JOINT SENATE AND HOUSE HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEES March 26, 1997 9:06 a.m. SENATE MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Gary Wilken, Chairman Senator Loren Leman, Vice Chairman Senator Lyda Green Senator Jerry Ward Senator Johnny Ellis HOUSE MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Con Bunde, Chairman Representative Joe Green, Vice-Chairman Representative Fred Dyson Representative Brian Porter Representative Tom Brice Representative J. Allen Kemplen HOUSE MEMBERS ABSENT Representative Al Vezey COMMITTEE CALENDAR UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA BOARD OF REGENTS WITNESS REGISTER Dr. Jerome Komisar, President University of Alaska P.O. Box 755000 Fairbanks, AK 99775 Sharon Gagnon Board of Regents University of Alaska 7001 Tree Top Circle Anchorage, AK 99516 Chancy Croft Board of Regents University of Alaska 738 H Street Anchorage, AK 99501 R. Danforth Ogg Board of Regents University of Alaska P.O. Box 2754 Kodiak, AK 99615 Wendy Redman, Vice President Statewide University System University of Alaska P.O. Box 755000 Fairbanks, AK 99775 ACTION NARRATIVE SENATE TAPE 97-34, SIDE A Number 001 CHAIRMAN WILKEN called the joint meeting of the Senate and House Health, Education and Social Services Committees to order at 9:06 a.m. He welcomed Jerome Komisar, President of the University of Alaska, and three regents of the university to the meeting and announced the purpose of the meeting was to have a dialogue with the University of Alaska Board of Regents. Number 040 SHARON GAGNON, Board of Regents, University of Alaska, said there have been reports that legislators are unclear about the goals of the university, the planning that is taking place, and its vision for the future. She said planning for the university is a dynamic process; it is never static, but has to have a flexible structure to it because conditions change, and expectations, however well founded, are not always realized. The university plans have to be attached, very closely, to the educational and economic realities, both of which change constantly in an ever-changing world. Also, there is a difference between planning and creating a plan which satisfies everyone's special concern of special interests. Ms. Gagnon related that the current basis for planning in the university includes the following elements: (1) The university is a comprehensive, multi-mission statewide system with strong regional presences in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau; (2) The university is accessible to all Alaskans; (3) The university must deliver high quality instruction, research and public service; (4) The university must serve the state and the citizens; and (5) The university must be efficient in its use of resources, and to be so must work as one unified system and seek innovative ways to deliver its program such as through partnerships, distance delivery and consolidated programs. The planning required to put these goals into effect takes place on the major administrative unit level (MAU), which is Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau, as well on the statewide level. The Board of Regents is involved at each level and has final approval of any plans. Ms. Gagnon said each MAU has undertaken strategic planning which reflects the goals, as described, and which targets the areas in which each of these campuses believes it has its strengths and needs to serve the state. In preparing these plans, each MAU included faculty, staff, students and the community and very enthusiastically identified directions into the next century. These plans were then presented to the Board of Regents and approved. Strategic planning such as this sets the goals, but a different kind of planning was necessary to address the realities of declining revenues and growing student and state needs. The Board of Regents, on the recommendation of President Komisar, directed the university to undertake a different kind of planning called "program assessment." The success of the plan relied on the assumption that the university would find considerable outside funding through sponsored research, fund raising, resource management, tuition increases, and that there would be an increase of 1 percent each year from the state's general fund. Ms. Gagnon pointed out that the university has succeeded in raising outside funds and in raising tuitions significantly, but funds from the state general fund have not increased and, as a result, what was viewed as a reallocation of funds has become a system for cutting. A number of schools and departments have been consolidated and administrative costs have been reduced, but areas as defined as necessary to the students and state are not growing and are eroding. Ms. Gagnon said program assessment reductions were scheduled over a three-year period and are monitored by the Board of Regents. She directed attention to a program assessment document tracking its progression through the first two years and into the third year. Ms. Gagnon informed the committee that another type of planning has been occurring systemwide. For example, the board recognized its responsibility to plan for diminished state revenues so it identified fixed costs which must be met such as operation, maintenance and salaries, and it has adopted policies which require the campuses to dedicate a percentage of their budgets to prevent future deferred maintenance. She referenced a chart which she said shows the effect that this defacto planning has on funding for programs at the university and at the MAU's. The board also adopted a multitude of policies which identify and contain costs, and the board planned for future growth by adopting in 1993 a six- year capital plan. However, she pointed out that the plan probably won't come to fruition because the funds have not been available. In approving its annual budget, Ms. Gagnon said the board has shifted resources throughout the system to the areas which data indicate are underfunded, but with no incremental funding coming from the state, the reallocation has often resulted