University of Alaska president Johnsen highlights achievements, challenges and budget woes during State of University address
Alaska’s University system has been transforming through the last five years of reductions. The statewide administration is smaller, there are fewer degree programs offered and about 1,200 jobs have been cut or unfilled. The one institution has three separately accredited universities and thirteen community campuses. UA President Jim Johnsen gave his fourth “State of the University” address on Tuesday, showcasing achievements and listing challenges. Johnsen also talked about funding woes.
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/03/28/ua-president-johnsen-highlights-achievements-challenges-and-budget-woes-during-state-of-university-address/
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/03/28/ua-president-johnsen-highlights-achievements-challenges-and-budget-woes-during-state-of-university-address/
http://media.aprn.org/2019/ann-20190327-04.mp3
Johnsen covered the typical highlights you’d expect from a university president’s address: commencements at rural campuses, a Rhodes scholarship – the first one from Alaska, awards from the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, and the financial impact on local communities.
Johnsen covered the typical highlights you’d expect from a university president’s address: commencements at rural campuses, a Rhodes scholarship – the first one from Alaska, awards from the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, and the financial impact on local communities.
But he focused on the things that make UA different.
“UA research is nothing short of world class,” Johnsen said. “As the number 1 Arctic research university on the planet — not Harvard or Berkeley — the University of Alaska leads the pack in understanding the North in its physical and social importance to the entire planet. Moreover, we are beginning to see the fruit now of investments made in prior years in the commercialization of our intellectual property.”
Johnsen listed the big research arms Alaska Center for Energy and Power, the Arctic Domain and Awareness Center, the Institute of Social and Economic Research and the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
“Our research not only expands our knowledge about our world, it brings us unparalleled financial returns,” Johnsen said. “For each state dollar we invest, our researchers bring in $6 from outside the state.”
The average age of the 26,000 UA students is 30 years. Not only older, but Alaska students tend to work while they are in school and many support families. They also tend to take longer to finish their programs than students elsewhere.
Johnsen mentioned challenges, such as UA never got the land grant it was allocated, and he thanked the Dunleavy administration, the legislature and the federal Department of Interior for working on that.
Another problem: He called the recent loss of accreditation at UAA’s School of Education “a failure.”
“Our recent loss of accreditation of the initial teacher licensure programs at UAA is most certainly a failure,” Johnsen said. “Fortunately for our students, with strong support from UAA, UAF and UAS stepped in to make sure students in Anchorage have a certain path to teacher licensure from an accredited and approved program.”
Next month the Regents will decide if the Anchorage programs should try to get their accreditation back or just let Anchorage students continue their programs remotely through UAF or UAS.
And of course, Johnsen talked about this year’s state budget cut of $134 million, or 41 percent of state funding, from $327 million.
“These cuts hurt UA and they harm Alaska’s ability to grow the highly trained workforce we need to be economically competitive with other states,” Johnsen said.
He took a dig at the way the state administration is accounting the university, comparing it to other state-funded colleges.
“We are compared to universities that are large and in a single location, giving them the advantage of scale,” Johnsen said. “And our own universities are compared to each other, despite the fact that they are all three quite different in their mission, location, size, mix and levels of degree programs and research and outreach activities. In response to those critics who throw averages around, I ask you is there anything about Alaska that is average”
Johnsen did not go into scenarios if the university’s funding is drastically cut, as he has in other speeches and letters.
more of the story...
NOAA Budget Proposal Hits Rough Waters in Congress
The budget proposed by the Trump administration would cut NOAA’s budget by 18%. It would target climate and ocean research programs and also slash education initiatives, grants, and other agency programs.
Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), found lots of support for the agency at a 27 March congressional hearing.
However, he also faced sharp criticism about the Trump administration’s plans to slash climate and ocean research programs as well as education initiatives, grants, and other activities throughout NOAA.
The administration has proposed cutting NOAA’s budget to about $4.5 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2020, a drop of about 18%, nearly $1 billion, compared with the agency’s FY 2019 enacted budget.
