The Faculty Alliance members have carefully evaluated the information related to the targets for the five measures proposed to the Board of Regents in November 2003 by the UA Statewide Administration.  The factors included in the target selection include:
•	Past trends (Figures 1-5)
•	Expected flat or declining numbers of faculty and staff positions
•	Sharp decreases in effective operating budgets in the next 2-3 years
•	Stagnation or decline in general resources for research and teaching

Considering the current budget crisis at the University of Alaska, we believe that maintaining current levels for the five measures is absolutely the best that can be expected for the FY 2005 - FY 2009 budget period.  If this were realized, it would in fact be an extraordinary result, which we believe is highly unlikely, but we like to be optimistic.

We would also like to suggest replacing the new research awards measure by a total research expenditures measure because the new awards would be very unpredictable from year to year.  The total research expenditures would fluctuate less from year to year because of the inclusion of multi-year grants for which the expenditures can be predicted for future years.

These are the targets proposed by the Faculty Alliance:
1.	Targets for Number of Degrees Awarded in High Demand Programs 2005-2009: 1,535 per year, which is the average of the preceding 6 years during which a slight decrease in degrees awarded was observed (Figure 1).
2.	Targets for Student Credit Hours Production 2005-2009: 529,000 per year, which is the highest ever achieved by UA (1993) and may actually be close to the carrying capacity of the UA System (Figure 2).
3.	Targets for Retention Rate of Fulltime Freshmen 2005-2009: 65.8%, which is the average of the previous 10 years during which no increase in retention was evident and large fluctuations were seen from year to year (Figure 3).
4.	Targets for Dollar Amount of New Research Awards 2005-2009: $69,000,000 per year: This measure should be replaced by a total research expenditures measure with a target for 2005-2009 of $122,000,000 per year, which is the highest level ever achieved by the UA System (Figure 4).
5.	Targets for State Appropriations: 40%, which is the current level. (Figure 5).

The targets proposed by the UA Statewide Administration, especially those for AY 2009 (Figures 1-5), appear to be considerably out of proportion to our targets as well as out of proportion to the actual data for the UA System, which go back up to 11 years.  These 2009 targets appear even more unrealistic considering the current budget crisis, which will most likely continue for at least another 2-3 years.  In addition, the proposed increases in all the measures also appear unrealistic considering the fact that enhanced research efforts will most likely decrease teaching efforts, while increased teaching efforts would decrease research efforts.