addressed the third main bullet point on
slide 9 and its value component. He related that a student
attending college in Alaska could expect to spend about
$20,000 per year and that people wanted value for the cost
of getting a degree in Alaska. He explained that people
wanted to become critical thinkers, get a degree in a short
amount of time, and not be extended in the process by
happenstance that occurred in the University of Alaska. He
explained that a happenstance could be the inability to get
a course, which meant that it would need to be taken the
following semester; furthermore, this should not happen
when there were 3 universities in the state. He noted that
a student should be able to go online, take the missed
course, get the credits, and move through the system more
rapidly. He shared that for the most part, the university
could offer earlier courses online, but that it became more
difficult to do so with the advanced and graduate courses;
however, the direction was trending towards online class
availability and the university needed to be on forefront
of that change.
President Gamble stated that getting through the University
of Alaska's system was important because spending more time
in college meant spending more money; students spending
more time in college also represented a higher expense to
the university. He pointed out that the cost per graduate
went up the longer a student spent in the system, but that
there was an exception to this; the exception was the fact
that the majority of students who were attending some sort
of class in the university system were typically referred
to as a non-traditional students. In other words, non-
traditional students were not going right into college, but
were life-long learners and single parents who were working
full-time or part-time and were attempting to get to the
next level of higher education; this was an important
customer of the university that could also be helped to
move through the system more swiftly and easily without the
"hassle factor."
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 9 and related
that the University of Alaska believed that tuition had
reached a peak; this would be problematic because it was a
very important revenue source for the university. He
surmised that the days of requesting 7 percent to 10
percent tuition increases every year were probably over,
but that the problem was that the less the university asked
for in tuition, the more likely it became that it would ask
the legislature for more funding. He explained that SDI was
attempting to rearrange resources internally in order to
remove things from non-value-added work and add them in the
areas where the money was needed before the university
needed to ask for funding from the legislature; a single
appropriation, which was at the discretion of chancellors
and the president, could be very important to the process
of being able to move money internally without having to
ask for more funding.
9:24:09 AM
President Gamble discussed slide 10 titled "Major SDI
Underway Since Last Year."
· Improved Student Services
· Advising - e.g. MAP-Works
· UAS Honors Program
· UAA VetSuccess
· Stay on TRACK
· Educational opportunities in rural Alaska
· Partnerships K-12
· School board dialogues with DEED
· Alaska Middle College
· Cordova Campus relocated to Cordova High School
· Dual enrollment
President Gamble related that there were programs on slide
10 that were not in existence when the University of Alaska
had spoken with the committee the prior year. He discussed
the first sub-bullet point and related that an advising
program that used technology applications had been started
at UAA; the test run of the program started with about 400
students, but was now up to over 5,000 students who had
been fully advised in the first and second year with the
Map-Works system. He stated that any student that was
taking basic courses was enrolled in the MAP-Works system
and pointed out that the university was currently looking
to buy the second investment that would extend MAP-Works to
all of the community campuses throughout the system; this
comprehensive advising had shown improvements in the
university's system. He pointed out that in the Lower-48,
where the comprehensive advising programs had been
operating longer, there had been significant improvement.
President Gamble continued to discuss slide 10 and pointed
to the third sub-bullet point. He related that Stay on
TRACK was an initiative that the University of Alaska had
started in the last year to get students to take 15 credit
hours per semester in order to get them through to system
faster; in the first year of the initiative, the University
of Alaska Southeast (UAS) had an 11 percent increase of
students who signed up for 15 or more credit hours in a
semester and UAF was up over 7 percent in the same
category. He directed the committee's attention back to the
MAP-Works system and related that it came with a module
called "early warning," which was an intervention process
that the university could use to identity students that
were having trouble while there was still an opportunity
for intervention; there had been 65 successful
interventions in which students were retained who probably
would have dropped out otherwise. He pointed out that
student retention meant dollars to the university's bottom
line.
President Gamble continued to discuss slide 10 and pointed
to the second main bullet point. He stated that the
University of Alaska had some great meetings with the
commissioner of the Department of Education and Early
Development, the state school board, and the university's
board in order to look at specific things that could reach
back farther into secondary education in order to start
students thinking about and working towards a college
degree. He discussed the Alaska Middle College and related
that it was a great new program at Eagle River that had 135
students. He mentioned the Future Educators of Alaska (FEA)
program that focused on getting students energetic about
becoming teachers and bringing them all the way through the
system; FEA was similar to programs like the Rural Alaska
Honors Institute (RAHI) and the Alaska Native Science and
Engineering Program (ANSEP). He explained that the
university wanted to put the same emphasis on teachers who
were internal to Alaska as it did with RAHI and ANSEP. He
related that the programs on the slide, as well as others,
were currently doing well.
9:27:37 AM
President Gamble pointed to slide 11 titled "Major SDI
Underway Since Last Year."
· Public & Private Partnerships
· UAS Center for Mine Training (CMT); Consolidated
Alaska Mining Initiative
· UAF Sustainable Village
· Dillingham nursing students trained and hired
locally
· FSMI - Fisheries, Seafood, Maritime Initiative
· P3 Dining Facility
· Increased Alaska-Related Grant Funded Research
· Alaska adapting to changing environments
· Alaska Native health research
· Program Review
· Common General Education Requirements (GERs)
· Common cut scores
President Gamble stated that public and private
partnerships were one of the University of Alaska's main
themes. He relayed that the Center for Mine Training at UAS
had been "stood up," and that he expected that there would
be 3 centers for mines. He pointed out that there were a
number of explorations currently underway that were
expected to reach development and that the required
workforce for these potential mines could be 3 times larger
than what the university currently had; therefore, there
was a significant amount of specific workforce development
to conduct. He explained that the needed workforce
development could not all be done in Juneau, where
underground and hard-rock mining training took place as
opposed to open pit mining training; Fairbanks looked like
a good location for a new mine training center. He related
that the university might have over 6,000 employees in the
mines in several years if some of the potential mines
reached development; additionally, the university thought
that the labor force should to come from Alaska and that it
needed to be the entity to setup the process to train that
workforce.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 11 and
addressed the fourth sub-bullet point under the public and
private partnerships component. He related that the
University of Alaska had approached the Fisheries, Seafood,
Maritime Initiative (FSMI) regarding what it needed
specifically in its workforce and in its degreed employees;
the university was trying to align itself with what Alaskan
employers specifically needed and when it was needed in
order to more appropriately channel the workforce. He
pointed out that the governor had done a good job in
talking to the class in the Juneau about opportunities. He
related that university was creating its own focus and
organization internally to handle the coordination instead
of letting all 3 main campuses do it haphazardly, which was
the way it had been done in the past; the university was
growing and becoming more sophisticated about how it dealt
with Alaskan employers.
