Friday Focus: Parting thoughts

July 25, 2025

— By Dan White, chancellor

In my last Friday Focus, I shared that I would be retiring at the end of July. Well, that time has come! In that last Friday Focus I expressed my confidence in the UAF leadership team to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead. My confidence in UAF has only grown as each of UAF’s core leaders has stepped up to embrace the change. Thank you my friends! 

With President Pitney’s of Interim Chancellor Mike Sfraga to lead UAF during this transition, I am further confident that the institution is in good hands. Mike has deep passion for UAF and for its long term success. He has experience in leadership at UA and at UAF, and his deep understanding of the Arctic and the political landscape will help UAF advance, particularly with international opportunities. My thanks to Interim Chancellor Sfraga for his willingness to lead this amazing institution.

In my reflection this week about what to leave you with in my final Friday Focus, I had planned to simply express gratitude to my leadership team, and to thank each of you who have done such great work to make UAF what it is today. And while that goal remains, I also want to challenge UAF’s amazing faculty, deans and directors to meet this critical moment. And, as I see it, there is nothing more important to UAF’s long term stability and ultimately its research mission than enrollment. Enrollment is our undercapitalized key to financial stability and our top billing as America’s Arctic University.

As the future landscape is coming into focus, it is becoming more and more clear that while we have made significant gains in enrollment in recent years, we are imperfect in our practices to maximize and optimize student numbers. Each year we turn away hundreds of students by a proliferation of course caps and waitlists. While units work hard to ensure students on waitlists eventually get into a class (thank you!), the vast majority of students do not get on a waitlist at all. They just go somewhere else when a class presents as full. They are gone. 

Most students simply do not chance it on a waitlist. We know this because UAF is a major exporter of student credit hours to other universities. We know the numbers and it is thousands of credit hours per year just from the students who stay at UAF and get a class here and there from another university. And those thousands of credit hours are just the ones we know about. It is likely that many more students left altogether for a different university when they found full classes at UAF. In this modern era, class caps and waitlists exceed the tolerance of students swimming in a universe of options. The anecdotes say it and the numbers confirm it. 

At the same time that we inadvertently are turning students away, we have a significant number of research faculty who may have the opportunity to teach more sections or larger classes. These are faculty who are at the top of their field and, in this moment, may be scrambling to fill voids in their grant or contract portfolio. The opportunity to get a win-win here is real. Every 100 new full-time students at UAF brings roughly $1M in new net revenue to the colleges through tuition. This would support 3-5 full-time faculty! 

And so as I start down my own new path, my request to UAF faculty, deans and directors is to meet this moment to meet our mission by doing what you can to give every student who seeks an education at UAF the opportunity to enroll in the classes they need - without the burden of class caps and waitlists. 

Thank you for a 30-year career at UAF. Thank you for your support. And thank you for playing your critical role in UAF’s future.

I will see you around town, on campus as a faculty member, or as a fan at sporting events.  Please stop and say hello! Let's talk enrollment, hockey, or you name it. 

Be well.

Thank you for choosing UAF.

Dan White, chancellor