{"id":9655,"date":"2016-11-10T02:41:48","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T10:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/juneau-worries-about-possible-ua-change\/"},"modified":"2016-11-10T02:41:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-10T10:41:48","slug":"juneau-worries-about-possible-ua-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/juneau-worries-about-possible-ua-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneau worries about possible UA change"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Alaska Board of Regents will vote at some point during its meetings today and tomorrow whether to establish a single system-wide College of Education based in Fairbanks. Many people in Juneau, including the city\u2019s mayor, don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n

University President Jim Johnsen proposed the consolidation as a cost-saving measure that will provide \u201ca sharper focus on the state\u2019s needs for more Alaska-prepared teachers and education leaders and a greater accountability for meeting those needs,\u201d he wrote in a recent press release.<\/p>\n

The move would reduce administrative redundancies, eliminating the need for three different deans of education within the university system. Under the consolidation, there would only be one dean of education operating out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.<\/p>\n

The proposal hasn\u2019t gone without a hitch. The University of Alaska Southeast Juneau Campus\u2019 eight-member Advisory Council unanimously passed a resolution expressing \u201coverwhelming disagreement\u201d with Johnsen\u2019s proposal at a meeting Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Council is alarmed at the dissonance between the state objective (identifying programs that are \u2018core to each university\u2019s strengths in meeting state needs\u2019) and UAS\u2019 elimination as a lead university in teacher education, one of its most visible and viable programs,\u201d the council wrote in the resolution, in which it urged the Board of Regents to reject Johnsen\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n

[Editorial: Where’s Strategic Pathways taking UAS?<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Last spring, UAS graduated 656 students. About a quarter of them came out of the university\u2019s School of Education.<\/p>\n

The Student Council of UAS\u2019 Juneau campus also wrote a resolution opposing the proposed consolidation. The proposal \u201cleaves UAS students unclear as to which faculty, degrees, and program administrators might be retained in Juneau,\u201d the resolution reads.<\/p>\n

According to the UA press release about the consolidation, \u201csince faculty will continue to deliver programs at current locations, all of the relationships developed with their students as well as local school districts will continue with little interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who oppose the change, such as Juneau Mayor Ken Koelsch, worry that in the long run, making Fairbanks the administrative hub of the university system\u2019s education program will weaken UAS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned about the long-term viability of UAS if one of its most important programs is not administered here in Juneau,\u201d Koelsch wrote in a letter to the UA Board of Regents asking them to reject Johnsen\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n

Koelsch is a retired teacher who earned his Master\u2019s in education from UAS. All of his fellow Assembly members expressed support for his letter during Monday\u2019s Assembly meeting.<\/p>\n

Before the weekend, the Board of Regents will decide whether to support the proposed consolidation. If it does, it will also have to put together a team to develop a more complete implementation plan, which will likely be presented to the board next spring.<\/p>\n

The board is likely to make these decisions at some point between 9:15 a.m. and 5 p.m. today, the first day of its two-day meeting in Fairbanks. The meeting will be live streamed at http:\/\/www.alaska.edu\/bor\/live\/<\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The University of Alaska Board of Regents will vote at some point during its meetings today and tomorrow whether to establish a single system-wide College of Education based in Fairbanks. Many people in Juneau, including the city\u2019s mayor, don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good idea. University President Jim Johnsen proposed the consolidation as a cost-saving measure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":9656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9655"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}