President Gamble continued to discuss slide 11 and spoke to
the final bullet point under the public and private
partnerships component. He recalled that there had been
questions from the committees over the last 2 years
regarding why the University of Alaska was not
commercializing some its ideas and forming more
partnerships. He relayed that the P3 dining facility at UAF
was about a $1.5 million project that the university had
not approached the legislature for. He explained that the
university had sold bonds to finance the project, secured a
good interest rate, came in under what it expected to pay,
and would use the profits from the dining facility to do
the debt service on the bonds; this was all being done
internally with UAF and the board's approval. He concluded
that the P3 dining facility was an example of a first step
the university was taking in a real public/private
partnership and that others were being looked at as well.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 11 and pointed
to the program review component. He related that there was
an extensive and accelerated course-by-course program
review across the universities regarding which ones brought
value and which ones did not. He spoke to the first sub-
bullet point and related that in the past, the general
education requirements (GERs), which were the basic courses
for college freshmen and sophomores, had varied between the
different state universities; however, through the
leadership of the University of Alaska's Faculty Alliance,
the faculty had sat down and examined GERs in order to try
and normalize them across the system. He shared that the
effort to normalize the GERs was the first positive step in
that direction and that it should be completed for students
who were entering in the fall of 2013. He spoke to the
second sub-bullet point and related that regarding the
common cut scores, the university used ACCUPLACER for all
students coming into its system for placement purposes. He
explained that what the university had discovered was that
an ACCUPLACER score of 51 in English at UAF would get a
student into the same level of placement that required a
score of 55 at UAA; furthermore, it was the same test and
the university did not have a good answer as to why the
standards were different. He explained that the faculty had
sat down, looked across the whole system, and had decided
to have the same cut scores; this agreement had just been
reached and the faculty were now looking at standardizing
the common cut scores for math as well. He offered that
there had been significant progress made in some of the
system-wide anomalies and that the progress would continue
through the rest of SDI.
9:32:29 AM
President Gamble addressed slide 12 titled "FY14 Budget
Request." He related that the slide depicted the 5 themes
of SDI and shared that all of the comments, written items,
reports, and introspective looks that the university had
received or conducted were grouped under these themes. He
stated that the 5 themes were in the University of Alaska's
operating budget request.
President Gamble discussed slide 14 titled "Student
Achievement and Attainment."
· Student-Focused and Service-Based
· Enhanced Services for Students
· STEM capacity increase
· e-Learning opportunity becoming normalized across
UA
· On-line technology benefitting student services
· Mandatory Comprehensive Advising
· FY13 investment results detected?
· FY14 request with more emphasis on community
campuses
· Retention, Completion, Graduation
· Community Engagement
· K-12
UA request: $1.6 M[This figure is one of the green-
highlighted numbers President Gamble made reference to
at the beginning of slide 14.]
President Gamble spoke to slide 14 and stated that the next
several slides showed a number on bottom right that was
highlighted in green; these highlighted numbers represented
the University of Alaska's Board of Regents' request and
did not represent the governor's budget. He stated that the
slide detailed what was in the $1.6 million request. He
pointed out that the concept of service to students ran
replete through the whole SDI process and explained that
the only reason the university existed was for the
students; furthermore, the university was acting on behalf
of the state of Alaska as a public servant and if there was
something broken in the system, the university was
obligated to fix it. He related that SDI was working well
and that the cooperation had been tremendous. He spoke to
the retention, completion and graduation bullet point and
opined that the governor had recently announced a goal of
having 90 percent of Alaskan graduates attending university
by 2020. He pointed out that the demographics showed that
high school graduation rate would level off, but that
getting a 90 percent rate would be the equivalent of 1500
more students walking in the door, which represented a lot
of tuition. He shared that the governor's goal would be
difficult to achieve and that in order to do so, the
university would have to go into the high schools in order
to determine how it could provide incentives and hold on to
students who "zoned out" or did not take opportunities to
be engaged their senior year; achieving this would help the
university get funding without having to ask the
legislature for General Funds.
President Gamble pointed out that a 1 percent increase in
student credit hours, which was about 6200 hours assuming
each student took 15 credit hours per semester, would
represent about $1.2 million to the university's bottom
line. He pointed out that 1500 new student enrolling who
were taking 15 credit hours would be "amazing";
furthermore, the university saved about $1 million for
every 50 first-time/full-time freshmen students that it
retained through the year and into the next. He concluded
that there was a lot at stake regarding getting and
retaining students.
9:36:32 AM
President Gamble spoke to slide 15 "Productive Partnerships
with Alaska's Schools."
· Supports UA's Commitment to Working with the K-12
System
· Cultural standards - must eventually balance with
merit standards for graduation
· MOOCs (massive open online classes) - potential
for dramatic intervention
· Testing norms: cut scores, admissions,
scholarships
· P-20W - shared database of educational experience
from childhood to workforce
· Work on "The 3 Critical Years"
· Strengthen the most effective bridging
opportunities from high school to the University
· Dual credit
· Tech prep
· Summer academies
· Live homework help
· Internships
· RAHI - Rural Alaska Honors Institute
· RRANN - Recruiting and Retention of Alaska
Natives into Nursing
· Teacher Education
· Alaska Teacher Placement
· Alaska Teacher Education Consortium
· UAA Center for Alaska Education Policy Research
(CAEPR)
UA request: $500 K[This figure is one of the green-
highlighted numbers President Gamble made reference to
at the beginning of slide 14.]
