What purpose does a single College of Education serve for our students and our state?

We know we need to attract more students into the teaching profession and graduate more UA-educated teachers to meet the needs of our state. Our goal is to fill 90 percent of new teacher hires by 2025. Currently only 30 percent of new teachers hired in our schools each year are UA educated. The new college of education is being designed to provide an innovative curriculum offering coordinated teaching programs and taking into consideration the interests of our students and school districts.

How does this structure/organization better serve the 90 percent by 2025 goal?

The long-term goals of elevating the profession of teaching and attracting more Alaskans to education programs are achieved through a coordinated marketing and enrollment strategy led by the executive dean of the College of Education along with the newly formed statewide teacher education council.

How will these organizational refinements improve our delivery of education programs to Alaska’s students?

We believe this adjustment will benefit students by allowing them to retain direct access to their faculty, campus student services, financial aid, and counseling while strengthening the overall program through collaboration, alignment, and common courses at all three universities.

What concerns did the accrediting body have with the proposed consolidation and how are they being addressed with this new proposal?

Our accreditation is governed by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), and we’ve worked closely with them to make sure that what we want to do is possible within the accreditation guidelines. NWCCU raised concerns about the part of our plan that would move control of everything (programs, faculty, students, and staff) to UAS.  NWCCU described this approach as unprecedented and very complicated from an accreditation standpoint.

As a result, they said the accreditation process for the COE would be very time-consuming and expensive, and that would hold up forming the new college for several years. At the end of the review, there would be no guarantee that accreditation would be approved.

We’re keenly aware that time is of the essence to get to a place where we can better serve the needs of our students and work toward more UA-educated teachers. So we are considering a simpler plan, one that would still need NWCCU approval, but would be less complex and, therefore, make approval more likely and timely.

Will each university retain separately accredited programs?

Yes, the individual institutional and program accreditations will remain the same.

If the programs are still separately accredited why are we continuing to pursue the single college model?

A coordinated approach to teacher education led by a single dean follows best practices for improved delivery of teacher education programs.

What does the new, adjusted plan look like?

Under the adjusted plan, there would still be one college of education with one dean at UAS, however:

• From a purely structural standpoint, we would keep degree granting authority, programs, faculty, staff, and students affiliated with their current universities. Students would still go to classes at their respective universities and still earn their degrees from that university;
  

• But the actual colleges at UAA and UAF would be dissolved, the dean positions there would be eliminated and replaced by program directors; faculty, staff, and students would become part of an already existing college at UAA and UAF. We’ve just gone through this same process with our School of Management at UAS. The outcome of the Strategic Pathways review was to dissolve the school and move its programs into the School of Arts and Sciences.

• The COE leadership role would still be one dean--an executive dean--at UAS who would also chair a statewide teacher education council made up of faculty and administrative members from all three universities.

The executive dean also would lead an external advisory council comprised of key education stakeholders from outside the university to provide advice and counsel to the executive dean.

What is the statewide teacher education council? What role will the council play?

The statewide teacher education council will be chaired by the college’s executive dean and will be made up of faculty and administrative members from all three universities. The council will be given performance goals, empowering it to recommend changes to campus-specific programs that would meet the interests of our students and school districts. This will ensure alignment across the system. The council would also formulate funding requests and have access to all teacher education program budgets.

What will happen to the current employees in the discontinued colleges at UAF and UAA?

School of Education staff and faculty will be moved into an existing college at each university.

If moved into an existing college, will education programs be established as a new department or as a new school within the existing college? Will it be different at UAF, UAA, and UAS?

Education programs will most likely be established as a department within an existing college, but more details will be worked out in the coming months.

How will the executive dean be selected?

The executive dean will most likely be chosen through a statewide recruiting effort.