State of the University: Convocation 2017

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Thank you. Thank you and welcome. I'd like to just give one more round of applause for Ensemble 64.8 for that uplifting and energetic music.

Well, thank you. I am glad that you're here. Whether you're in the Davis Concert Hall or online, I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad I'm here. And thank you for the privilege to serve as your chancellor.

I'd like to make a couple of announcements about cell phones and ice cream, not in that order. The first is about ice cream, and I've been told to announce that the ice cream in the Wood Center will not be available until after convocation. And I'm not sure whether that was intended for you, so that you don't go to the ice cream before convocation is over, or whether that was intended for me to not head over there before it's over.

And the other is cell phones. Leave your cell phone on and, in fact, turn the ringer up. Peter Webley, here in the front, has offered to answer all cell phone calls during convocation. And he has a British accent, so it should be convincing. So if you have a call, just bring it on up. Thank you.

First is exits. You came in in one of the doors on either side of the stage. If there was an emergency, please use one of those exits. On your right is also a second exit. Please use that in the event of an emergency.

I start all of my meetings with a safety minute, and I would encourage you to do the same. And safety is an opportunity for us to talk about much more than exits. I don't consider safety talking about where the bathrooms are. You'd only need to have that safety minute once. But use it to talk about important issues for safety for all of us.

So talk about Title IX. Is the Title IX training done in your unit? We are all responsible employees. What does it mean to be a responsible employee from a Title IX standpoint? How would you report a complaint? Talk about that in your safety minute. Everyone should know how a complaint gets filed and then what happens after that.

Take a minute to talk about mandatory reporters. Mandatory reporters have special meaning in our protection of minors, so use that opportunity to do more so that we're all ready, if we see something, to say something and to do something.

It is great to be back. I love this university and have spent, really, my whole career here. For those of you who don't know me, I started in 1995 as an assistant professor of civil engineering. I spent time as a department chair and time as IME director, also associate vice chancellor and director of the intellectual property office, and then had an opportunity to spend two years at statewide as vice‑president for academic affairs and research.

And all of these jobs have given me the opportunity to look and see new challenges, new ways to address challenges, but most important to me is they have given me an opportunity to work with you. And I've worked with many of you I can see in the audience, and I really appreciate the opportunities that I've had to learn from you over these years.

I was chided a little bit about this picture because of the sideburns. And somebody asked me, as we put this picture up, if I started in 1977 with Erik Estrada. And, in fact, I can assure you I was 10 in 1977, so, no. This was a more recent picture, and this picture came from that period between 2010 and 2013 when sideburns were in high fashion. And we all know ‑‑ we know ‑‑ that engineers are at the cutting edge of high fashion.

This is a selfie of my family. And my wife, Ann Marie, is here. She's a 1998 graduate of the MBA program. She's also an engineer, and those are my two engineer daughters. No, actually, they can do anything they want, as long as it's engineering.

They're obviously too young ‑‑ they're 11 and 14. They're too young to be students here, but they're not too young to benefit from all that UAF has to offer. And whether it's the BRIGHT Girls Camp that they did this summer or ASRA, we at UAF have such an impact on our community. And whether it's students that aren't here yet, whether it's students that graduated and are coming back, or whether it's people that don't have any role in the university at all except that they come here for a lecture or they come here to hear the symphony or a play ‑‑ we make such a contribution to the arts of the community. We play an important role, and we are a world‑class university.

We are a people organization. And whether it's the students or faculty or staff, we're a people organization. And we lose faculty, staff, and students every year. And I'd just like to take a minute of silence to kind of recognize those individuals that we lost this year.

[In memoriam screen]

Thank you.

We're a world‑class university. I'm not sure if I said that or not yet, but I'll say it again. Our founders wanted more for Fairbanks. They wanted more for their children, for themselves. They wanted more for the Territory of 91��Ƶ. They wanted more.

For 100 years we've been building this world‑class university, and this year, of course, gave us the opportunity to celebrate that with our centennial celebration. And there's been a lot of activities over the course of this year, and I'd like to thank Michelle Renfrew and Emily Drygas, who were the chairs of our centennial campaign during this year. And it's been a great celebration. Thank you.

And here are a few highlights from the centennial.