President Gamble spoke to slide 15 and pointed to the
fourth sub-bullet point titled "P-20W." He related that for
the first time, the University of Alaska had received a $4
million grant that would allow it populate a common
database between high schools and the university that both
institutions could use; the database could populate
pertinent student-by-student information, such as what kind
of courses they took, what their grades and test scores
were, etc. He related that the ability to go back into high
school and work students through to college with good
advice and good advisors was important and that the state
had never had a database before which enabled that. He
explained that a student could get a number when they
entered kindergarten in Alaska and would keep it till they
graduated from high school; technology would enable the
university to be much more efficient in holding on to those
students. He referenced various successful programs
including RAHI, RRANN, and a teacher education program at
UAS and offered that they were excellent programs that
worked.
President Gamble discussed slide 16 title "Productive
Partnerships with Alaska's Public Entities and Private
Industries."
· Leverage GF through better use of public and private
partnerships
· Meet industry requirements job for job to fill high
demand needs
Health/Biomedical
Workforce Development - requiring higher entry
standards
Fisheries, Seafood and Maritime Initiative (FSMI)
Consolidated Alaska Mining Initiative (CAMI)
· Fostering Knowledge of Alaska Issues, Culture and
History through the UA Press
UA request: $3.3 M[This figure is one of the green-
highlighted numbers President Gamble made reference to at
the beginning of slide 14.]
President Gamble addressed slide 16. He discussed the
process of guiding a high school student who had not yet
decided which course of instruction they should take and
informing them about the jobs that would most likely be
available in 4 to 5 years in Alaska, including the expected
pay and vacancy rates. He spoke about starting students
thinking early about their life through high school,
college, and into the workforce and opined that programs
like RAHI made it so that anyone could make it through the
system, even if they came from a village of 90 people. He
offered that students thrived with good instruction, good
technique, and motivation. He discussed the slide's final
bullet point and shared that about 50 percent to 52 percent
of all the printings from the University of Alaska Press
(UA Press) were culturally related. He stated that, outside
the Alaska's museums, the UA Press was probably the single
source that did a really good job at preserving the culture
of Alaska and breaking it down into its components. He
related that university presses were disappearing and that
it would be a shame to lose the UA Press over the small
amount of money that it took to operate it. He shared that
he had personally made sure that UA Press had received
enough money to keep running, but that it was operating on
a "shoestring" budget; the university wanted to increase
the UA Press's budget. He stated that the UA Press probably
did not require more than $200,000 per year to operate and
that it did not represent a lot of money.
9:40:30 AM
President Gamble pointed to slide 17 titled "Research and
Development to Sustain Alaska's Communities and Economic."
· Create Economic Value from UA Intellectual Property
· UAA/UAF Offices of Intellectual Property and
Commercialization
· Venture capital
· Focus R&D Where UA has a Competitive Advantage
· High performance computing
· Specific research critically important to the
Arctic and Alaska
· Fisheries, seafood, oceans, alternative
energy, mining, health care, Arctic
engineering
· Collaborative research
· Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
· Alaska EPSCoR
· Poker Flat
UA request: $800 K[This figure is one of the green-
highlighted numbers President Gamble made reference to
at the beginning of slide 14.]
President Gamble stated that the focus on slide 17 was that
the University of Alaska was not in the position to compete
with other big name universities in certain fields of
endeavor in the sciences or arts because it was not "who we
are in Alaska"; additionally, the university would not be
able compete with the these universities in those areas on
a shrinking federal budget. He stated that the university
was a world class leader in understanding the environment
of the Arctic, including the construction and engineering
aspects of operating in the region. He related that
understanding the Arctic included the geo-physical aspects
in the region, such as the surfaces that were built on,
earth quake predictions, as well as climate change and
thawing issues; the university knew more about these types
of things that were specific to Alaska than most other
entities. He stated that Alaska had been referred to as a
litmus test regarding climate change and related that the
university had people who examined climate change
exclusively; unfortunately, these researchers' funding was
expected to shrink because of the anticipated drop in
federal funding.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 17. He pointed
out that the National Science Foundation (NSF) currently
supplied 42 percent of the University of Alaska's research
dollars, but that sequestration would result in the NFS
providing 10 percent less funding to every entity it gave
money to. He related that in the future, the university
would have to compete harder with bigger schools in order
to get funding from the NSF. He concluded that the people
in the NSF recognized Alaskan researchers and opined that
if the university competed in the areas where it had the
expertise, it would do well. He relayed that the university
had recently secured a $20 million EPSCoR grant and had
competed with other top universities all over the country
for the grant, which was a huge win. He discussed a
teacher-mentoring grant that the university had recently
received from the U.S. Department of Education, which was
the only $15 million grant of its type issued in the entire
country. He concluded that the university could compete,
but that it needed to focus and choose its battles.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 17. He
observed that the state had rarely contributed to research
in the past and had left it up the federal government;
however, the state stepping in with funding should be a
consideration if federal funding was cut back. He spoke of
the need to track king salmon in the river systems, study
ocean acidification, ocean current studies, etc. and
related that university could play in those areas. He
opined that a lot of Alaskan research was going to outside
consultants and researchers, but pointed out that the
university could do that work.
