University of Alaska leaders don't understand the problem

The Board of Regents and the president of the University of Alaska have both discounted the votes of no confidence by the faculty senates at the Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses  as being merely resistance to change, and have touted the successes of the Strategic Pathways process. Both of these opinions are off base.

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The faculty are not afraid of change. What drives the faculty, staff and administration at the University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Fairbanks and University of Alaska Southeast is simple. They thrive in an environment that provides purpose, autonomy and mastery.

The potential of employees will be unleashed when they are engaged in advancing a purpose that they believe in and are empowered to accomplish. That purpose is stated in their individual (UAA, UAF, UAS) mission statements. Productivity will rise when they are given autonomy to create, invent and discover better ways to serve their constituents. They will become more effective and committed when they are engaged in achieving mastery of their respective areas of expertise.

What the board and the president appear not to understand is that the respective universities are knowledge-based enterprises not unlike engineering and technology firms. No knowledge-based enterprise in the private sector uses a command and control approach; neither does any other university system. No firm that uses knowledge-based talent could stay in business with a 47 percent turnover rate of their intellectual capital in three years.

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To date, Strategic Pathways touts consolidation of seven programs, supposedly increasing efficiency and effectiveness. In reality, the program has only rearranged the organizational charts and has achieved no reduction in bureaucracy or paperwork, or saved any money. Actual savings are not reported because there is neither baseline cost accounting nor any savings. The program is a rush to make sweeping changes without consideration of the cost or adverse impact on the universities. To this point, all that has happened quickly with the program is damage.

The measurable impacts of Strategic Pathways  were reported in an earlier column: motivation and morale at their lowest levels ever, leading to years of double-digit turnover rates of the faculty. In fact, if the current pace continues, the faculty turnover rate will reach a new record of over 14 percent this academic year.

The decisions regarding sports activities and headquartering the college of education at UAF were failures. Both of these decisions failed because they were poorly designed and poorly implemented. Having hundreds of people from various constituencies involved in a flawed process that does not resemble shared governance does not legitimize it.

There is a change that the faculty would support and which goes further than Strategic Pathways. At least two reports commissioned by the University of Alaska have recommended cutting the size of the UA administration. The Fisher report, page 16, recommendation 7 (2011), states:

"First, as it stands, the University of Alaska is overly centralized and devotes too many resources to a command and control regulator model that should instead place more emphasis upon incentives, distinctiveness and entrepreneurial activities. Increasingly, under the authority of the President, UA Systems administrators should act as staff to the Board and provide recommendations rather than wielding final administrative authority."

If the Board of Regents, the Legislature and the governor had a conversation with the faculty, administration and staff from all three campuses, they would find overwhelming support for this recommendation. Instead of consolidating power in the UA administration, as Strategic Pathways is designed to do, we need to head in the opposite direction.

Texas has 15 university campuses, each larger than UAA. They have a central administration of 115 people supporting their board of governors. They are expanding and working to establish new campuses. They support five times the number of universities with half of the staff of UA.

Oregon just reduced their central administration staff from 200 people to six and empowered their universities to be entrepreneurial in serving their constituencies. The universities are thriving and the local constituents are extremely happy.

UAA, UAF and UAS are not one university and never will be. They all have distinct missions, core competencies and cultures, and that is a strength. UAF has a rural presence and outreach and a strong basic research focus. UAA has a separate set of core competencies in science and professional schools, serving the business center of the state in ways that UAF and UAS cannot. UAS is situated in an ideal center for a liberal arts college and has potential to be much more if allowed.

Rather than go against the recommendation of the Fisher report, we should follow Oregon's lead and implement it. We should essentially eliminate UA central administration and form a shared services agreement among campuses to manage common administrative tasks. The Oregon model allows the campuses to opt out if the cost of the shared services is too high, so there is real incentive to provide high quality service at a competitive price. If Oregon's model were implemented in Alaska, it is reasonable to anticipate cost savings in the range of $20 million-$30 million annually.

Real benefit will come from unleashing the power of the intellectual capital at each of the universities, resulting in creative and effective solutions to the budget issues and better serving our constituencies. The people closest to the point of service delivery are best positioned to identify and implement effective solutions.

Challenge us by deciding to adopt the Oregon model and see how fast we will support and engage in implementing change.

Frank Jeffries is a professor of business administration at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.