News archives 2010-2021

Staff Council unit reorganization

July 15, 2021

University Relations

As UAF changes and adapts to budgets, processes and changing needs of students and staff, the UAF Staff Council is also changing. The council is reorganizing the SC units to better reflect the way UAF is organized and where staff work. Making these changes will better fulfill section 3.A.b of the SC Bylaws:

Units will be defined giving due consideration for equitable representation according to a combination of geographic locations, community interest, and population.

The primary reason behind the new structure is that staff are no longer concentrated into the same types of co-located administrative units as in previous years. The existing units had become unbalanced in terms of headcount, and several units struggled to elect representatives. In addition, staff members with related interests and needs were increasingly isolated as UAF organizations changed or were moved to different places.


The new structure has been designed to addresses these needs with three goals:



  1. Establish a better balance between the SC units by minimizing the gap in headcounts between the units.

  2. Provide an improved degree of common interest within each unit by focusing on the services provided by each member and the missions of their departments.

  3. Allow greater flexibility and diversity in the elected representatives by increasing the number of at-large representatives.


The unit reorganization will provide a better foundation for future changes in UAF staffing or structure and will help the council continue to meet the needs of staff.


The structure will consist of nine new units based on general services provided by UAF staff:



  • Unit 1 — Rural campus services

  • Unit 2 — Geophysical Institute services

  • Unit 3 — Arctic institute services

  • Unit 4 — Research services

  • Unit 5 — Academic services

  • Unit 6 — Student services

  • Unit 7 — Administrative services

  • Unit 8 — Facilities and safety services

  • Unit 9 — IT services





Each of the new units has roughly 100 to 150 SC members. For more details on the new units, please see UAF Staff Council Motion 2021-324-1.

Staff Council will hold elections for the 18 representatives in these new units along with 12 at-large representatives this fall.




Between now and the end of the year, members of UAF SC will receive email messages based on the nine new units. This is to correspond with this year's representative elections. However, the existing 15 units will remain in place until the end of the year, so staff may also receive communications from their current representative. The situation is temporary and will be resolved when the new units take effect in January. If you have any questions, please contact uaf-sc-elections@alaska.edu.

UAF Staff Council's mission is to support non-represented staff, which it strives to do fairly and effectively, with an eye toward the future success of UAF. This new structure will help Staff Council representatives better support staff and the mission of UAF.