9:44:09 AM
President Gamble discussed slide 18 "AU Board of Regents'
FY14 Operating Budget." He related that the slide showed a
comparison between the University Of Alaska Board Of
Regents' budget, which included the items that the
presentation just covered, and the governor's proposed
operating budget. He reported that the slide showed that
aside from the compensation increases, which covered 90
percent of new facility/additions estimated operating
costs, the program money had been removed from the budget;
this was not a shock to the university because the same
thing had "pretty much" happened the prior year. He
recalled that the prior year, the university had come to
the legislature and had won back most of the items that
were taken out; furthermore, the items that were added back
into the budget had not been vetoed by the governor. He
acknowledged that the current year's financial situation
was not the same as the prior year and expressed concern
regarding the following year's funding. He pointed out that
the university was greatly interested in the current year's
funding because the trend would indicate what the following
year would look like and stated that there was some focus
on making changes to the budget this year, because it would
not get any easier in the coming years.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 18 and related
that the University of Alaska's high-demand program request
was about 0.8 percent above what it was the prior year; the
year before that, the request had also been 0.7 percent to
0.8 percent over the previous year. He stated that
university had produced several finely-tuned flat budgets
and that if inflation was calculated, they were actually a
decreasing. He expressed appreciation that the university's
compensation and benefits were covered, but offered that if
this number was removed, there would not be much left in
the university's budget.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 18 and
commented on the receipt authority column. He pointed out
for the record that receipt authority was a mix of internal
dollars that the university raised and spent, but that it
was also the permission to spend dollars one might not
currently have. He pointed out that the $579.661 million
total at the bottom of the receipt authority column
appeared like real cash dollars to an external observer;
however, the number was actually a mix of possible dollars
and internal dollars. He expounded that the size of the
budget was not as big, in terms of actual dollars, as it
appeared on the bottom line. He acknowledged that committee
members understood what federal receipt authority was, but
that the public might not.
9:47:28 AM
AT EASE
9:47:38 AM
RECONVENED
9:48:00 AM
President Gamble pointed to slide 20 titled "FY14 Capital
Budget."
· Deferred Maintenance (DM)
· UAF Co-gen Power Plant
· Renewal and Repurposing (R&R)
· UAF/UAA new engineering buildings completion
· Research specific to Alaska issues
President Gamble discussed slide 21 titled "Deferred
Maintenance."
· UA floor space is 40% of ALL state facilities in
Alaska
· 400+ buildings/infrastructure
· 6.7 million square feet… and growing
· $2.6 billion adjusted value
· DM results from a chronic inconsistency to regularly
fund O&M and R&R
President Gamble related that slide 21 depicted the size of
the deferred maintenance problem and explained that
normally a campus of 35,000 students, which was how many
students the University of Alaska had, would have a much
smaller footprint; however, in Alaska there were campuses
all over the state. He reported that typically old
buildings on a single campus would torn down for a new
construction, which would have a low fix-cost; because of
its community campuses and the increased floor space, the
university had to pay a higher fix-cost per student. He
stated that the average age of the university's buildings
was 32 years-old and explained that because operating and
maintenance and renovation and repair dollars had been
inconsistent, the deferred maintenance was growing. He
shared that the size of the deferred maintenance was
getting so large that the actual dollar amounts that were
required to mitigate the risk that resulted from the aging
facilities were becoming huge. He recalled a recent
newspaper article that claimed that the state had a $1
billion deferred maintenance problem, but asserted that
university's deferred maintenance alone was approaching $1
billion. He concluded that deferred maintenance was a
serious problem and stated that the university was asking
for a programmatic approach, instead of an annual effort to
spot dollars every year, to ensure that steady funding over
time would arrest the growth in deferred maintenance and
bring it back down.
President Gamble spoke to slide 22 titled "UA Board of
Regents' FY14 Capital Budget." He related that the
University of Alaska Board of Regents' request was on the
left side of the chart and that the proposed capital budget
from the governor was on the right side. He pointed out
that the chart was not great and explained that the
university was not requesting $233.9 million; however, the
university had to display what the issues were on the
capital side of the budget, so it included them under state
appropriations because it did not have another way to
display them. He pointed to the $37.5 million in the top
row of the chart and related that it represented the
funding for year 4 of the governor's 5-year program to try
and buy down the deferred maintenance for the university;
the program was paying $37.5 million per year for 5 years.
President Gamble continued to discuss slide 22 and related
that the $37.5 million was like "treading water" regarding
bringing the deferred maintenance curve down because the
number was so large; it did not decrease the deferred
maintenance, but also did not increase it a significant
amount. He reported that the University of Alaska needed an
additional infusion of dollars in order to actually bring
the deferred maintenance down from $750 million; the $75
million on the chart's second row represented that
additional infusion. He explained that the university
normally asked for $100 million for deferred maintenance
because $75 million barely bent the curve, even with the
addition of governor's amount. He explained that the
university would guarantee that instead of asking for
another $22 million to start the power plant in Fairbanks,
it would take that amount out of the $75 million in
deferred maintenance dollars; the $22 million was depicted
on the third row of the chart. He stated that the power
plant was probably the number 1 priority, particularly at
UAF.
President Gamble continued to speak to slide 22 and
recalled that the prior year, there had been an issue of
competing high-demand projects and that at the time, the
University of Alaska was looking at 2 new engineering
buildings, as well as the power plant at UAF; the
university had internally agreed to go after the
engineering buildings that year because they would probably
be the last new buildings it would get for some time. He
relayed that engineering buildings needed to be built
because of concerns regarding accreditation and that the
opportunity was there because the number of dollars on the
capital side of the budget appeared as though they would be
healthy; as a result, the power plant was deferred for
another year, which was why it was appearing in the current
budget. He pointed the $108.9 million under the slide's
state appropriations column and related that it was the
second half of the funding for the 2 engineering buildings
that were authorized the prior year for half funding. He
pointed to the research dollars on the slide and stated
that the university was fully capable of doing the
research. He asked that the state consider utilizing the
university regarding research instead of using outside
resources. He stated that the university knew it would
probably get the $37.5 million for deferred maintenance and
would like to have the $22 million for the power plant, as
well as the other half of the funding for the engineering
buildings; other funds would be nice to have, but not
expected.
9:55:52 AM
President Gamble addressed slide 23 titled "Getting Control
of Deferred Maintenance."
Bottom Line
UA seriously needs programmatic solutions to acquiring
annual funds for real property maintenance, R&R and DM
reduction. Going back to the well each year is clearly
not working in the state's best financial interest.