[Video played]

We as the university are much more than the sum of our parts, but I'd like to take just a few minutes to celebrate some of the parts. If you are a faculty that was promoted or tenured over the course of the year and you are here, thank you. Thank you for your commitment. The fact that you were promoted or tenured or both this year is a demonstration of your commitment to UAF, and we all benefit from that. Thank you for that.

And a new commitment to the University of 91��Ƶ Fairbanks is Keith Champagne, who will start on December 4th as our new Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.

The 91��Ƶ Center for Energy and Power. Daisy Huang is a faculty mentor who mentored a group of engineering students for the Department of Energy's wind energy challenge, and they competed nationally and won third place.

$1.4 million. That's the value. $1.4 million is the value of the Student Investment Fund. That fund started in 1991 as $100,000, and it's been managed ever since by students, up to $1.3 million. Plus these students have returned $58,000 to scholarships that are given to School of Management students. Close to 100 students have benefited from this.

Sagen Maddalena has been named to the National Rifle Team. And, in addition to that, eight students have been named to the GNAC Academic Athletes Club, which talks about them as student leaders in the classroom and leaders in their athletics.

The CTC Emergency Management Group, emergency services, competed in the state's skills Olympics and won all of the categories.

This was an URSA. Erin Walling is a student who applied for an URSA grant, and the purpose of this was to test virtual reality in the speaking center. This was to give students practice in public speaking in virtual reality. And I thought about this. I didn't know about that at the time, but I thought about this. And I thought that might have saved you from me practicing this talk in reality‑reality.

Cathy Cahill, director of our ACUASI, received a patent for her work on a device that mounts on airplanes that detects volcanic ash to make flying safer for us all.

Or Orion Lawlor, professor in the College of Engineering and Mines and Computer Science, competed and won fourth place in a national challenge to use 3D printing to print a built habitat. And the idea here was to use recycled materials as the feedstock or materials that you might find on Mars. This was a NASA competition. And the idea was to print on Mars a built environment with a 3D printer. He finished fourth nationally. So the idea here is that if you go to Mars, bring Orion and a 3D printer.

Each year the state committee on research celebrates innovation in our state, and they celebrate this by inducting up to eight people in the Innovators Hall of Fame. And this is a photo taken at the induction ceremony in Juneau at the innovation summit. And I'd just like to recognize Peter Webley, who is here, and Jeff Rothman, who I saw, and Rajive Ganguli for being recognized in this way and being inducted into the Innovators Hall of Fame.

Roger Reuss was the PI of the Bonanza Creek Long‑Term Ecological Research Station. And this is a program that the National Science Foundation funds, and it's been ongoing for many years. We have been the PI of this, the principal investigator. The University of 91��Ƶ Fairbanks faculty members have been the principal investigators, which demonstrates our leadership in these massive programs. LTER is a big program that impacts many universities around the country. We're the leaders. And thank you, Roger Reuss, for your role in that.

And speaking of the Long‑Term Ecological Research Stations, a 20‑year effort by the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences has finally come to fruition with the first Long‑Term Ecological Research Station in the marine environment with the North Gulf of 91��Ƶ LTER. Thank you.

And your faculty senate vice‑president this year, Donie Bret‑Harte, was the leader of an agreement with the National Science Foundation for the management of the Toolik Field Station. That's a $17.3 million agreement that we have that, again, demonstrates our leadership.

Mingchu Zhang. Mingchu, through his work in soil science and nutrition, has made a significant contribution to the peony industry that is growing in 91��Ƶ. This year they shipped out 200,000 stems of peonies, mostly around the Pacific Rim. And they recognized Mingchu for his contributions to that industry. This is just one of the ways that you all ‑‑ faculty, staff, and students ‑‑ at the University of 91��Ƶ Fairbanks are contributing to our state's economy.

And HARP. First I have to put a picture of HARP up here, the High‑Frequency Active Aurora Research Program. And Chris Fallen, who is your faculty senate president this year, is one of the scientists at HARP. And HARP is now under our management. And I think about all of these great opportunities, whether it's Poker Flat or HARP or Kasitsna Bay or Toolik or the Sikuliaq that really give our students and our faculty and our researchers kind of a world‑class opportunity.

We celebrate ourselves ‑‑ we talk a lot ourselves about what a great Arctic university we are, and the Week of the Arctic was an opportunity for the rest of the world to celebrate that. And, of course, the Week of the Arctic culminated in the Arctic Ministerial Meeting and the handoff of the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from the United States to Finland. And that all happened here, and a lot of it right here in Davis, not because Fairbanks is easy to get to, but because UAF is a leader in Arctic research.

