Friday Focus: Next steps
Chancellor Dan White
May 30, 2025
After more than 30-years of service to UAF, I have decided to retire as UAF chancellor. It is time for me to see where else my journey leads. Serving as UAF chancellor has been a challenging and rewarding time and one that I am incredibly grateful for. My last day as chancellor of UAF will be July 26, 2025. In the near term I will retain my affiliation with UAF through my faculty position in civil engineering.
UAF faces headwinds, no doubt, but also big opportunities. This is indeed a unique time in our history and I am confident that UAF will thrive. Why am I so confident? Because UAF has an outstanding crew of current leaders and many others gearing up for the challenge. Great leadership is so important to our stability as an institution and we have it in spades. UAF’s top team is built for this moment.
Vice Chancellors Queen, Conner, Guthrie, Stern and Uher are all seasoned leaders and will tackle these times with a high degree of competence. Chief of Staff Conley has been a master of getting things done across the university for two decades and Executive Director Hough ably leads our essential advancement functions. It has been a distinct honor to have worked with this crew and I am so grateful for all they have taught me. While my work as chancellor is coming to a close, their role as institutional leaders continues. They have the tools and the experience to do great things.
In reflecting on the leadership at UAF, I want to first and foremost call out Chief of Staff Conley, who I worked with through my time at the Institute of Northern Engineering, the Office of Intellectual Property and Commercialization, and as chancellor. We have worked in very difficult times and she has always been able to problem solve our way through. I have so appreciated this time and her unqualified courage in the face of real challenges. Every day we meet and every day she brings her A game. She is uniquely positioned to continue to do great things for UAF! I am so grateful to you Nickole.
Vice Chancellor Queen has the widest breadth of responsibilities at UAF. I like to say that she is in charge of police, fire, power, heat, facilities, grounds, health, safety, IT and yes, money. She is in charge of nearly every facet of what makes UAF function. She does it all with a sense of humor and pride. The university is lucky to have such great skill at the helm of all things that support the work our faculty and staff do every day. Julie has the right strategic approach for this time. She knows her job well, knows the university, and has the confidence of all those who have had the pleasure of working with her. None more than me.
Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Stern stepped into her leadership role of Vice Chancellor for Rural, Community and Native Education only a handful of years ago and proved herself adept at balancing hard decisions with the need to modernize. In all the difficult decisions she has had to make, she has brought the fun to a tough job. I am grateful to you, Charlene, for your laughter, your toughness and your tenderness. UAF is lucky to have you and I cannot wait to watch what you can do as interim provost and executive vice chancellor. Thank you for bringing the joy that brightens every day!
Vice Chancellor Guthrie brings his whole heart, his subtle humor, and long term vision to his leadership of student affairs and enrollment management. The university’s enrollment is growing and we owe a debt of gratitude to Owen for his leadership and his pushing people out of their comfort zone. His dogged determination to modernize our approach to enrollment has paid dividends and UAF is in a great enrollment position. Thank you Owen. Thank you for your work, your friendship, empathy, and heart.
If there is one person that amazes me every day with her seasoned approach to the job (after only a few months!) it is Vice Chancellor Conner. Laura stepped into the role of vice chancellor straight from being research faculty. You would have thought she had done this VCR job for a decade or more. I am amazed by the leadership that Laura has brought to the position and cannot wait to see what the future has in store for her great talent and acuity. Laura also brings calm and confidence to her role. Thank you for your positive influence on all of our lives.
Interim Vice Chancellor Bryan Uher will be stepping into his new position next week but he is no stranger to leadership at UAF. He has proven himself across the institution to be a thought leader and a courageous thinker. I look forward to seeing how his leadership advances the division of rural, community and Native Education. If history is any predictor, I feel that we are in for positive and lasting change. Thank you for your forward thinking Bryan. Thanks for always leaning in.
Executive Director Hough, another member of the core cabinet, brought his many years of leadership in the US Army to UAF’s advancement division. Tom is a seasoned leader and has brought his skill in leading people to UAF. Having fought for each of us in many tours overseas, Tom brings a unique perspective to the challenges we each face in our civilian work. Thank you Tom.
Finally, I want to thank our Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Anupma Prakash. Anupma’s last day is today and she has led this institution with grace. She could always be trusted. She was steady, loyal to her colleagues, to me, and to UAF. As she pointed out in her farewell Friday Focus, the relationship between the chancellor and provost is unique and I am so very grateful to her for stepping into the difficult role seven years ago. The institution is better because of you. I am better because of you. Thank you Anupma.
UAF has so many leaders and so much ahead. I would be remiss if I did not call out Dr. Taryn Lopez who has been an amazing thought leader since she was a graduate student at UAF. She has led UAF’s strategic planning team for R1 and I am confident she will be here to celebrate when it is won. Thank you Taryn.
UAF is in great hands.
Before I sign off I want to put in a plug for UAF athletics. I know, another plug for athletics. Why? Because no matter when I walk through the Patty Center I feel that this is a place of dreams. If ever there was a place that hope springs eternal it is in university athletics. And for me, hope springs eternal.
For many athletes, collegiate competition is their capstone. Most will not have the opportunity or desire to play professionally, but everyone who has made it this far has already dedicated a good deal of their life to their sport. Not just theirs, but their family’s too. And this is it, a dream come true, the opportunity to play the sport they love at the collegiate level. And it shows. Every Thursday, Friday or Saturday they play their best – leaving it all out on the court, the ice, the trail, the snow or in the pool. Thank you UAF athletes for always inspiring me! Thank you for proving to me every time I walk through the Patty Center or up to the field of play that you came to compete.
Hope springs eternal in the coaches too. Coach Brian Scott and Megan Woods are always looking to fill one more spot on their roster, adding just a little more talent to a well-rounded and always competitive team. Randi Louden is fielding the best recruits in the world who hope for a chance to shoot for UAF. Every year the team is shooting at or just below perfect. Coach Largen is putting together a seemingly new roster every year and continues to field nationally competitive hockey in the face of adversity. Coach Albrigtsen is building a program with the best in the world from right here at home. And with Coach Ostanik, it is game on. Coach O’s teams are known for beating the odds through teamwork and hustle.
I am grateful to Brock and all of the athletics staff for keeping this all together on a shoestring, because it is important. Not just for our ~120 athletes. Not just for the 7,500 students or 3,000 staff whose pride in the institution comes from our Nanook athletes, but for our thousands and thousands of fans. Those who come year after year to cheer on their hometown team.
I am grateful to President Pitney and the Board of Regents for their support of UAF athletics.
Finally, I want to thank the many people across the institution who believed in me as a teacher in your classroom, or as a leader. I am grateful for your trust and I leave with a full heart. I am grateful for the many little notes I received during the budget cuts or covid that simply said, “Thanks.” Leadership can be lonely and these little reminders that I was never alone meant a lot.
I am sure we will cross paths again.
Thank you and thanks for choosing UAF.
Dan White, chancellor