M&R R&R DM
President Gamble discussed slide 23's 3 subject areas. He
shared that maintenance and repair (M&R) consisted of this
year's money to fix this year's problems and that R&R came
at the 20 or 25 year point when the building was rehabbed
or repurposed; if neither of these were done well,
everything was rolled into deferred maintenance (DM). He
related that of the 3 subject areas, only M&R was
programmatic. He stated that the university usually
received money for M&R, but that there had been little for
R&R and DM, other than what the governor had done. He
related that 2 years prior, the university had received a
requested $100 million, but that it had been in receipt
authority through which the university would sell bonds;
this had finally been reduced in the governor's budget to
$50 million of receipt authority. He explained that the
university had sold half of the bonds and was in process of
selling and applying the second half. He stated that 71
percent of the deferred maintenance money that the
university had received the prior year was "on the street"
already; furthermore, over the last several years, the
university had about 92 percent of its appropriated dollars
on the street with projects completed. He concluded that
the university put the money to work as fast as it received
it in order to fix problems.
President Gamble pointed to slide 24 titled "Sustainment
Funding Model for UA Facilities." He shared that the chart
depicted the relationship and history of DM, M&R, and R&R
and showed the connection between the 3 categories.
President Gamble discussed slide 25 titled "A Few Words
About Research."
President Gamble addressed slide 26 titled "Research for
Alaska."
· Chinook salmon production and decline
· Energy technology, analysis & development
· Expanded test-bed capabilities (diesel, wind-diesel,
hydro-kinetic)
· More research on geothermal, wind & biofuel
· Strategic resource digital mapping
President Gamble relayed that it was likely that the
federal government would reduce its outlays and that the
University of Alaska would need to be competitive to get
the dollars.
President Gamble discussed slide 27 titled "Federal
Agencies Seek Out UA Research."
· $133 million external research funding
· Growing recognition that Alaska should have more
involvement in circumpolar research questions and
answers
· To be competitive, complimentary Alaska funding for
research is needed
9:58:56 AM
President Gamble spoke to slide 28 titled "Research -
Economic Impacts."
· $92 M payroll (50/50 split - UA & private sector)
· Alaska answers to Alaska questions
· Good value - each $1 invested leveraged to at least $5
President Gamble spoke to slide 28 and its final bullet
point. He stated that outside dollars were leveraged very
effectively and explained that federal research funding
from the prior year had been leveraged and was secondarily
created into about $400 million of business by the
University of Alaska.
Senator Hoffman referenced a target of 90 percent of
Alaskan graduates going to the University of Alaska by the
year the 2020 and inquired how the university anticipated
accommodating students in the dorms. He queried if the new
accommodations would be funded through additional tuition
or whether it would reflect a capital cost to the state.
President Gamble responded that the university had not had
enough time since the target was set to answer the
question. He stated that the university was trying to focus
on keeping freshmen and sophomores on campus as a tool for
retention and explained that upperclassmen at UAS had to
find a place to live. He pointed out that an additional
1500 students was a good number to look at, but that it
represented challenges regarding logistics. He added that
he would look into the matter further.
Senator Hoffman noted that the ANSEP program had a high
success rate and a lot of private support. He requested
that the University of Alaska comment on the ANSEP program.
President Gamble responded that the ANSEP program had a
long reach back and started in about the 6th grade. He
explained that Herb Schroeder, who ran the ANSEP program,
had discovered that students were being lost because they
were not motivated, but that when students put their hands
on something and interacted, they became engaged;
furthermore, university's research showed that the same
thing was true with 20-year-olds. He stated that Herb
Schroeder had also discovered that if the state ever let go
of a student that was engaged, it lost them; therefore, the
ANSEP program had a progression that held on to students
all the way through the system, even through to the college
level. He explained that the conditions of the ANSEP
program had proven to be very successful, particularly for
Native Alaskan students and stated that the university
wanted to apply the conditions of that program in other
ways regarding its efforts in high school.
10:03:01 AM
Senator Hoffman noted that ANSEP solved problems non-
traditionally by having a group of students identify a
solution instead requiring an individual to learn on their
own; additionally, this method had high success rates and
was non-traditional to education system.
Senator Hoffman inquired if the power plant at UAF was
anticipated to be primarily operated from coal or if it
would be converted for gas that could be coming into
Fairbanks in the future. President Gamble responded that
because there was no solid commitment for gas in Fairbanks,
the power plant would have to be a high-tech coal plant
that would use about 30 percent waste and biomass and 70
percent coal. He stated that if there was a commitment to
gas, the University of Alaska would prefer to build a gas
powered plant because a coal plant could not be converted
for other uses and furthered that the university was
holding on as long as it could before it had to commit and
start building a new plant. He explained that the current
plant was considerably past its useful life and pointed out
that UAF's fresh water system ran through the plant. He
discussed aging buildings, freezing and thawing issues, and
the risks associated with the current aging power plant and
offered that this was the year for some action on the new
power plant. He pointed out that the question to ask was
whether the new $240 million power plant should be just for
UAF; additionally, should it be a university plant, should
it be a private or commercial venture, or should it be some
kind of partnership that fed the university, but also had
other benefits. He noted that $240 million was an awfully
big number to go to the university alone. He opined that in
the next year, a final decision should be made regarding
the power plant and the design phase needed to start; the
$22 million was just the money needed for the design.
10:06:32 AM
Co-Chair Meyer noted that $240 million for one project
scared him and offered that the sum could represent the
entire capital budgets in future years. He pointed out that
the entire community of Fairbanks had power needs and that
spending $240 million on an isolated part of the town was
bothersome. He offered that if the state was going to spend
$240 million, it should heat part of the city in addition
to the college and pointed out that UAS and UAA paid the
local utility companies for electricity and heating, which
would be his preference for UAF as well. He noted that
there was hesitation on the part of the committee for the
$22 million and pointed out that it only covered the design
of the project. He offered that the committee was committed
to the new engineering buildings, but that $108 million for
the completion of both facilities would be a challenge. He
liked the engineering programs that the University of
Alaska had and observed that he wanted to see the ANSEP
program expand. He noted that oil companies were trying to
hire more Alaska Native engineering students if they were
available.
