KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Citing a budget gap of between $14 and $40 million over the next two years, the University of Alaska is looking to make significant changes to how its campuses are structured.
UAA Chancellor Cathy Sandeen spoke about the UA Board of Regents’ plan: “At the Board of Regents Audit Committee on Wednesday the 13th, they ended up charging the president and the chancellors with coming up with some transformative structural options for the UA system. The Board of Regents Audit Committee is concerned with the finances of the university, so they are concerned with state budget cuts, tuition revenue reductions due to enrollment declines, and also additional expenses due to our COVID-19 response. So they wanted to see some big ideas for how we can close those gaps.”
One of the options that the UA Board of Regents will be considering at their June 4th meeting next week is merging all thirteen community campuses, including Kodiak College, under the umbrella of the University of Alaska Southeast, or UAS, in Juneau.
While it’s unclear right now how much money such a merger would save the university, the UA Faculty Alliance released a statement questioning the true cost of implementing such a change.
“The structural change of closing or merging a University has extreme implications for students, especially since one geographic location has been selected for review for merger/closure. The region and local communities will not be served through a disconnected system.”
The proposal to merge Kodiak College and other community campuses into one unit with UAS comes as Kodiak College is making significant cuts to its own budget by not filling open positions: over $225,000 dollars, or 4% of their $5.5 million operating budget, next year.
Other community campuses in the UAA system are facing similar cuts. Kenai Peninsula College, Mat-Su College, and Prince William Sound College in Valdez are also cutting between 3-4% of their respective budgets, mostly realized through unfilled positions.
Kodiak College, a community campus in the UAA system, already has a program relationship with UAS through the College of Education, after the UAA education program lost its accreditation last year. Now, students enrolled in the education program at Kodiak College are UAS students.
The UA Board of Regents will be taking public comment on the proposed merger and other options next Tuesday, June 4th, from 4-6 pm. If you’d like to make a comment at that time, you can call 1-866-726-0757, or send written testimony to ua-bor@alaska.edu.
