Room 109 in the Butrovich Building will be the gathering spot for the two-day Board of Regents’ meeting next Thursday and Friday, Dec. 9 and 10, in Fairbanks.

Statewide employees may be interested to know the board will consider tuition rates for Academic Year 2013 and hear an update on UA employee health-care costs. The public may testify before the board at 10 a.m. on Thursday or 9 a.m. Friday. Public testimony is limited to three minutes per person.

For information on the proposed tuition and other agenda items read MORE....
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In a memo to the Board of Regents, Coalition of Student Leaders and System Governance Council on Nov. 29, UA President Pat Gamble gave notice of proposed tuition rates for the 2012-2013 school year that take into account the three-year average of inflation as well as system budget requirements. President Gamble recomends a 7 percent increase for undergraduate tuition and a 3 percent increase for graduate tuition. Read the president's memo HERE.

Nov. 23 marked the official beginning of the selection process to replace UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer, who will retire in June 2011.

In a memo distributed on that day and published on the president's web page, President Gamble thanked Ulmer for her dedicated service and leadership. He also shared attributes and qualifications that he'd like to see in the next chancellor and asked for input from staff and faculty. Read the president's memo HERE.

Interior Alaska Center for Non-violent Living
SAA has agreed to accept donations for the Women's Shelter at Interior Alaska Center for Non-violent Living. The shelter provides a safe place for healing for the women and families staying there. Please consider picking up one or two of the items below and dropping them off with Izzy Martinez, Butrovich Suite 207. The shelter could use any of the following items:

• Personal Toiletries
• Bath Towels
• Hair Spray
• Hair Brushes
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Toothpaste
• Toothbrushes

Clothes Closet - This is a room designated for career clothes, including shoes and accessories (think belts, purses, scarves, pins, earrings, etc). They don't have to be new; just serviceable.

Arts and Crafts Class supplies - The staff who run the art and healing classes are always looking for art supplies. Yarn, paint, paper - anything can be used and be useful!

Christmas Party Bingo - Every year the shelter puts on a small party for those staying at the shelter. Donations of small items that can be wrapped easily can make someone's day a little brighter. Things like shower gel, nail polish, books you've read and craft kits are welcome. Please, no candles.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call Izzy at x8100 or drop an email to her at ihmartinez@alaska.edu.

Food drive
The annual canned food and mug drive began at the Thanksgiving potluck and will continue through the Winter Holiday potluck. Collection boxes will be stationed at each interior stairwell in the Butrovich Building. In Butrovich, Lisa Sporleder will collect mugs again as well to fill with cocoa and candy for the food boxes. For the Anchorage food drive, bring in canned food anytime from Dec. 1 – 20.� DeShana York is coordinating the Food Drive in the Bragaw Office Building.� There will be a collection box in the UA Corporate Programs Office, Suite 102.� If you have questions, call DeShana at 786-1198.

Let's make this a record year for food donations from Statewide employees in Fairbanks and Anchorage!

Adopt-A-Family
SAA is once again sponsoring two families for the Adopt-A-Family program. These two families need a little help to make it through the holidays this year. Monique Musick in Public Affairs is coordinating the gift drive. Please bring donations to her cubicle in suite 207. Information on the families, their needs and gift suggestions is available HERE.

Winter holiday potluck
Our winter holiday potluck will be Friday, Dec. 17. Bess Rounds in the President's Suite will once again coordinate food donations. The winter potluck always features a theme, and this year it is disco! That's right--time to pull out the old Saturday Night Fever outfits and join your co-workers for the festivities and feasting.

Thanksgiving potluck
The 2010 Thanksgiving Potluck was a great success. There was plenty of food and a great turnout in the BOR conference room for the feast. Thank you to everyone who participated. Click here for PHOTOS.

The season of snow and ice is here and with it comes with slips, trips and falls. Statewide Risk Services is giving away free Spare Spikes to provide extra traction. Also known as Spikies, Yaktrax and Get-A-Grips, Spare Spikes are rubber soles with carbide studs that slip on over your boots and shoes.

Spare Spikes are available to all Statewide employees, including temporary, part-time and student employees. Traction devices can be found at local sporting goods and fire safety stores for $20-$25 each.

For Statewide employees in Fairbanks, stop by and see Amaya Spencer in suite 106, Butrovich building. Anchorage Statewide employees should contact Mike Halko at UAA's Enviromental Health and Safety Office at 786-1386. Be safe this slippery season and get a pair of Spare Spikes!

Congratulations to Dr. Leo Bustad, an Anchorage physician and member of the Board of Trustees of the UA Foundation, for being selected as Alaska's 2010 Outstanding Philanthropist by the Alaska Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Dr. Bustad has been a valued Board of Trustees member at the University of Alaska since 2009.

Three Alaskans were elected to the University of Alaska Foundation’s Board of Trustees at the organization’s annual meeting in Anchorage on Nov. 8, 2010. Two of the three are new to the board, while one was elected to a second term.

Elected for their first three-year terms are Lorali Carter of Palmer, external affairs manager for Wishbone Hill, Usibelli Coal Mine; and Karen Polley of Juneau, retired director of the University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan campus.� Mike Felix, president of AT&T Alaska in Anchorage, was elected to serve a second three-year term.

The Foundation also elected Felix chair of the Foundation board; Carla Beam, an active member of the Anchorage community, to serve as vice-chair; and Jo Michalski, president and owner of Portfolio and Classic Woman in Anchorage, to serve as secretary of the board for the coming year.

The University of Alaska Foundation seeks, secures and stewards philanthropic support to build excellence at the University of Alaska. The Foundation serves all campuses within the University of Alaska System and is governed by a 30-member volunteer Board of Trustees. The Foundation manages over 1,100 privately donated funds, including 644 endowments. It has over $286 million assets under management.