Co-Chair Meyer inquired if the University of Alaska was
working with the oil industry in order to provide a local
workforce. He opined that many students did not understand
where the funding for the university came from and offered
that 90 percent of the money to fund the university was
from the oil industry.
Co-Chair Meyer noted that it had been stated that tuition
at the University of Alaska had peaked, but thought that
the tuition at UAA was still one of the lowest in the
nation. He requested to university to comment.
Co-Chair Meyer inquired what other sources of the revenue,
besides asking for money from the state, the University of
Alaska had been pursuing and wondered if the university had
been pursuing alumni grants or land grants. He commented
that the university was a large land owner and wondered if
some of it could be sold or leased.
President Gamble responded to the first question. He
related that he had recently talked with the Alyeska
Pipeline Service Company and Exxon Mobile regarding
engineers and what the two companies' needs were. He
discussed the idea of conducting a gap analysis regarding
specific needs in order for the university to be able to
focus the right number of people in the right area; this
aspect of the advising program could go all the way back to
high school. He related that virtually all of the engineers
featured in a British Petroleum (BP) brochure of employees
had an engineering degree or were involved in getting an
advanced degree from the University of Alaska; the
university was the single biggest supplier of engineers for
BP in Alaska. He related that Exxon Mobile had commented
that it did not get enough graduate engineers and noted
that it was difficult to get a PhD engineer into a company
like Exxon Mobile. He stated that there were no
scholarships for PhDs, which were usually enabled by
federal grant funding. He mentioned an idea whereby Exxon
Mobile would provide scholarships for advanced students and
pointed out that the company had indicated it would take a
look at the idea. He stated that Exxon Mobile was very
interested in education, particularly regarding teachers.
President Gamble continued to answer the first question and
stated that the University of Alaska was seeing a nice
growth in engineering students. He observed that the
university had engineering academies at some of the high
schools and thought that the problem was being worked very
well. He stated that the influx in interest in engineering
was one of the reasons that the university had requested
the funding the prior year for the 2 new engineering
buildings. He pointed out that engineers that were being
hired in Alaska out of the University of Alaska system were
getting hired into really good jobs.
President Gamble responded to the second question and
stated that the University of Alaska had peaked tuition at
2 percent. He relayed that peaking the tuition at 2 percent
had "cost" the university about $6 million from what it
needed from tuition and that raising the missing funds was
dealt with internally. He stated that the chancellors had
all agreed that peaking tuition was the right thing to do
and that the tuition increases were not sustainable year
after year. He related that the university had found
efficiencies and had made the tuition level work, but
pointed out that he did not know how many years it "could
do that." He pointed out that some states were freezing
tuition or dictating what the max tuition could be through
legislation and observed that the Alaska State Legislature
has seen fit to allow the university to work the tuition
numbers without legislating how it operated with its
students. He expressed expectation for the leeway.
President gamble continued to answer the second question.
He observed that there were 143 initiatives out of 35
states in which the legislature was dictating how higher
education would conduct itself and discussed examples. He
related that the $6 million would have gone a long ways
towards solving some of the problems, but that holding the
tuition at 2 percent may have allowed more students to
attend college. He pointed out that there were 15
universities in the north-western states group and that
about 6 years ago, the University of Alaska was at 106
percent of the average tuition of that group, which was 6
percent higher than the average. Currently, however, the
university was at the 75 percent level compared to the
average of those same colleges. He concluded that holding
on to tuition and capping it made Alaska more competitive
in those states for outside students and added that the
university had not recruited heavily for outside or foreign
students.
10:18:08 AM
President Gamble responded to the third question and
related that recruiting foreign students would be an
important tool to get additional revenue. He pointed out
that when a foreign student attended the University of
Alaska, they brought all the dollars to pay for everything;
in other words, the margin on a foreign student was better
than the margin on the local student. He reported that
there were some states in the Midwest that had universities
with 30 percent to 40 percent foreign students. He was not
sure that the university wanted to be comprised of 30
percent or 40 percent foreign students, but offered that it
was an area that needed to be increased.
President Gamble continued to answer the third question and
related that since the prior year, commercialization of the
University of Alaska's ideas was an area that the House and
Senate Finance Committees were interested in. He explained
that the university had stood up offices at UAF and UAA
with limited liability companies (LLC); there were now 2
commercialization offices and patents, possible awards, and
the potential for spinoffs were already starting to appear
in sizeable numbers. He furthered that the demand for the
commercialization was something that was not being
realized, but that opening the offices was leading to
significant progress; the university would not pay all its
bills with these kinds of offices, but it would help and
could also create jobs in the state. He expounded that
entrepreneurs would be interested in the commercialization
of some of the ideas, which in turn could lead to small
startup companies and relayed that the university was
looking at alternative revenues.
President Gamble continued to respond to the third
question, particularly regarding land grants. He reported
that the University of Alaska had less than 150,000 acres
in its land grant, which was second smallest land grant in
the entire country. He shared that there was a long history
of ups and downs over giving the university more land that
involved the Alaska Supreme Court and several vetoes and
stated that the university did not have mineral rights or
much land; additionally, the university made about $5
million annually off its land grants, about $4 million of
which went to the UA Scholars Programs. He explained that
anyone in the top 10 percent of each class of any high
school in the state can be a UA scholar and that the land
grant money was what principally funded that program. He
added that the Corporative Extension Service received about
$400,000 from the land grants per year and that there was
about a $1 million cost of operating the real estate and
facilities office; this amount combined with the UA
scholars funding was about the sum total that the
university received from the land grants. He pointed out
for comparison that Texas brought in about $400 million per
year off of the land grants for its universities. He opined
that Alaska had missed the opportunity to make money off of
land as the Morrill Act had intended; he did not believe,
however, that the state had missed the opportunity to do
the equivalent of the dowry that it never quite received.