only in cuts in one area and no new money in the regions of the state, such as the Anchorage MAU which has experienced rapid growth. Ms. Gagnon said the board has voted to reactivate its planning and development committee, which she will chair, to review the planning that has taken place to date, and, if necessary, go to a new level of system-wide review and planning. Some of the issues that will be under consideration by the committee consist of: administrative structure and costs; community college and vocational education missions; quality of the student experience and student retention; quality of the academic program; the relationship of the university to Alaska's primary needs; prioritization of programs within the university; allocation of resources across the system and delivery of mission; centralization and decentralization of operations; stabilization and growth of the university's endowment; and relationship between capital and academic planning. The regents have put in place an ad hoc committee to review the three schools of education in the system to determine how their programs can be consolidated to deliver an excellent teacher education program throughout the state. The Professional Educators' Coordinating Committee, which is made up of university school of education representatives with additional representation from the State Board of Education and from communities, will be working with the ad hoc committee to develop a program responsive to the needs of the state. Ms. Gagnon distributed a U.S. map to committee members showing the percentage of increase or decrease in state funding for universities. It shows that Alaska is one of six states which has experienced a decrease in funding. She noted other states, much less wealthy than Alaska, have chosen not to cut higher education but to increase its funding. The board hopes for an increased commitment from the state of Alaska to its university and recognition that cutting government and cutting education are two different actions with different effects. In her closing remarks, Ms. Gagnon pointed out that the university is bringing in over half of its own budget so it is contributing to the state not only in human resources but in real dollars. The university is making important linkages between Alaska and the rest of the nation, as well as the Pacific Rim. She said it is an asset for the state which should be developed and expanding, and cutting this budget is not good planning. Number 245 CHANCY CROFT, Board of Regents, University of Alaska, said he would discuss a few of the specific programs that are taking place within the university system. Mr. Croft noted the University of Alaska Fairbanks math department has been a perennial powerhouse at national competitions beating such presumed excellent universities as Harvard and Stanford. Not only did they win first place, but for the first time in the history of the competition an all-female team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks won first place. Turning to the Juneau campus, Mr. Croft said it offers a bachelor of business administration which is available to any student at any place in the state. All upper division courses are required for the bachelor degrees and they are offered via distance technology. Despite the flat funding that the university has had for 10 years from the Legislature, the Juneau campus has been able to expand the educational opportunities to all Alaskans. Mr. Croft related that through a partnership the Bethel campus has with the Lower Kuskokwim School District, there are now over 70 certified teachers in that region who were born and raised in that region. For the first time in the state's history, instead of every teacher having a different cultural background than the students being taught, they have 70 teachers who were born and raised in that district. The Ketchikan campus has the only computer-based radar observer program in the state. It is serving as a pilot site for the Northwest Merchant Training School. The program is Coast Guard approved and its instructors are masters in the Alaska Marine Highway System. It is planned to offer training that will meet the new regulation for all ship officers. A Wrangell Narrows piloting class was recently provided for members of the Coast Guard Cutter Storis. The Bristol Bay Campus has a very active adult basic education program which was formed 15 years ago as a consortium between the regions four school districts and the campus. It receives not only support from those school districts but from the Lake & Peninsula School District who donates the use of a contract plane to fly people around to four or five different villages in that region to provide adult basic education. In Nome, the university has a computer program in accounting taught by the director of the Nome campus, and because it is done by distance delivery, students as far away as Wrangell, Tok, Dot Lake, Kotzebue, Healy, Dillingham, and Dutch Harbor have participated in the course. This spring at the Sitka campus 11 former mill workers in Wrangell will be awarded the University of Alaska associate degree in business administration and in health information management, all entirely learned through a distance education program conducted by the Sitka campus. Mr. Croft said the distance education program offered by the Sitka campus is a good example of having been able to accomplish this despite the fact that for 10 years there has been no significant increase in the general funding from the university. More than half of the money that operates the Sitka campus comes from non general fund sources. He said not only do you have a university that has made a tremendous effort to define where it is going and what it wants to be, but no longer does the state of Alaska provide at least half of the funds to operate this university. Mr. Croft pointed out that on a percentage basis, fewer students in Alaska go on to higher education than almost any other state; less than 40 percent of the high school graduates go on to higher education. Alaska also has the lowest percentage