UA President Mark Hamilton is calling for the university to get proactive in making sure students are ready for college even before they graduate high school.

In a memo to the Faculty Alliance, the coalition of statewide faculty governance groups, Hamilton laid out a series of college and career readiness action steps. The Faculty Alliance, along with other faculty groups, has taken on the issue, known often as "student success," to find a statewide fix.

"The solution to improving student success in the transition from K12 to higher education requires an on-going dialogue between K12 teachers and higher education faculty who collaboratively explore and assess student work," Hamilton said in the Oct. 18 memo.

According to the memo, two-thirds of Alaska's degree-seeking students are unprepared for college-level math and English courses. The national numbers are higher, with 70 percent of college-bound high school graduates unprepared.

While the long-term plan of action includes intensive collaboration with K12 entities, pre-college education is not the only issue addressed in student success plans. Student retention and graduation rates, admissions standards, and education quality are also on the agenda.

Already in place at Alaska's universities are developmental-level classes intended to bring students up to the level of college level classes.

In fall 2005, according to a report, 676 freshmen and sophomores at UAF were enrolled in developmental courses. Of those, only 119 were pre-major students, those who either have a GED instead of a high school diploma, or did not meet the baccalaureate requirements. That means 557 students who were already accepted into a baccalaureate program were not ready for college-level math or English.

Many UAF students find themselves unprepared for college-level math, and some just unconfident in their math skills. Megan Sweeney, a junior majoring in sociology and communication, said her Alaskan high school, Palmer High, "does the whole integrated math crap and I didn't know what I knew and didn't know."

Although her test scores qualified her for MATH 107, Sweeney opted to take a developmental math class.

"In high school the teacher would give us as much extra credit as we needed to pass, and I would ask him about every problem to make sure it was right," she said. "It was my first semester of college, and I was like, 'Do they do that here?'"

While Sweeney took a developmental math class because she felt unprepared, Kyle Schumann, a junior majoring in biology, realized that he needed to drop down and brush up on his skills.

"Fall semester freshman year I was supposed to take MATH 107 but after the first day of class I knew that I was way in over my head," he said. "So I dropped that class and went into a 105 class."

Schumann then found out his test scores placed him in MATH 060. He would have to take a placement test to take MATH 105, so he decided to start with 060, which is a choice that Schumann is glad he took. His professor, Greg Owens, soon became his favorite math professor.

"He really helped me a lot, and because of him I feel pretty confident in my algebra skills," Schumann said.

Dave Veazey, assistant vice president for academic affairs and the director of K-12 outreach, said the solution is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The statewide university system is taking an approach that will look at the needs of students, and do whatever it can to meet those needs, however varied they may be, he said.

"The University of Alaska is a mix of everything," he said.

Students with GED's, community classes, traditional first-time freshmen, transfer students, and adult students all attend UA.

"When we speak of college preparedness, who are we trying to help?" he said. "The answer is at the academic unit where the faculty works with the students."

Veazey said the decision to mandate class placement according to the testing is good.

"What we are going to stop is taking their tuition knowing full well they're going to fail," he said. "That's not fair to students."

Veazey also mentioned the "expectations gap" that occurs in many high school students, and can especially be troublesome for first-generation college students. High-stakes exit exams are given in the ninth and tenth grades in Alaska high schools. In the push to ensure that as many students as possible passed those exit exams, many high school courses are only taught to the tenth grade level, he said.

Beginning in fall 2008, students applying to UAF will have to have a high school core GPA of 2.5 with an overall GPA of 3.0, raising the bar from the current 2.5 core GPA and 2.0 overall.

Brett Lane, a sophomore social work major, said the expectations gap is problematic.

"We tell students in high school that a C is average and then in college we tell them they have to have a B average to get in," she said. "Our system is stupid."

Linda Hapsmith, director of the Academic Advising Center at UAF, said many students come to the University unprepared not only for the level of work, but the type and pace. Even students who floated through high school with A's can find the transition to college harder, because they never learned the proper way to study.

"Sometimes for those students it's a tougher transition," she said.

Veazey, as the K-12 outreach director, knows that cooperation between higher education and K12 educators has to happen, he stresses that the change has to come from the faculty themselves, "If we're going to change anything at campuses and with K12, it has to be with the faculty," and not just come from the president.

"This is a national issue, it's a national problem," Veazey said, "so let's do something about it."