Friday Focus: Belonging

March 28, 2025

— By Dan White, chancellor

Employees at UAF come from all walks of life. They are longtime Alaskans, longtime Americans, newly minted Americans or not Americans at all. They are all colors, all backgrounds, and all cultures. If I needed to, I could run multivariate analyses to scan all variables and figure out which one factor they all have in common. However, I don’t need high-performance computing or AI to figure it out. I already know; it’s us. We have us in common. We are all bound together by UAF’s mission and our desire to see UAF succeed. That’s awesome.

Some years ago, the UAF staff council sought an opportunity to uplift staff, who each in their own part of the organization make UAF run. This led to the creation of Staff Recognition and Development Day. Staff are found all over campus running research experiments or instruments, cooking, cleaning, producing power, pushing snow, advising, and editing, and in units described by acronyms like HR, IR and UR. My thanks to the staff who, in all the varied backgrounds, come together for the good of the institution. SRDD is on April 3, and while there will be a celebration of longevity, this will be an important opportunity for professional development and networking. With 3,000 employees, there are a lot of people you probably don’t know. Come to SRDD and let’s build connections.

While we all have UAF in common, the key to success is finding your sense of belonging. That might mean finding people at UAF who share a work-related interest, like curriculum development. It might mean finding people who share a non work-related interest, like gardening. If you are interested in curriculum development and gardening, maybe you are also interested in hunting or painting. No matter your interests, there is likely someone else who shares them with you. All of a sudden, you have a lot to talk about. You belong.

In a time when there is a lot of “othering” and division, I encourage each of you to find belonging for yourself and for others. This is not only important for you, and for them, it is important to the environment and culture that current and future students see and feel here on campus. Last weekend was Campus Preview Day. There were families from all over Alaska and across the nation. These students and families invested time and money coming to UAF to ask themselves, “Will I belong here?” While what they heard or what they saw will play a role, the most important factor will be how UAF made them feel. The visiting families came to the UAF campus to see beyond those things you can get online, to see how it made them feel. This was them interviewing us. From what I saw, “us” did great. When we have that feeling of belonging, it shows. And in my walk through Campus Preview Day, I could feel the sense of belonging.

We continue to see more students coming to UAF for what they feel is a transformative experience. They come for welding certificates, fire science, earth system sciences, biology, wildlife, music, and more. