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Removing Walls and Diminishing Reporting Lines
from Carla Kirts

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UAF has been awarded a grant totaling $11 million over five years to establish an Alaska Native Health Research Center and Center of Biomedical Research for Excellence in Alaska. The grant award, funded through the National Institutes of Health, is intended to develop knowledge about the behavioral, genetic and nutritional factors related to diabetes and obesity. Participants will include UAF's Psychology Department and Institute of Arctic Biology as well as UAA's Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies and the Yukon Kuskokwim and Norton Sound Native corporations. UAF's principle investigators are Gerald Mohatt, CLA, Bert Boyer, CSEM, and Kelly Hazel, CLA.

The board of regents approved both the university's capital and operating budget requests for FY03 at its meeting Nov. 9 in Fairbanks. President Hamilton's request for a 1.5 percent salary grid increase to be effective July 1, 2002 was approved, contingent upon legislative approval. The board also directed the administration to examine the competitiveness of the UA salary schedule. The board's next meeting is Dec. 6 - 7 in Anchorage.

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The UA Press, working with the University of Calgary Press, has published "Chilkoot: An Adventure in Ecotourism" by Allan Ingelson, Mike Mahony and Robert Scace. The book describes the Chilkoot Trail as a modern example of ecotourism and includes a history and an illustrated presentation of the authors' experiences. For more information about this or other titles contact the UA Press at 5831, fypress@uaf.edu or visit http://www.uaf.edu/uapress/.

The Division of Computing and Communications has made changes to the UAF
e-mail system. Aurora will no longer accept any mail messages, incoming or outgoing, larger than 10 megabytes. All messages over the 10 MB size limit will be refused and returned to sender. SPAM filters have also been implemented on all incoming mail. Mail from any server listed as an open relay at http://ordb.org/ will be refused.

The UAF Police Department has issued a campus moose alert. To protect the campus community and the moose, campus police are attempting to move the moose to safer browsing areas off-campus with the use of sirens and lights on emergency vehicles. If you see a moose on campus, call 7721 to report its location.

The UAF College Bowl Tournament was held on Oct. 27. The winning team was "The Molemen" with team members Nick Palso, Brooks Onley, Amanda Muldoon and Andrew Lee. The top five scoring students from the tournament; Nick Palso, William Bourke, Joe Hardenbrook, H. B. Telling and Robb Meyer, will represent UAF at the regional competition at Oregon State University in February 2002.

A virtual tour of the Fairbanks campus was recently launched through UAF's web page. The tour uses color photographs, panoramic images and digital movies to highlight 12 locations around campus. Visit the virtual tour at http://www.uaf.edu/virtualtour/.

Facilities Services is building new sandwich boards specifically to promote and give directions for special events held on campus. The new boards will be available for checkout at no charge, however a work order will be required if setup assistance is needed. For more information call 7000.

The 3rd annual United Way Chillin' Chili Cook-Off raised more than $500 for the United Way. The first place winner was "Red-ucation" by Roger Norris-Tull , second place went to Mary Floyd for "Mary's Chili" and the third place winner was "Chili Pepper Rockfish" by Shelbye Greenway and Dana Kapla. The People's Choice winner was "Mary's Chili" for the second straight year.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we are running on a tight schedule. Please be sure to have any submissions for the next Cornerstone in by noon on Nov. 21.

Rural Student Services and Alaska Native Studies are hosting a potluck Nov. 16 from 1 - 3 p.m. at RSS in the Gruening Building to honor visiting Pulitzer Prize-winning author Scott Momaday, new CRA Dean Bernice Joseph, former interim CRA Dean Clara Johnson and this year's elder-in-residence Richard Frank.

The Visiting Writers Series presents poet and teacher Gailmarie Pahmeier from the University of Nevada reading from her works at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 at the UA Museum. For more information call 7193.

The American Association of University Women invites UAF faculty, staff and students to listen to guest speaker Meg Gaydosik Nov. 17 at 10 a.m. in the Noel Wien Library. Gaydosik, a former station manager for KTVF Channel 11, is a consultant to developing media in the former Soviet Union and Europe. She worked with Joy Morrison, CLA , in 1993 to train Russian media professionals in Fairbanks' sister city, Yakutsk.

The UAF Music Department presents the All State Concert Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. with admission of $8 for adults and $3 for students, Music at One Nov. 29 at 1 p.m., and the Wind Symphony and Friends with the Dallas Brass Holiday Concert Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. with admission of $8 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. All events are in the Davis Concert Hall. For more information call 7555.

UAF Codes and Safety is hosting a Lab Safety class, required for anyone who works in a lab on the Fairbanks campus, Nov. 20 from 9 - 10 a.m. and a driver's training class, required for anyone who drives a UAF vehicle, Nov. 20 from 10:15 - 11:45 a.m. Call 5413 for class locations. An employee safety orientation for new employees will be held Nov. 28 from 11 a.m. - noon in room 160 at Old U-Park school. For more information contact Codes and Safety at 5413.

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Five Nanook volleyball team members have been named to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Volleyball Academic All-Conference team. Jamie Schanback, Caitlin Kennedy, Candice Smith, Tara Hollenbeck and Kimber Jones were honored for their academic performance. UAF finished the season tied for second place in the conference at 12 - 6 with Central Washington and Seattle Pacific.

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Nov. 21, 2001: Deadline for nominations to be submitted to Career Services for the fall 2001 UAF Exceptional Student Employee Award. For more information call 7596 or visit http://www.uaf.edu/career/ESEAward/Index.html.

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Removing Walls and Diminishing Reporting Lines

Student services departments at UAF exist across four divisions: student services, administrative services, academic affairs and the College of Rural Alaska. A positive future for student services relies on effective management premised upon extraordinary communication between many units. Regardless of reporting lines, a number of issues identified in the recent self-study must be addressed if student services are to mature in full support of student success which is our primary mission.

Collaboration is a key to promoting student success. Sound partnerships between divisions and departments will provide superhighways toward improvement. Examples of meaningful collaboration can be drawn from several of our short-term goals.

• Establishing a student leadership development center at UAF requires strong linkages between student services and academic affairs.
  
• Transforming hundreds of student employment opportunities into meaningful educational experience requires support from student services, administrative services and academic affairs (including CRA).
  
• Redefining residence halls as dynamic living and learning communities with efforts such as the EDGE program requires a dynamic partnership between student services and academic affairs.
  
• Developing effective electronic services for students, especially for distance learning, requires expertise from student services, university relations, information technology and CRA.
  
• Continued success with student recruitment and retention requires assistance from everyone at UAF, regardless of department or division.
  

Of course, other divisions have major goals and aspirations, too, most of which are reflected in the self-study. If we are going to achieve our goals, we must remove the walls between our offices and diminish the solidity of our reporting lines. By nature this makes our work more conceptual, more complex and more challenging.

Can we effectively work across divisional and departmental lines? If the self-study is any indication, we have no choice. We're in the education business; we can learn to work differently. To continue progress on major fronts and accomplish most of the self-study projections, we must work in a highly networked, interrelated system.

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