A letter from the UA Board of Regents:
Acting President Michelle Rizk and I write to advise you that President Jim Johnsen has resigned as UA System president, a decision that was mutual and made after considerable reflection by the Board. The Board of Regents accepted his resignation this afternoon, authorized me to implement the details of his resignation, and appoint an acting president. President Johnsen will be available to assist with the transition until July 1 when his resignation goes into effect.
Vice President Michelle Rizk will serve as acting president effective immediately and until an interim president is named. That process is still being developed. Many of you know Michelle, who serves as the university’s VP of University Relations, Chief Budget & Strategy Officer, and serves as the system liaison for facilities and land management. During her 22-year UA career, Michelle has served the university in areas including finance, human resources, and as the university’s chief advocate in Juneau. Raised in Alaska, Rizk earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Thank you, Michelle, for agreeing to serve in the acting capacity.
While we understand that a change in leadership can be unsettling, we are confident this decision, though difficult, is the correct one for the university. We ask that all of you throughout the university community recognize that the state and university’s current fiscal situation requires significant change, and that to thrive, UA must come together to address our significant challenges. We must move forward and work together to address these challenges.
In stepping down President Johnsen noted the many challenges as well as the progress made over the past five years. He also reminded us that there is no institution more important for creating opportunities for Alaskans than the University.
I have long admired Jim’s commitment to UA. During his five years as president he has led the university through unprecedented challenges with integrity, unparalleled effort, and distinction. We appreciate all he has done for UA and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
The Board will appoint an interim president after consulting with the chancellors, governance leaders and other UA stakeholders. The board expects that appointment to occur no later than July 15, and will commence a formal search for UA’s next president later this year.
Thank you for your patience and your dedication to the university. Together we can not only address the challenges facing the university but emerge better prepared to meet Alaska’s higher education needs.
Sincerely,
Sheri Buretta, Michelle Rizk
UA Board of Regents Chair, Acting UA President
Wow. They allowed him the honor of stepping down rather than outright firing. That surprised me.
Exactly right. JJ should have been sh– canned for the mismanagement of UA programs especially the education program.
Likely there are others whose heads should roll.
Well, perhaps we will never know all of the details/motivations of the board, etc. as to why he is now leaving. If he, himself has in fact decided to quietly go away, lets give him that. Like many other professions and endeavors in life “there is life outside the university system“ and I wish him well.
Thank you again Suzanne for prompt notification/update. We all need to keep a close eye on this university system.
Good assessment. Interesting to note that no actual reason is given for the resignation. He made a bunch of cash and collected many perks whilst he was the Prez. And now we have a home-grown leader without a PhD. None of this is good advertising for UA.
What kind of golden parachute is Johnsen leaving with?……..follow the money
That was my first thought. A mutually agreed upon resignation usually means monetary considerations in order to not have to deal with a lawsuit from the resignee/fired employee.
“authorized me to implement the details of his resignation”
Notice the fine print there? As in a big severance payment? How many hundred thousand dollars?
Let’s see.
Arguably it should be that he leaves with nothing more. He was quite content to leave the university hanging by getting another job out of state and a mutually agreed upon resignation is a politically correct term for the process of firing without leaving a nasty blemish on the exiting employee’s work history.
That said, with two women running the show in his place, neither of whom are writing checks from their own account and neither of whom likely have ever terminated a president before; yeah, they’ll need to be special leaders to provide the kind of response this man deserves. I’d send the idiot a bill.
There isn’t supposed to be a severance in a politically correct termination and you can’t erase the public’s ire when it’s as well published as his record has been.
Can you drive a truck by chance, Mr. Johnsen?
This is a good time for Alaskans to ask whether every state needs a nameplate brick and mortar university in order to consider itself a real state? I cannot imagine residents of other states saying, “Alaska isn’t a real state because it doesn’t have a university.” Would a tele-university, with no buildings or sports teams, allow us to keep our heads held high? Do we really need dormitories, sports teams, alumni associations, paid lobbyists (Wendy Redman, Pete Kelley, et.al.) in the era of tele-degrees? Are the trappings of the University of Alaska merely falderal or do they serve a real purpose? We know that the state has many enterprise funds that will always need subsidy; if the University must survive then what goes away; state parks, RR, Marine Highway, rural airports? If a kid in Botswana can get a 4-year degree on his $99 laptop (without leaving his village), why can’t a kid in Gustavus or Copper Center do the same? TAPS thru-put is below 400,000 barrels per day by the way. Is it in the New Testament or the Old Testament that every state must have a university? There are many struggling colleges and universities throughout the US, and I would bet that at least one of them would change its name to include the word Alaska for a subsidy of maybe as little as $100,000 a year – a real bargain compared with the subsidy the University of Alaska now receives.