of the college graduates that go on to higher education within their state. Mr. Croft said not only does the university get less than half of its appropriation for operating from the general fund, but now that is against a backdrop in which people have paid lip service to the number one priority of the state, being education. In the last 10 years, funding for the public school foundation has increased $120 million while at the same time funding for higher education has remained flat. He asserted that there has not been a balanced approach to education in the state of Alaska . Mr. Croft noted that upwards to half of the entering freshman at the university are unable to compete in beginning English and math courses, and they are having to spend an increasing amount of their resources on remedial and developmental education. He suggested if the public school foundation program is to be amended, to consider funding for a program that brings people with a high school degree up to actual performance at that level. Concluding his remarks, Mr. Croft noted that the University of Alaska Anchorage gets no support from the municipality or the school district in Anchorage, and he suggested maybe amendments to the Municipal Revenue Sharing Program are in order to encourage that. Number 405 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN commented that it seems to him that remedial English would not be a university function, and he suggested that perhaps we're trying to educate people that are not college material. MR. CROFT said Alaska is part of a national phenomenon in which a lot of people are now going back to school. They are going back to school because they may have had some learning disability that wasn't recognized, or they may need the additional education for employment, etc. Whatever the cause, the university is getting people with a high school degree that can't do their program, and they know that with remedial or developmental education they often can go on. These individuals might not end up with a doctorate in business administration, but they can end up with an associate degree that considerably increases their employability. DR. KOMISAR agreed that a lot of these people are taking programs that do not end up in a baccalaureate degree. He said there are hardly any jobs left that pay reasonable salaries in our economy that don't entail some postsecondary education. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN questioned if it wasn't a mistake years ago to eliminate the community colleges, and he wondered if this state might be heading in the wrong direction if we're trying to get funding for a university, in the true sense of the word a truly higher education level, than there are markets for in the state. He thinks the market for the graduates would be more in the trade school level. MS. GAGNON answered that when that decision was made in 1987 the idea was that the university would continue to serve the community college mission. The greatest category of degrees that she sees awarded at commencements are in the associate level, so she believes the people are coming to what was the community college and achieving their goals. She added that it is an unusual configuration to have the two merged, but it was done to save administrative costs, and she thinks it is working as well as it can. MR. CROFT stressed that despite all they are doing with partnerships, municipal participation and private funds they don't have enough resources to offer more associate degrees than other states of a comparable population. Number 489 WENDY REDMAN, Vice President, Statewide University System, University of Alaska, said the community colleges continue to exist, but there have been problems and there continues to be problems in terms of being able to identify those programs to the public. She pointed out that the majority of the adult vocational education in the state is done by the University of Alaska. Number 515 REPRESENTATIVE DYSON asked if there was anything the Legislature can do to help the university gain more income from university- owned or controlled lands that are not being used for educational purposes. MS. GAGNON replied that the regents are putting a considerable effort in trying to increase the endowment of the university, and one way to do that is to increase their land grant. Legislation doing so has passed the Legislature twice in recent history, but was vetoed by the governor. MS. REDMAN added that other than giving the university an appropriate level of base funding, she thinks the Legislature has been very responsive to the university's needs. MS. GAGNON said the efforts made in finding more creative ways to fund deferred maintenance and fund student housing have been very helpful. She also informed the committee that Senator Murkowski is working on getting a federal land grant to set aside additional federal land for the University of Alaska, which may have a matching provision for the state. MR. CROFT noted the House proposal cuts the university budget by $2 million and the Senate cap cuts it $4 million, and he pointed out that there is nothing in there for deferred maintenance, and the university's deferred maintenance obligation right now is more than $100 million. SENATE TAPE 97-34, SIDE B Number 585 SENATOR WARD asked how many communities participate in the sharing of the operation of their campuses, and how many students that involved, MR. CROFT related there are six communities that share in the operating expenses of their campuses, but he did not know how many students that involved. SENATOR WARD asked if the Board of Regents has looked at an overall plan to someday scaling back on the outlying campuses and having just two or three campuses. MS. GAGNON said the packet the members will get contains a report on program assessment and it shows that reductions did occur, especially in administrative costs, and there are more that can be made. This is compensated through the increase of distance delivery so that those campuses have better access than ever to the total program without the addition of faculty