All of the world leaders came here to UAF to celebrate that, and I'd like to just take a minute to thank Larry Hinzman and the army of volunteers that worked that and made that a great success. Thank you.

And I'll just do a shout‑out to CTC who hosted the closing ceremony in their hangar out there on the west ramp of the airport. In this hangar, which was elaborately decorated, heads of state came. Our senators were there. And it was a celebration of the Week of the Arctic. It was a celebration of the handoff, a celebration of the ministerial, but mostly it was a celebration about UAF. And that night and that week, UAF folks were walking tall around campus, and it was a great thing to see.

The library. The library is involved in Arctic research. The library received a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create an Arctic portal so that other people could get access to the great resources.

We talk a lot about UAF as an Arctic ‑‑ I talk about it as an Arctic university, but there is so much more to UAF. There's the arts, the education. This is a picture of our education programs. And our education programs are ranked in the 99th percentile out of 800 programs. Our elementary education is ranked 7th in the country.

And our online programs. U.S. News & World Report has classes of things that they call "This is the best of." And best of online programs included UAF in four places: in our MBA program, in our graduate criminal justice, graduate education, and just best online bachelor's program. So congratulations for that.

Stacy Rasmus, one of the faculty in CRCD and IAB, received a $4.5 million grant to study suicide and suicide prevention in our 91��Ƶ communities. Such important work to be done.

Not connected specifically with that but related to that is with "We Breathe Again" documentary. And I'd like to thank Evon Peter and Maya Salganek for their work in making this documentary happen. And it was debuted at the Week of the Arctic. I saw it there, and it was very moving. If you didn't see it there, in two weeks from today it will be on PBS nationally; and I'd encourage you to see this great work.

The museum, partnering with the School of Education, received two grants in the Department of Geosciences to bring science to teachers. It's such an important thing to get science from the university into the hands of teachers and into the hands of students. And the museum is also developing innovative new ways for membership, new ways to generate revenue in the University of 91��Ƶ Museum of the North.

And the arts. Five women wearing the same dress. Sold out. All the shows were sold out. Again, thanks to the arts for making this a great university and a great community.

And, of course, speaking of the arts, we have all learned a lot from Michelle Bartlett. And she was recognized by the University of 91��Ƶ Board of Trustees this year with the Edith R. Bullock Award. So congratulations, Michelle.

One person who has dedicated her career to UAF is Provost Susan Henrichs. And Susan started here as a faculty member 35 years ago, and we debated whether or not I could reference this picture coming from Star Trek or not. Star Wars, not Star Trek, but you get the picture.

But Susan has meant so much to this university, and she's meant so much as an educator, as an advisor, as a mentor, as a graduate school dean, and as our provost; and I've just really been thrilled with the opportunity. As you know, Susan is retiring next June, and she will be dearly missed. Thank you, Susan. Thank you.

And on enrollment, enrollment is down this year. I think it's down 5.7 percent in student credit hours, about 4 percent in head count. And there are a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of things that we don't control in this dialogue, reasons that students may not be coming here. It's been a few years that student enrollment has been declining.

The legislature. We don't have control over the state's fiscal position, and we don't have control over the legislative dialogue about the university and its buildings and whether or not the university will be here in four years.

And I get stopped at Fred Meyer's and places and asked, "Is the university ‑‑ does my student have a future four years from now at UAF?" And I say, "UAF is a world‑class university. Yes, your student has a future. We have dedicated faculty and staff to your student."

Enrollment is a tricky issue for us, and there's lots of things we don't control in that dynamic with students and their parents and their other options. But I'll tell you, there's one thing that we do control, and that is how we respond, how we respond to the situations. And I think every day I get up, "There's lots of things I'm not going to control over the course of the day." But every day I have the ability to control how I'm going to react and what things I'm going to do. I have full control of that. What am I going to do about this today?

And the university is putting in money. We're investing. We're investing into military students and veterans. We're investing into online programs. We're investing into marketing. These are ways. I would like to thank all of the people that contributed to the enrollment strategies work groups that came up with lots of options on: How do we increase enrollment? This is a path for us, and we have a lot of headroom here, I think, to grow enrollment.

