University of Alaska President Jim Johnsen's plan: using strategic pathways to streamline and strengthen.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: EDUCATION - Interview

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On a sunny Fairbanks March morning while the Alaska Legislature debated funding to the University of Alaska (UA) amid a worsening budget crunch, UA President Jim Johnsen outlines his plan for streamlining the university's administration while strengthening the university's core objective to serve the state. He calls his plan Strategic Pathways.

ABM: What is Strategic Pathways?

Johnsen: Strategic Pathways is a framework for making decisions about how we resource our academic programs at the university in service to the students and to the state. So it's all about the fact that we're in a constrained fiscal environment. We're doing, frankly, just what every business would do in a situation like that. They'd be looking at lower-value activity, however one defines that. And in a university you'd define it differently than you'd define it in a telecommunications company or an oil company or a small business. But that's what you'd be doing. And you'd be looking at how much you're spending on those lower-value activities and then reallocating those resources into higher-value, higher-margin activities. So that's one of the principles about how we're thinking about it.

As we look at our university system, sixteen campuses across the state, then we focus in on our universities, the university in Southeast, Anchorage, and Fairbanks: what are they each uniquely strong at in meeting state needs on the principle that we really can't afford three of everything. We can't afford three Geophysical Institutes. We can't afford three ISERS. Then you start moving into some of our programs like management or engineering or education--can we afford three of these things that are just like the other? And so in my thinking and with the Board of Regents' support, we're thinking we really can't. So let's figure out how to have distinctive and unique excellence at each university.

At the same time, we're going to have commonality at the lower division levels and the community colleges, a curriculum of college courses to facilitate student transfer across the campuses, which is always a challenge. But at the same time I want to provide hope as we go through these dark times; I want to provide bright lights for people.

I was in the state in late '80s and '90s and things were very, very difficult. There were very few bright lights then in the state and particularly in the university.

And giving people hope, giving people optimism, giving our young people a reason to stay, giving businesses a reason to hire our students, giving businesses a reason to support us financially or politically because we weren't serving them as well as we needed to, that's the idea.

Even though we're getting smaller here and we're having to shrink, where can we excel in service to the state? Including, of course, businesses. Healthcare is a huge part of our economy in Alaska. There's private businesses. There's not-for-profits in terms of hospitals and the like. There's huge demand for nurses and at the same time there's a big waiting list to get into our nursing programs. So it strikes me that we've got to invest in nursing training programs. How do we do that?

I was visiting a program yesterday and I asked the nursing faculty exactly 'How do we do that?' Well, we need more nursing instructors; we need more clinical site opportunities for them. And so those are the kinds of things we'll be working on to serve important state needs. That's where I start from my position. Yes I love the university and I'd advocate for it all day long and all night long, but I'd start from the state and move out-to-in to try to really describe our mission, our purpose in service to the state.

ABM: When you were coming up with the Strategic Pathways plan, you said you had identified some gaps and that you had also identified some opportunities. You mentioned nursing. What other kinds of opportunities?

Johnsen: Well (nursing) is a biggie. Another is...