He explained that the state might examine what the
potential was in future oil and gas contracts for a small
percentage of money to be put in an account in a way that
was not a violation of the Alaska State Constitution;
furthermore, out of the account, a predictable amount of
money could be appropriated each year. He offered that this
practice could be the equivalent for what original Morrill
Act had intended, which was for the university to make use
of its land; furthermore, the act's original intent would
not happen in Alaska because the land was distributed in
many ways and the university did not have the mineral
rights.
10:20:48 AM
Vice-Chair Fairclough requested an "apples to apples"
comparison of student enrollment hours in order to see if
the University of Alaska's needs had increased because of
enrollment. She wondered how many online credits versus
classroom credits there were, so that the committee could
see a trend moving out of the classroom. She additionally
requested an analysis of the university's tuition costs,
salary issues, etc. that was comparative to that of other
schools of the same size.
Vice-Chair Fairclough noted that the Fisher Report had
asked the University of Alaska to consider multiple ways to
increase its revenues exclusive of requests for General
Funds from state. She noted that Carla Beam, who had been
acquired by the university, was a very dynamic individual
who was very connected inside the state and wondered what
kind of growth there had been in outside fundraising in the
different major administration units (MAUs) since she had
taken over those duties.
Vice-Chair Fairclough directed the committee's attention to
slide 5 and its third bullet point, as well as slide 6 of
the presentation. She discussed the 500 degree programs and
recalled that the University of Alaska wanted to expand
further programs. She mentioned that slide 6 had
highlighted that UAF had moved from a master's level to a
doctoral level accreditation program and requested an
analysis of the 500 programs regarding where students were
actually accessing. She explained that regarding students
that graduated, she wanted to see the distinctions in what
programs the students were actually enrolling in and
graduating from versus what was available; she offered that
this could be depicted on pie or bar chart.
Vice-Chair Fairclough expressed appreciation that President
Gamble was making it clear that the University of Alaska
was actually 3 universities and observed that there were
"walls" and "silos" inside each of the institutions. She
expressed that it was important that the university should
behave as one regarding a student's ability to transfer
credits. She pointed out that after a student had invested
time and money, as well as possibly incurring debt, they
expected to be recognized for a least a certain level of
courses in year 1 and 2 that would be able to cross through
all of the MAUs. She acknowledged that the university
accredited for higher levels in some programs and that some
campuses attracted students like that; however, it was her
expectation that credits for entry level courses would be
able transfer. She discussed additional barriers that rural
programs experienced. She wondered what the costs for
accreditations were and how many accreditations the
university actually offered; additional, what was the
duration of the accreditation.
10:25:53 AM
Senator Bishop expressed his appreciation of the UA Press
and its funding and inquired how ANSEP's expansion into the
biological sciences was going. President gamble responded
that he would return to the committee with an answer.
Senator Bishop wondered what the University of Alaska was
doing in the field of heavy-oil research. He offered that
he would discuss the issue with committee members, but that
heavy oil was an area that the state needed to be looking
at 50 years down the road. He agreed that the University of
Alaska needed to be taking advantage of its research
capabilities and also agreed that it was a leader in Arctic
research that should be helping the industry on heavy oil.
He stated that as law makers, the legislature had
authorization of up to $500 million under the Alaska
Gasline Inducement Act. He thought that testing on pipeline
protocol, permafrost, strain-based testing, etc. should be
maximized at the University of Alaska instead of being
outsourced to another university out of the state.
President Gamble replied that he would have his staff
arrange the time to talk with Senator Bishop in more detail
regarding these issues.
MICHELLE RIZK, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, STATEWIDE PLANNING
AND BUDGET, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, responded to an earlier
question by Vice-Chair Fairclough regarding student
enrollment and related that enrollment history was included
on page 68 of the "candy striped book." She stated that
related to e-learning, the university had 267 distinct
degree, certificate, and endorsement programs that could be
completed at least 50 percent online; furthermore, 50
percent of those programs were available completely online.
She pointed out that there were also 1400 distinct e-
learning classes that were taught in FY12, which
represented a 34 percent increase from that statistic in
FY08.
10:29:29 AM
Vice-Chair Fairclough stated that what she had requested
was a chart that depicted the total accreditation hours and
contrasted, in big ways, how many hours were taken in the
classroom versus out of the classroom. She wanted the chart
show where people were utilizing online courses heavily.
Co-Chair Kelly recalled visiting the UAF power plant
several years prior and pointed out that it had an original
turbine that was installed in 1961 or 1962; there were
problems finding parts for the turbine because it was so
old. He pointed out that the turbine would fail eventually.
He discussed the cold temperature in Fairbanks in the
winter and the negative effects that power plant issues
could have on potential research dollars.
Co-Chair Kelly thought that the idea to have the power
plant at UAF serve the rest of the community had merit, but
pointed out that the plant would not be able to heat the
community because it would require laying steam-heat pipes
to neighborhoods, which would have an outrageous cost;
however, there were probably opportunities to generate
power for the community from the plant. He added that UAF
could not simply hook up to the Golden Valley Electric
Association, and that even if it could, it would only take
care of electricity needs because the water, chilling, and
heat for the university came from the current facility. He
observed that the current plant was a remarkably designed
facility at the time, but that it had become a problem
because its issues could not be fixed one at time; the
whole facility needed to be fixed.
Vice-Chair Fairclough queried about the regulatory hurdles
associated with trying to license the UAF power plant. She
wondered if the risks that the regulatory hurdles posed to
the Fairbanks and university had been considered and
further inquired if the university was actively looking at
how the UAF power plant might be licensed. President Gamble
responded that the University of Alaska had submitted the
paperwork to the Alaska Department of Environmental
Conservation to look at the beginning the environmental
licensing. He reported that the university anticipated that
even if the plant was a high-tech coal-fired plant, which
burned 30 percent bio and waste, there would still be
"antibodies" created; those "battles" were yet to be
fought.