Before I move off this, there are bright spots. Of course, we have overall enrollment decreases, but CTC has taken its welding program and is now delivering that in Bristol Bay, giving opportunity to more students. Rural human services, that's an area that's growing in the Interior 91��Ƶ campus. And the pre‑nursing qualifications is an area that's growing at our Northwest campus.

And online programs. Even though overall enrollment decreases, online has been growing every year for the last five years. And this past year, from one year ago to now, online enrollment is up 10 percent. And I know a lot of you are working on online enrollment, and I appreciate that. I think that's a great opportunity for us.

One example is the Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Thanks, Cam and Sean, for your leadership here. That's another program that's growing and reaching audiences that we haven't previously attracted.

Graduation rates. We lead the system in graduation rates, but there's still things we could do there. 81 percent of the freshmen from last year came back this year. That's a retention number. We retained 81 percent of the freshmen. That's a great number. Those numbers are typically in the 70s. 81 percent. I think we could still do a little better there, but we are doing things right, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

There are lots of opportunities for undergraduate research. This is a university that gives lots of hands‑on opportunities for students. And whether it's undergraduate research, or whether it's things like the steel bridge that the engineering students do, these are things that are offering students opportunities they may not get elsewhere. And that's one of the reasons that some of the enrollment initiative is going to marketing, to get that word out of the great programs and opportunities that students have.

And, of course, we're moving into our next 100 years, and so we're building projects, finishing projects, making needed repairs. Of course, this is a picture of the Wood Center which received its new roof. It should be done in November.

Of course, the engineering building is going to add 120,000 square feet of space for engineering teaching and research, as well as its connection to the business school. The combined heat and power plant should be done next year. And then this is a current picture of the Great Hall under construction to fix the roof.

Budget. I'll talk a little bit about budget. Budget is the elephant in the room. Budget is always the elephant in the room. And, of course, the governor started out the legislative season by saying $325 million, which is what the university got last year, is what the university should get this year. As you know, there was lots of dialogue ‑‑ maybe $303 million or maybe $325 million. And we ended up at $317 million as a system. UAS's share of that is $158 million. Five years of cuts. There have been five years of cuts, roughly $20 million. That's a lot of money, and I realize that's a lot of things that we just can't keep doing.

The other really complicating factor in this is the $5 million budget. We needed $50 million for capital improvements, and as a system we got $5 million. And UAF gets, then, a portion of that.

In addition to kind of the budget and the uncertainty related to the budget, there have been a number of statewide activities ‑‑ of course, Strategic Pathways. And Strategic Pathways is a way of the university system kind of dealing with budget and looking at organization, and the new university councils that the president has set up to, again, look at system‑wide issues.

I'd like to thank all of the UAF people that have participated in both of these as a way of making sure that our perspective is included in this broader management.

But I think, as I look at the university, and I say, "Well, $20 million over five years, it doesn't seem to me" ‑‑ when I look out, the students are getting a great education. There's great research that's going on. It doesn't seem like there's $20 million of fewer things going on. And what it tells me is that there's a lot of you that are juggling a lot more balls than you were before.

You know, I think one of the things that we need to figure out how to do is to set a ball down if it needs to be set down. I know you can add balls as you're juggling, and you can add ‑‑ "well, I can juggle three. I can't juggle four." What if there's five?

At some point we have to have the courage to say, "We can set this ball down." And one way to do that is to have more decision‑making being done at all levels in the university so that you have the ability to say, "This is something that we can't do anymore."

Now, I get lots of things that are pushed up to me now, and they say, "The chancellor has to make a decision on this." And I ask the question: "Does the chancellor need to make a decision on this, or is this a decision that could be made closer to where the impact is going to be?"

Even though we have these budget challenges ‑‑ I realize it's something that's always going to be on our mind. We don't have a lot of control over what money we get ‑‑ but we do have the ability to do some strategic reallocation, and there has been some strategic reallocation to research. There's been some strategic reallocation to marketing and enrollment. And the president has sent some strategic reallocation to UAF. We received an additional $1.4 million from the president for research, and that money is going to be used for a post‑doc program. The bulk of the money will be put back into the units that generated it.

The president has started a President's Professor program, and so far two of those have been named and both of them at UAF, one in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, and one in the College of Engineering and Mines.

But I think innovation is a place where we have a lot of headroom. And whether it's innovation if you're staff or faculty or a student innovating in new processes of the way that you do your job to make it more efficient, or whether it's innovation in getting the technology that we have and that we're developing in the university outside the university, that has a benefit for us. Licensing technologies that we've developed is a financial benefit to us, but it's really a financial benefit to the community. So I'd encourage you to keep innovating.