Need* a brick and mortar U? Definitely not however, there are some courses that can’t be taught effectively online and among them would be the medical portions of what’s available locally.
Math, science, and a host of other classes don’t require brick and mortar at all and UA recognizes and supports that by attempting to promote their own online courses but they do that poorly. For example, a fairly rudimentary class at UA will come with significant tuition for a class that can be recorded once and repeated ad infinitum with little more than proctored testing… but you’ll get stabbed $350 for a twenty dollar book on your way to that rudimentary class. It begs the question; if geometry hasn’t changed since Pythagorus was pondering triangles 2500 years ago, why does a math textbook cost $350 and change every couple years if not to gouge students and pad the university’s top line?
The key to student attraction and student retention lies in teaching core subjects in a manner that flat broke kids can appreciate and afford. It does not lie in developing new power plants, reindeer studies, or lobbying until insufficient management skills can be offset with income from other sources.
Kubota2 – great observations and questions. Add the challenges of a post Covid mind-set, and this may be the perfect time to reconsider higher education, comprehensively. While the status quo cannot continue, the “one-size” simple solution sold by the administration in Fairbanks and bought by the Board has predictably proved disastrous. Why would you model the whole system after the highest cost institution on a per-student basis?
For too long the faculty have been insulated from the fiscal realities of operating a going-concern institution, and still tend to think in terms of “we just need more money.” It’s not entirely their fault, as administrators fell into the habit of hiding the ball when cash was thick on the land. Time to answer the questions openly, and with courage to see the facts. Maybe then Alaska can take the lead in creating a new model for sustainable, relevant higher education.
Gov, Dunleavy cut the University of Alaska by 130 million budget in one year, President Johnsen negotiated with Gov Dunleavy for a reduction by half over 3 years. If it went for President Johnsen there would be A Lot of unemployed Faculty and staff. And all the UA faculty does is complain!
University of Alaska Faculty are classic Left Wing Radicalized Liberals, with an entitlement mind set!!
I attended UAA.
What I still find interest two decades later, is how the State education system is failing, yet a private University, APU, has never had problems. No accreditation issues, funding (read state union workers collective bargain) challenges, failing sports, grievances, or shotgun style campuses. APU is focused, value driven, and respected.
It is due time to scrap the UA system and start over. No state involvement.
And for goodness sake, change the embedded Board of Regents. Structure it with multiple stakeholders from the state, not entrenched, entitled, and think that a University is what defines a state.
If that were the case, APU would be the standard.
The vitriol piled on Jim Johnsen is uncalled for. Could he have done better, of course, but that could be said for all of us. How many of those casting stones would take a job in a public arena where your every decision is put under a microscope of public scrutiny? If you want to find the cause of UA’s problems look no further than the Board of Regents (BOR). Save for Anderson and Hughes, they are political cronies dedicated to the status quo of 2010. Members of the BOR are not selected because of their acumen in matters of higher education (recall that Knowles nominated Mark Begich to the BOR yet Begich never attended college). The BOR quietly objected to every consolidation move put forward by Johnsen. It does not take a degree in finance to understand that the UA’s seventeen campuses are unsustainable – some with more employees than classroom students. The BOR hopes that Governor Dunleavy is replaced by a clone of Knowles or Walker, that oil will return to $120/barrel, and good times will return. That will never happen.
The other culprit is shared governance. That is a collection of management, faculty unions, faculty senates and craft unions who weigh in on virtually every decision contemplated by the president or chancellors. By design the employee representatives have an inherent goal of maintaining the status quo. The collective wisdom of all employees is necessary, but when those collective opinions becomes institutionalized in decision making then the inmates are in charge.
The UA system has suffered from declining enrollment since 2011. The UA system cannot attract high performing students from the L48. That is important because non-resident students pay so much more in tuition and other fees. One reason L48 students shun the UA is that its universities are essentially open admission schools. Nothing more than a pulse is necessary to gain admission. Compounding that consider that 47% of incoming freshmen require remedial studies (ADN, 2019) before moving on to college level work. More than 90% of remedial students will never graduate. Now ask yourself why would any high preforming secondary school student, or parent, from the L48 opt for that college environment?
The UA is on course to catastrophe. The BOR does not have the political will or leadership to avert that outcome. More importantly, what kind of a person would accept the job of president given those conditions?
……and he pretends nothing happened.
Comments are closed.