From: Theodore L. Kassier [sntlk@email.alaska.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 11:15 AM
To: 'Karen.Perdue@alaska.edu'; 'Saichi Oba'; 'Dave Veazey'; 'Herb Schroeder'; 'Richard Wiliams'; 'Joe Cladouhos'; 'Jan Harris'; 'J. Richard Williams'; 'karen.schmitt@uas.alaska.edu'; 'hardenbrook@alaska.edu'
Cc: 'Craig Dorman'; 'Paul Reichardt'; 'Robbie Stell (Robbie Stell)'; 'Jan Gehler'; 'Jennifer Bowers'; 'Rob Lang'; 'Kathy Gruenig'; 'Pat Pitney'; 'Gwendolyn White'
Subject: SW Academic Planning Progress/Up-date

All,

 

Our SW Academic Planning meeting was held about 6 weeks ago and I thought it would be a good idea, in the interests of maintaining whatever momentum we generated, to check in with the three groups as to their progress on the FY06 goals advanced subsequent to that meeting and incorporated into the meeting summary.  Please let me know how and what you are doing, and if things are moving along as necessary to fulfill the goals by the end of the fiscal year, and/or what obstacles you are encountering for which you might need help or support.  The referenced FY06 goals are copied into the end of this message.

 

I have a few things to report:  

 

·                    I am checking into getting a “SW Academic Planning” button added to the SW Academic Affairs and Research webpage, so that the Planning effort gains visibility and our documents and progress can be reported and tracked.

·                    Work on the fourth FY06 priority area, International/(Foreign) Languages, has now begun, with meetings with ESL faculty and Anchorage School District leadership, including Superintendent Carol Comeau.

·                    A joint meeting of the Educational Technology Team and the Distance Educational Steering Board was held in Juneau last week.  Although not a member of either of these two groups I attended to facilitate the integration of efforts with Distance Education with the overall Academic Planning that should be a key driver in distance and general education technology development.

 

Please do get back to me with news of your progress in a week or so, if that is possible.

 

Thanks very much.

 

Ted Kassier

 

Here are the goals:

 

Health:

 

1.                  Prepare a package of data used to both inform the planning process and to make planning decisions

2.                  Convene steering committee, project team and Health Programs Alliance; begin to detail:

a.      Criteria for planning decisions

b.      Vision for health programs statewide

c.       Strategic initiatives and improvement projects

d.      Program plans and career paths

e.       Resource needs for sustaining/growing current programs

f.        Planning for prospective programs and innovations

3.                  Engage internal health disciplines and industry partners in planning process

4.                  Document the plan; develop tracking process

 

Engineering:

 

1.                  Compare UA faculty salaries by discipline with salaries of faculty at other similar universities and make appropriate adjustments to allow UA to attract and retain excellent faculty. 

2.                  Obtain data from DOL and other sources to indicate the need for engineering talent in the state.  Perhaps total engineers employed, new jobs annually, etc.  Anything that will provide evidence of the shortage when compared to the number of graduates we have each year.  We will need to look at industry sectors that do not require registration, i.e., the oil, gas, and construction too.  It may be that the DOL data only captures registered people and there are a whole bunch of non-registered engineers working in the State. 

3.                  Present data that UAA has indicating the lack of preparation for students entering the University in engineering degree programs and ways to mitigate the problem. 

4.                  Present University retention data for students in our programs. 

5.                  Present placement data for our graduates. 

6.                  Redirect funding based on established university priorities as feasible

 

Education:

 

1.                  Establish strategic planning process - working with Professional Growth Systems to develop process and timeline.  This will likely establish process and scope for an environmental scan of needs, followed by collaborative planning to address gaps in services.

2.                  Meet with Deans regarding outcomes from #1 above to define planning process at schools/colleges of Education -- needs to be something different as compared to previous efforts.