“From the beginning of our history, Alaskans have relied on innovation. Surviving cold, dark, and distance requires constant creativity. Our extreme environment and unique challenges have made our people inventors, and our land has been a center of natural observation and a proving ground for new technologies. Everything we do in Alaska is knowledge-based: the prosperity of our culture, preservation of our environment, and economic growth depend upon sound science and inventive thinking. We understand that our resources include not just what’s beneath our feet, but what’s between our ears."

– Former Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell’s introduction to the Alaska Science and Technology Plan, which was entitled “To Build a Fire”

When updating the state science and technology plan in 2013, Alaska leaders on the State Committee for Research (SCoR) wanted a way to inspire innovative Alaskans and at the same time, recognize the great achievements of Alaskans past and present. Although impossible to capture all of the past pioneering advances, the SCoR selected 22 Alaskans as the inaugural members of the Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame. Their stories were captured in Ned Rozell’s book, “Northern Innovators.”

The 22 members who made up the initial cohort in the Innovators Hall of Fame were inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of events hosted by the Fairbanks and Anchorage Economic Development Corporations in Fairbanks (2014) and Anchorage (2015), respectively. This year, seven new members joined the cohort when they were inducted into the Innovators Hall of Fame as part of the 2017 Innovation Summit in Juneau. The Innovation Summit, held on February 15-16, is an annual event produced by the Juneau Economic Development Council to foster collaboration, productivity and prosperity in Alaska. This year the summit was focused on entrepreneurs and those involved in building the innovation ecosystem in Alaska. MORE...

SAA invites Statewide staff to participate in​ a forum with President Johnsen and his leadership team on Friday, March 10th from 10-11 a.m. in Butrovich 109 and Bragaw 205.

The president would like to start a dialog on a number of topics affecting the university, as well as answer questions and address concerns you may have.

• the March Board of Regents meeting
• Strategic Pathways process
• FY18 budget
• Office of Civil Rights Title IX report
• Legislative issues

https://goo.gl/forms/UYNMQKMLuy4fEUsn2

We hope to see you there,
Eric Johnson, SAA President

Do you know a high school student who plans to pursue a degree in education? They could win a $12,000 scholarship to any of UA’s campuses. Applying is easy—they just complete the online application with the requested materials and tell UA how they will inspire and empower others to drive change in our state. # JointheChangehttps://uaptw.typeform.com/to/MBs2Sc

The Statewide Administration Assembly held a regular business meeting on Wednesday, February 15. Below are highlights from the meeting.

February�SAA�Highlights

1. SAA�is collecting food for the Food Bank throughout the month of February, a time when donations are needed most in our community. There are green collection boxes placed in several areas in the Butrovich building. The food drive ends Feb. 28—so don’t delay!�
2. The SAA Awards Committee is reviewing outstanding employee nominations and working to select a date in April for the annual banquet. �
3. SAA members discussed an upcoming change to the Strategic Pathways process. President Johnsen will now hold two rounds of face-to-face meetings with impacted units. The president plans to gather feedback from these meetings and present the information to the Regents, and then plan the second round of face-to-face meetings while conducting a more in-depth analysis. There will still be public forums.
4. SAA passed the following resolutions: 1) SAA does not support “A New Vision for the University of Alaska” presented by Abel Bult-Ito, and encourages UA leadership to oppose the proposal as presented and 2) SAA supports the new PageUp! Performance Evaluation tool and proposed implementation without reservation and encourages UA administration to include the 360-degree feedback tool when feasibly possible.
5. A resolution regarding the university’s annual leave cash-in program was postponed until a future meeting to allow SAA to gather more data regarding participation levels and total cost, and to conduct a short survey of SW employees to determine their sentiment on the program. �
6. SAA has compiled an analysis of the SW morale survey and will share the results with staff at large later this week or early next week. Compilation and analysis of the comments is an important element of the survey and it is taking longer than anticipated; during the next step, SAA will work to complete analysis of the comments while developing a strategy to address SW staff morale.
7. SAA had their first reading of the proposed changes to SAA’s constitution and bylaws. The second reading will be in March during the SAA meeting and the proposed changes will be posted on SAA’s website.

SAA�will meet next on Wednesday, March 15 in Butrovich 204 in Fairbanks and Bragaw 210 in Anchorage. All staff are encouraged and welcome to attend. Reach out to�SAA�members to share your ideas and/or concerns. Additional information about�SAA�meetings is available on their�website.

On December 23, 2016, Statewide staff were notified that all employee transaction activity for HR actions such as payroll, personnel, recruitment, etc. are now transferred to UAF HR. With this change, we need to adjust our expectations on when HR actions are processed. Because of the great volume, the sooner we can submit requests to UAF HR, the better. However, the following chart shows the deadlines that must be met in order to not adversely affect employees. Please use the following chart to see when you need to submit HR requests and items to your PPA.

If you haven’t had a chance to log-in to your Healthyroads account yet, don’t delay any longer. University of Alaska has decided to hold an end-of-year raffle for those who successfully complete all of the FY17 requirements early—by March 31^st! They will be giving away the following to those eligible:

• A $200 Visa gift card will be raffled-off per each University of Alaska campus (15 total)
• 40, $50 Visa gift cards will be raffled-off to the entire population

Who: Any employee, spouse, FIP currently on the UA Choice Health Plan

What: Complete a personal health assessment (PHA), Biometric screening, and earn 5 points within your Healthyroads account by 3/31/17.

Details: Drawing will be completed after allowing for all biometric and point items to post to accounts. All completion dates must be within the dates of 5/1/16-3/31/17 to qualify. Winners will be contacted by Sara Rodewald, UAs Healthyroads Program Manager.

In order to earn your FY18 wellness rebate, a biometric screening must be completed (along with the PHA and earning 5 points). All remaining campus biometric events have now been scheduled and posted! Take a look at the scheduler and learn how to sign-up on the UA benefits/wellness page under the ‘Biometrics Screening Information’ (scroll down the page).

If your campus is not offering an on-site event, or you are unable to attend, you still have other options for how to get this completed:

• Fairbanks and Anchorage campus locations
• All other campus locations

The deadline to earn your FY18 $600 wellness rebate is April 30^th, 2017. Don’t push this down your list any longer and log-in to your account today! If you have any questions on the program, just contact UAs Healthyroads Program Manager, Sara Rodewald at: sararo@ashn.com or (907)450-8203.

The Statewide Administration Assembly shared the Statewide staff morale survey results and thanked staff for their participation. There were 131 respondents to the survey who shared more than 230 comments. The results of the SW morale survey followed common sentiment reported in morale surveys conducted by other UA staff governance groups, showing a significant decrease in morale over the past two years.

The next steps for SAA is to use the survey results to establish a strategy for addressing decreased morale. The SAA Morale Committee will convene to identify and discuss an actionable plan for moving forward.

The Statewide staff morale survey can be found on the SAA website (https://www.alaska.edu/governance/saa/).