and administration. DR. KOMISAR commented that in most states there is a very broad spectrum of institutions all across the states that offer services in trying to reach the high proportion of the population. An analysis was completed recently on the university's key campuses, as well all of their extended campuses, looking at what proportion of the population cannot get to one of their campuses. Even with the extended campuses it turns out that over 30 percent of the total population of the state can't come to the campuses now. If that was cut back further, it would simply be adding to the number of people that will not have access to the job training programs that are so necessary, the introductory educational programs that can lead them on to a baccalaureate degree, etc. He added that the university tries to serve these people through distance education means, and they are trying to increase that capacity to reach people all across the state. MR. CROFT said the state of Alaska set up a single statewide institution for higher education in the entire state, and he doesn't think the Board of Regents would ever adopt a policy nor could it adopt a policy that they were going to deliberately deny educational opportunities to a significant portion of the population. He noted there has already been one such lawsuit at the K-12 level and it was found to be unconstitutional. Number 522 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked which programs have been consolidated and which ones are getting to the point of being phased out, as well as the impact on the various campuses with the student growth leveling off. He also asked for comments on a House bill that has been introduced that would provide bonding for a UAA library, as well if the regents have considered entrance requirements for the university. Because House members had to leave the meeting for a floor session, he said answers to these questions could be submitted in writing. MR. CROFT responded it is an open admissions university, but students are assessed to get into a degree. However, programs at the vocational tech level do not require an initial assessment. Number 493 REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN said that as an alumnus of the University of Alaska, one of the weaknesses he has seen with the system is its weak connection with business. He suggested that with the development of value-added products that are specific to the state's sub-arctic and arctic environment, that is really where the university system should be applying its knowledge. Number 458 SENATOR LEMAN voiced his concern that something must be wrong at the high school level, or even before, if students are entering the university system who are not prepared. MS. GAGNON said in the past there were jobs students could go to even if they did or did complete high school, but now the training and preparation is so important for any job so they need the postsecondary education. MR. CROFT pointed out that less than half of the university's students are in the 18 to 25 traditional age group. DR. KOMISAR said there was national concern about how to guarantee that when a student arrives at college he is ready to do the work. There is now a movement to monitor the heads of the higher education systems around the country and to do two things: one is to raise the standards in the high schools to make sure that students that do get their degrees have these sets of accomplishments, and then to get the entrance requirements of the university at the same point so that you have a tradition at a very high level. MR. CROFT related that the Board of Regents has a subcommittee that meets periodically with a subcommittee of the State Board of Education, and that is one of the items that has been discussed. Number 376 SENATOR LEMAN commented that he supported previous legislation for land grants because he believes that Alaska's resources should be put in the hands of the people who will use them for the benefit of the people of this state even though it may be 10 to 15 years before a benefit from it is seen, but the state's future will be better. He sees a need to move ahead with a land grant in a way that can be very productive. Number 356 CHAIRMAN WILKEN said he came to the Legislature with the predisposition that everybody knows and appreciates a university as he does, but in the 12 weeks he has been in Juneau, he has been surprised and distressed that there are people in the Legislature that don't have that appreciation. He said what that tells him is that the Legislature and the university have to engender some trust, and he suggested that this kind of meeting and discussion needs to be held more than once a year. Number 300 DR. R. DANFORTH OGG, Board of Regents, University of Alaska, said that in the four years that he has been on the Board of Regents the dialogue between the regents and the Legislature has not taken place, and he is a firm believer that the university needs to have a good picture for the Legislature to look it and one that they can understand. He said it is geometric; once the door is opened and the first step is taken, the increase is incredible. Once that language barrier is eliminated, it will result in a program for the future of the state of Alaska and its economy where the university becomes an important part financially. Dr. Ogg said the university has an obligation to educate the people of Alaska for the future, and, as regents, they have an obligation to express to the Legislature if they are able to do that or not. In closing Dr. Ogg said the university has had 10 years of flat funding, and he believes that if the funding goes down this year, the repercussions from that over the next couple of years will be severely felt by the public. He concluded that if you fail to educate, you lose your future. Number 267 MS. GAGNON expressed her appreciation to the committee for meeting with the Board of Regents, and concluded it was good meeting and a good exchange. There being no further business to come before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 10:25 a.m.