Former Alaska Chancellors Express Alarm Over Accreditation Letter

Seven former chancellors of the University of Alaska system have expressed “alarm” over a recent letter from the system’s accreditor suggesting that, due to governance concerns, the three universities may not be meeting accreditation standards.

The chancellors — four from the University of Alaska at Anchorage, two from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, and one from the University of Alaska-Southeast — wrote that the expedited program reviews and consolidation discussions currently under way should “be conditioned upon the three chancellors playing the critical role assigned to them by the standards of accreditation and upon full recognition of the role of shared governance in all aspects of academic decision-making.”

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Any actions that prevent the chancellors from fulfilling their responsibilities as chief executive officers of their institutions “put the entire UA system at risk,” the former chancellors wrote in an opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News.

The current chancellors favor maintaining the current system of three separately accredited universities as the university struggles to respond to a $70-million cut over three years in the system’s state funding. That cut, imposed by Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy, a Republican, after he agreed to scale back a more draconian, $135-million cut in a single year, comes on the heels of several years of continuing reductions in the university’s budget.

The system’s president, James R. Johnsen, has said he favors consolidating the three universities into a single accredited institution — the approach that the governor and state Legislature have directed the system to pursue and that the Board of Regents initially directed Johnsen to start planning.

But Johnsen agreed, along with the regents, to consider alternative models after the consolidation plan provoked a fierce backlash from students, faculty members, business leaders, and alumni.

While some feel a consolidated system is the only way to achieve the efficiencies the system needs, especially given declining enrollments and continued budget pressures, critics of that plan argue that the three institutions and their 13 affiliated community campuses have unique identities that serve the regional needs of a vast and diverse state.

Meanwhile, the Anchorage campus’s Faculty Senate wrote the Board of Regents saying it was “deeply concerned” about Johnsen’s leadership and, specifically, what faculty leaders saw as his ignoring the need for inclusive dialogue. They said they had repeatedly asked for a cost-benefit analysis of the move to a single accredited university and had not received it.

The Faculty Senate said it was even more concerned about Johnsen’s “efforts at controlling communication,” a reference to his August 1 email to the chancellors directing them to support the move the regents had approved toward consolidation.

Johnsen also made it clear that he spoke for the system and that if they couldn’t get behind the consolidation, they should be prepared to leave. Faculty critics said he was trying to muzzle the chancellors, while the board’s chair said that given the crisis the university faced under the governor’s original budget slashing, that directive was justified at the time.

The former chancellors who wrote the opinion piece were Fran Ulmer, Tom Case, Sam Gingerich, and Lee Gorsuch from Anchorage; Mike Powers and Brian Rogers from Fairbanks; and John Pugh from Southeast, which is in Juneau.

Johnsen was not immediately available for comment, but he told Alaska’s KTVF that “difficult decisions need to be made,” that frustration and concern over the process is understandable, and that hundreds of faculty, staff, and students have been involved in the process of responding to the budget cuts. “The board is taking leadership as it should,” he said.

The Board of Regents has scheduled an emergency meeting for Monday to deal with the issues the accreditor raised.

In an email to The Chronicle, Sonny Ramaswamy, president of the accreditor, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, wrote that his letter to university leaders had “expressed our concern that we see some red flags that the board, system president, chancellors, faculty, staff, students, and stakeholders must address in regards to clarity regarding governance, transparency, and inclusivity.”

He added that “our expectation is in light of their articulated principles of shared governance, they must provide clarity on the same and create the inclusive and transparent environment to solve the budget challenges.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.