10:34:26 AM
Co-Chair Meyer stated that he was fine with the plant using
coal, but expressed concern regarding a research oriented
university like UAF being in the power plant business. He
hoped that the university had considered outsourcing the
commercial aspects of the power plant in order to focus on
research and education instead. He observed that
commercializing the power plant would create frustrations
and headaches for the university. President Gamble
responded that outsourcing was being discussed; however,
someone had to make money off of the plant and the business
case was not very strong at the moment for outsourcing. He
continued that it was currently unclear who would want to
take the financial responsibility of the power plant given
that the business case was not real strong. He stated that
there were a lot of federal and state incentives in the
power industry that were all woven into the business case
and that UAF had indicated the incentives were "iffy"
regarding outsourcing. He stated that a commercially
operated plant that was owned by the university or the
state was another possibility, but was not an area that he
had seen a presentation on. He explained that most of the
work on the UAF power plant had been done under the
assumption that the university would continue to operate
it.
10:36:34 AM
Co-Chair Kelly requested an explanation of the massive open
online classes (MOOCs) that was on slide 15 of the
presentation. He understood that MOOCs was a database, but
queried its value and purpose. President Gamble replied
that it was amazing how fast ideas were being developed
regarding how to get students into and out of college. He
explained that MOOCs was a new program that had been
started at Stanford University by a professor who had put
his computer science course online for free; the professor
had enlisted 160,000 students. He shared that because the
course was a Stanford level computer science course, only
10 percent of the students were left by the time the course
was completed; additionally, no one received credit for the
course or took a final exam, but it put university
knowledge online for free with the idea that it belonged to
everyone. He stated that the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, as well as several other prestigious schools,
had adopted the MOOCs concept as well; the prior week, 40
more universities had signed up to produce courses and were
offering them online for free. He wondered if the
University of Alaska could offer the equivalent to MOOCs
with some of the general education requirements that a
freshmen took. He discussed that the university had a high
attrition rate in the first year, particularly in math, but
also in science and English; furthermore, there was a lot
of remediation in these areas before a student entered
their first year in college.
President Gamble continued to discuss MOOCs and related
that the senior year in high school and the first 2 years
in college were referred to as the "3 critical years"; if
one charted everything that happened to a new student
coming out of high school in a Bell Curve, the middle of
the curve would be that 3-year period. He mused that the
University of Alaska could create a basic math course, such
as Math 107, that would be a MOOC that used the best high-
tech presentation capability. He pointed out that the Khan
Academy, as well as other high school and college
presentations were being offered online; additionally, the
presentations were excellent, students loved them, and they
were not in lecture format. He furthered that Math 107
could be built as a MOOC and put online for free, so that
the high schools, counselors, tutors, parents, and
instructors in math all had the same course; this would
enable the backing of Math 107 all the way back to the 7th
or the 8th grade in order to start the fundamentals that
would be needed to pass the course.
President Gamble continued to address a potential MOOCs
MATH 107 course. He related that putting the fundamentals
of Math 107 into curriculum early would be like teaching
the test piece by piece; this would ensure that by the time
a student entered the university and was ready to take the
actual MATH 107, they would have basically already taken
the course. He relayed a need for seniors in high school to
keep a full schedule. He pointed out that students in high
school who had taken the MOOCs Math 107 course could pay
the same tuition fee that a freshman in college would pay,
take the final exam in order to test out of the course, and
receive college credit if they passed; this could be done
at any point in time in high school and for multiple
subjects. He stated that when instituting MOOCs, the state
should consider what problems it attacked and pointed out
that college readiness was what the university was after.
President Gamble continued to talk about MOOCs. He reported
that currently, the University of Alaska built bridging
programs and that there were well over 200 of these
programs aimed at getting students prepared to go to
college. He stated that some of the bridging programs had a
handful of students, while others like RAHI were great
programs, but that all of them were oriented towards
getting students better prepared for their first 2 years in
college; all the attrition came from the first 2 years. He
concluded that perhaps an application of a MOOC in Alaska
that prepared students for college freshmen level courses
would work. He explained that it would be up to each school
how the MOOC would be used and pointed out that parents
could review the lessons and homework in the program. He
stated that tutors were also available for parents who
worked full time and that the schools provided some great
programs. He relayed that there was a library program in
the state that helped with homework and provided tutors and
explained that the MOOCs would all focus on the courses
that freshmen took and had trouble with; furthermore, these
were the types of ideas that the university was considering
that had some potential. He added that the university was
"shopping" the MOOCs idea around and was trying to get used
to it internally because the concept was a far reach from
anything it had done before.
President Gamble continued to discuss MOOCs and pointed out
that UAS had fielded the first MOOC course that the
University of Alaska system had; additionally, a student
taking this course could also pay the tuition and take the
test. He opined that the application of MOOCs might be
something that worked a very difficult problem in Alaska
and relayed that the nice thing about the concept was that
it gave an equal chance to every student who could get
online, regardless of whether they were in the largest
school district or the smallest school. He related that the
university needed to be sure that it was producing teachers
that were capable of teaching the lessons, including the
fourth year of the governor's programs, which were the more
rigorous lessons. He thought that the application of MOOCs
in Alaska had a lot of potential.
10:44:49 AM
Senator Hoffman commented that the MOOCs model that
President Gamble was describing was similar to the ANSEP
model in many respects.
Senator Hoffman inquired where the University of Alaska was
regarding its labor contracts. President Gamble responded
that the university was negotiating actively with the Local
6070, which was essentially the facilities union, most of
whom resided at UAF; there were 250 members in the union.
He relayed that the other 4 contracts were all coming up at
the same time at the end of the current calendar year; the
university would either reach an agreement to stagger
dealing with the contracts or would enter into the
negotiations with the 4 remaining unions at the same time.
He explained that the Local 6070 negations were going the
distance, but that tentative agreements were being reached
on the articles in contract and things were progressing
forward slowly.
Co-Chair Kelly discussed the following meeting's agenda. He
requested that the University of Alaska send a
representative to an upcoming meeting with the
administration regarding contracts.
ADJOURNMENT
10:46:22 AM
The meeting was adjourned at 10:47 a.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| FY14 Senate Finance Committee Final.pdf |
SFIN 1/30/2013 9:00:00 AM |
Overview - University |