Title IX. I think it's important to talk about Title IX. Margo Griffith, shown here, is our Title IX coordinator. Everyone, as I mentioned at the beginning ‑‑ all employees are considered by the Office of Civil Rights in our voluntary resolution agreement. All employees are responsible employees. A responsible employee has responsibilities, and one of those is to take the Title IX training so that you know what is sexual assault, what is sexual harassment, what is stalking, what is discrimination. It's important that, if you see these things, that they come to light, that you recognize them as such so that we can become a safer environment.

You know, I think of diversity. And I think we get our strength ‑‑ we are a great, world‑class university because of our diversity. And we can't be a diverse environment if we are not a welcoming environment to all people and if we're not a safe environment. Everyone has to feel that they can be safe here at the university from discrimination. And it's not on Margo, it's not on any individual; it's on all of us. All of us get to play a part in making this a safe environment for everyone.

As I said in the newspaper or said in an interview, "You all have a home here. Discrimination does not have a home here."

I'd like to just kind of wrap things up with some discussion of vision. And I was talking to my kids about vision, and I'm trying out some ideas on vision through the university. This was six months ago or so. And they said, "Well, Dad, you can't just have rainbows and unicorns." But I did get a rainbow.

Now, I kind of framed this, as I was thinking about vision ‑‑ and lots of people over last six months, before I became chancellor, asked, you know, "What's your vision for UAF? And what do you want to see? What would UAF look like in five years?"

And I think about when I get stopped at Fred Meyer's and somebody says, "Dan, is UAF going to be here in four years?" And I have to have that conversation. "Of course it's going to be here in four years."

Or somebody stops me in Juneau and says, "Dan, what about the waste? I've heard there's so much waste at the university." And I have to say, "There are so many people working so hard at the university."

How do we change that dialogue, and what would that dialogue look like? And what I would like is somebody grabs me at Fred Meyer's and says, "Dan, UAF values its students, and I know that. I know that because of the opportunities that they're afforded."

Maybe somebody stops me and says, "Dan, the university puts first things first." I'd love to hear this in Juneau. "Dan, the university puts first things first, and I know this because they're making the hard decisions."

I'd like to walk across campus and have somebody say, "You know what? The University of 91��Ƶ Fairbanks, UAF, is a university that communicates. And I know this because I can ask anyone on campus, 'What's going on at the university?' And they can tell me." "What happened in this situation?" "Here's what happened in that situation."

UAF is a university that empowers people. We hire great people. Let's trust them to make decisions. Somebody should stop me and say, "Dan, I know UAF is a university that empowers people because it trusts its people to make decisions."

World class. I'll be in Washington, D.C., and somebody can come to me and say, "You know what? UAF is a world‑class university, and I know that because the world is looking to UAF for solutions."

Or entrepreneurial. "UAF is an entrepreneurial university. I know this. I know this because if there's a better way, UAF faculty or staff or students are going to figure it out. And they're not just going to figure it out; they're going to do it."

Because of the next one, which is that UAF is a university that rewards risk. It's okay to fail trying at UAF. We need innovation, and we need people working at the edge of innovation. And lots of things fail there, but that's okay, because we need that to succeed as a university.

I'd love somebody to grab me and say, "UAF is a university that rewards risk. And I know this because it's okay to fail trying, but it's not okay to fail to try at UAF."

And UAF is a university that listens. And I know this because the university listens to me, and they hear me and they care about me."

Stimulates growth. It would be great if somebody was in Juneau, somebody who has got a company in Fairbanks, and grabs a legislator and says, "You know what? UAF is a university that stimulates economic growth. And I know that because I create wealth in the community based on UAF ideas and technology."

UAF is a university committed to safety. I know this because UAF knows that it's not a box you check. Safety is a process, and we're continuing to improve. I know we have issues now, and we're working through all of our issues. We're all working together on those issues. But UAF understands that this is a continuous improvement.

And finally, UAF is diverse. It would be great if somebody stopped me and said, "You know what? I know that UAF is diverse because it realizes that UAF needs everybody and is not waiting around for diversity to happen."

It is a privilege to be your chancellor. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for coming to this, and I look forward to the months and years ahead. Thank you.