The University of Alaska Board of Regents approved FY12 operating and capital budgets for the 16-campus system at its Nov. 9 meeting in Anchorage last month. The investment blueprint now goes to Gov. Sean Parnell for consideration.

The board also approved schematic design for the Life Sciences Classroom and Lab facility in Fairbanks, which voters approved in a statewide general obligation bond last week.

UA President Pat Gamble’s budget targeted $2.3 million to strategic areas critical to the university’s mission, while holding down fixed costs as much as possible. It emphasizes initiatives that strengthen student retention and graduation; investments in high-demand health, biomedical and teacher education programs; and enhancements to UA’s competitive research opportunities in fisheries, energy and the Arctic.�� FULL STORY

A 4-year-old boy from North Pole won a $25,000 University of Alaska College Savings Plan scholarship, while four other young Alaskans from Tanana to Anchorage each won $2,500 scholarship giveaways.

Four-year-old Tristan Besser of North Pole now has $25,000 added to his college savings plan.

The winners of the $2,500 giveaway are:

• $2,500 — Joshua Freeman, 4, Anchorage
• $2,500 — Allan Kendal, 13, Anchorage
• $2,500 — Cole Knight, 16, Wasilla
• $2,500 — Allen Starr, 12, Tanana

The UA College Savings Plan offered the giveaway to encourage Alaska families to set aside half of their Permanent Fund Dividends for higher education expenses. Everyone who checked “yes” on line six of their 2010 PFD application was automatically entered in the drawing.� FULL STORY....

The UA College Savings Plan will offer the giveaway again next year. The PFD application period begins Jan. 1, 2011 and runs until March 31, 2011. For more information about the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend and the line six checkoff, go to http://www.pfd.state.ak.us.
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University of Alaska engineering students in Anchorage will be able to build prototypes of buildings, bridges, pipelines and anything else professors demand thanks to $175,000 in new lab equipment donated by BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.

The gift was one of many from the company to the university in 2010 that, in addition to Anchorage, went to programs in Fairbanks, Soldotna and Valdez.

The new UAA lab includes 3D printers, computers, scanners, milling machines, laser engraver and other manufacturing equipment that together will become the new Rapid Prototype and Manufacturing (RPM) Lab, housed at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s School of Engineering.

The impact of BP’s various gifts to the university, which total $524,000, also includes a $75,000 donation to Kenai Peninsula College (KPC) to upgrade simulator equipment for its process technology programs in Soldotna and Anchorage.

BP also gave $55,000 for the Process Technology program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Community and Technical College. UAF CTC Interim Dean Michele Stalder said the money will allow the program to purchase state-of-the-art equipment for the Fairbanks-based Pipeline Training Center.

“That BP chooses to continue supporting our students year after year, through such generous charitable donations as this, demonstrates a real trust in the university,” said UA President Pat Gamble. “It’s a trust we take seriously as we strive to deliver well-prepared graduates to Alaska’s economy.”� MORE...

Students registering for fall 2011 courses will find a more user-friendly interface when it comes to distance delivered courses, thanks to significant behind-the-scenes improvements to Banner, UA’s primary information management system, and UAOnline, the online tool for registration.

The changes will allow Banner and UAOnline to collect and store additional information about each distance delivered course such as equipment needed or if a level of “in-person” attendance is required.� The changes also will make it easier for students to search for appropriate distance courses across the UA System, regardless of home campus, as well as register for the course.

The goal of the changes is to make registration and the search process for distance delivered courses more student-centered.� Many UA students take classes from more than one campus due to the convenience of distance delivered courses.

At UAOnline, course searches will be presented to students via a “Google-style” clean, contemporary key word search tool.� Students wanting a more robust search can choose an Advanced Search that provides filtering for numerous combinations of course attributes, such as required meeting times, specifics on delivery (web meeting, audio conferencing, etc.), course number and more. Once the student identifies the distance delivered course that suits their needs, they’ll be able to complete registration directly at UAOnline, instead of switching between differing systems.� These changes will be available to students when fall 2011 courses are viewable through UAOnline on March 28, 2011.�� Students taking regular courses will benefit from the enhanced search tool as well.

Faculty and staff input and participation is critical to the enhanced system’s success. Enrollment services staff will begin collecting detailed course information from departments starting in December.� Each campus will have a single point of contact to serve as a reference on this change and help identify additional needs.��

For more information about this project, please call Mary Gower at 907/450-8145 or email her at msgower@alaska.edu.

Statewide employees in Fairbanks may be interested to know that UAF has decided to go to an online-only class schedule beginning with the fall 2011 semester. For spring 2011, a reduced number of schedules will be printed that will include announcements about the last printed version.

Between the time the paper class schedule goes to the printer and the first day of class, more than 1,000 changes take place that are not in the print version. Relying on an out-of-date document leads to problems for everyone. Eliminating the printed schedule will also contribute to the sustainability of the campus.

UAF plans to print a much smaller guide-to-registration booklet that will lead students through the registration process. The registration guide will not include any information about specific classes — that information will be only available online, through UAOnline (http://uaonline.alaska.edu/) or the Course Finder (http://www.uaf.edu/coursefinder/).

Social media is a rapidly growing means of communication and outreach. If you are on Facebook we would like you know about some of the different UA departments, campuses and groups that you can join.

University of Alaska System

UA College Savings Plan

University of Alaska Fairbanks

UAF Community and Technical College

Freddie Fish (FAFSA Frenzy)

University of Alaska Museum of the North

University of Alaska Anchorage

There are many more out there for specific colleges, student groups, bookstores and more. Please take a moment to become a "Fan" of the University of Alaska and put another great avenue of communication at your fingertips.