For FY 2020, the agency would focus on NOAA’s core programs and highest priorities, Jacobs testified at the hearing held by the House Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Those priorities include improving the prediction of extreme weather and water events by implementing the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017, maximizing the economic contributions of ocean and coastal resources, and further investing in innovating NOAA’s space-based Earth observations.
“Devastating Cuts”
The focuses on NOAA’s highest priorities “are good steps, but remain vastly overshadowed by the devastating cuts President Trump has in store for NOAA,” said Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), chair of the subcommittee.When Jacobs complained that the cuts are because “it’s the budget situation we’re in,” Serrano questioned whether the proposal purposely leaves holes in the budget for Congress to fix. “Is that what’s happening here, that you are hoping that Congress will fill any holes in negotiations with the House and the Senate?”
The proposed budget would terminate most climate research programs within the agency’s Climate Program Office and eliminate climate competitive research funding. Among other cuts, the budget would terminate the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, the National Sea Grant College Program, and some Arctic research products; decrease funding for ocean exploration and research efforts; and eliminate coastal zone management grants.
“I cannot believe that anybody in NOAA that believes in the mission of NOAA supports these cuts” to the budget, said subcommittee member Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii). “I have to assume that somebody somewhere told you, ‘Hey, cut it.’”The budget proposes some increases, including for the agency’s Earth Prediction Innovation Center to improve U.S. operational forecast skills and the ability to provide accurate warnings of weather-based threats.
Republican Concerns About the Budget
Republican members of the subcommittee also questioned aspects of the budget. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, said that although he is pleased about NOAA’s focus on core priorities and on identifying agency efficiencies, he is concerned about the proposed budget’s impact on the agency’s research programs.
Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), who said that he plans to reintroduce bipartisan legislation this year to support aquaculture in U.S. waters, questioned why the budget zeroes out the Sea Grant program. That program, he said, “provides important aquaculture research to drive economic development.”
Climate in the Spotlight
Under questioning from subcommittee member Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) about climate change, Jacobs reacknowledged the validity of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, whose volume 2 was released in 2018. That report states, “Global average temperature has increased by about 1.8°F from 1901 to 2016, and observational evidence does not support any credible natural explanations for this amount of warming; instead, the evidence consistently points to human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse or heat-trapping gases, as the dominant cause.”
“I don’t disagree with anything in the national assessment,” Jacobs said. “In the absence of any other natural forcing, human production of CO2 [carbon dioxide] as well as the removal of the CO2sinks is certainly a dominant factor.”
After the hearing, Jacobs elaborated, telling journalists that the National Climate Assessment “was built on peer-reviewed literature.”
He added, “It does have an appearance that we understand everything. But that’s only because there is no peer-reviewed literature being published on things we don’t understand. It doesn’t mean there are not things we don’t understand. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.”
Jacobs also commented on reported plans by the Trump administration to establish a National Security Council panel or committee led by a climate change skeptic to reassess climate science.
“As long as they stick to the peer-reviewed literature, personal views really don’t matter,” he said. “If you go through the peer review process, it’s designed to eliminate personal bias.”
Congressional Support and Concern
After the hearing, several members of Congress commented to Eos about their support for NOAA and their concerns about the proposed budget cuts.
“NOAA is one of those agencies where you don’t find people on a committee disagreeing with what they do,” said Rep. Serrano. “We support [NOAA]. We are troubled that, perhaps as part of this whole denying of climate change, it’s beginning to take effect on other issues. You see it in NOAA with cuts here and cuts there.”
Rep. Cartwright told Eos that Jacobs was in “a ticklish position” at the hearing for trying to defend a “penny-wise and pound-foolish” budget proposal.
“Part of me wants to hammer [Jacobs] for sticking up for this budget, and part of me recognizes that the man has a job to do and he’s answerable to the White House,” Cartwright said. “For my own part, I have no intention of following the White House’s budget on slashing NOAA’s funding.”
—Randy Showstack (@RandyShowstack), Staff Writer
Citation: Showstack, R. (2019), NOAA budget proposal hits rough waters in Congress, Eos, 100,https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO119557. Published on 28 March 2019.