Legislature(2025 - 2026)ADAMS 519
03/20/2025 01:30 PM House FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB53 || HB54 | |
| HB10 | |
| HB36 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | HB 53 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 54 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | HB 10 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 36 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
HOUSE BILL NO. 10
"An Act relating to the Board of Regents of the
University of Alaska."
3:22:08 PM
REPRESENTATIVE ASHLEY CARRICK, SPONSOR, gave a brief
overview of HB 10. She informed that the legislation simply
added an additional faculty member seat to the UA Board of
Regents. She requested that her intern provide an answer to
a question that was asked previously.
3:22:41 PM
CADENCE CONNER, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE ASHLEY CARRICK,
responded to a question from an earlier meeting. The
question related to the qualifications that were needed to
be appointed to the UA Board of Regents. According to AS
14.40.13(a), each regent shall be a resident of the United
States and of the state. The requirement was the only
qualification needed.
Co-Chair Foster relayed that the committee would hear
invited testimony.
3:23:30 PM
ABEL BULT-ITO, FACULTY, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS,
FAIRBANKS (via teleconference), relayed that he was
President of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
Faculty Senate, a member of the UA Faculty Alliance, and
was a Professor of Neurobiology and Neurophysiology at UAF.
He spoke in strong support of the bill. He thanked the
sponsors. He asserted that adding a faculty member to the
board was vital for providing meaningful context for
diverse student experiences, potential ramifications of
poor decisions, and to help the educational environment at
the university. He thought most members were decades
removed from college experiences and lacked understanding
and experience in the modern and often highly technical
educational environment.
Mr. Bult-Ito emphasized that faculty taught students and
knew what issues were important to students. He noted that
faculty lacked the ability to communicate insights and
experiences to the board in a meaningful manner without a
seat at the table. He noted that faculty also provided
students with research experiences, which were life-
changing for students. He discussed research funding
obtained by faculty and the knowledge necessary to achieve
the funding. He thought faculty needed to communicate
research intricacies to the board in order to provide
context for making informed policy decisions. He stressed
that having a faculty presence would build trust between
the board and faculty and would benefit all students.
3:27:09 PM
Co-Chair Foster OPENED public testimony.
Co-Chair Foster CLOSED public testimony.
3:27:52 PM
Representative Bynum hoped for more insight related to why
adding a faculty member to the board would be good for UA
as a whole. He noted that the sponsor statement referred to
stakeholder groups, and he understood that the Board of
Regents was to give direction to UA as a whole and guide
its mission. He was trying to understand how it would be
positive to have a faculty member on the board, which was
supposed to give direction to faculty.
Representative Carrick responded that the legislation came
at the request of many years of UA faculty members having
limited opportunities to provide testimony or input to the
board. Faculty desired to have a seat at the table as part
of UA's mission. She relayed that in researching the
legislation she found there were several state university
systems that had a voting member that was a tenured faculty
member. She had heard board members at other universities
be supportive of the idea and agree with the same concepts
expressed by Professor Bult-Ito. She relayed that the idea
was to offer the real dialogue with the board of regents,
in the same form that the student member did, and provide
parity in the two groups that formed the backbone of the
system.
Representative Bynum understood that the bill proposed to
add a seat onto the board, which would make it a 12-member
board. He asked if there was an idea about how the board
would perform if a seat were to be added rather than
substituted.
Representative Carrick thought the question would be a good
policy call for the House Finance Committee or another
committee. She wanted to see the stakeholder group
represented. She thought substituting a seat would be
diluting the power of the current regents that were not the
student or faculty regent. She was not necessarily opposed
to the idea but clarified that the way the bill was
structured was to add a stakeholder while not diluting any
current members power.
Representative Bynum asked if there was consideration to
adding the seat as a non-voting member.
Representative Carrick relayed that the idea had been
discussed in the past. She noted that a full voting member
of the board had access to executive sessions and to travel
with the board, which were conferred currently on the
student regent. She reiterated the idea of parity. She
noted that there was a student regent that had to
occasionally recuse themselves from difficult votes.
3:32:39 PM
Representative Allard asked about the faculty alliance,
which she thought was for faculty advocacy. She thought the
board was more for oversight rather than operations. She
would prefer a faculty member to be non-voting and thought
there was conflict of interest with unions and other
issues. She asked the sponsor if the faculty board member
would give operational input.
Representative Carrick responded that the mission statement
of the university was to inspire learning; advance and
disseminate knowledge through teaching, research, and
public service; and to emphasize the North and its diverse
peoples. When she considered who guided the overall culture
of the campuses and learning community and university
system, it was both the student and faculty populations.
Representative Carrick acknowledged that here were some
operational decisions made by the board, but even more so
an advisory capacity over system operations and governance.
She thought faculty had a strong voice to add to the
conversation. She stressed that the faculty seat was not to
substitute or infringe on the rights of current regents or
their experience. She knew many regents were very
experienced and had a lot to offer. The additional seat was
meant to add to the decision-making process. She thought if
every member of the board was asked, the addition of a
student regent had offered a deeper perspective.
Representative Allard understood the mission statement. She
emphasized that the faculty members already had a faculty
alliance and could already bring issues to the board.
Representative Carrick emphasized that there was currently
no slated opportunity for faculty to speak to the board of
regents. The faculty alliance was allowed to make one very
brief report at certain board meetings. The board only
offered one hour of public testimony at the beginning of
some meetings. The board did not take public testimony on
agenda items. She shared that often times the public
testimony would be completely filled up before the meeting
had even begun, and faculty were included in the public
testimony. She thought faculty would agree with the
statement that it did not have enough opportunities to
connect with the board and to make its constituency issues
known.
Representative Allard asked if it was possible for faculty
to send an email for written testimony.
Representative Carrick responded that she would ask the
committee to consider the weight of in-person spoken
testimony versus written testimony.
Representative Allard understood where the sponsor was
coming from. She thought there could be things that could
not pass with a board membership of 12.
Co-Chair Foster set an amendment deadline for March 28 at
5:00pm.
HB 10 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.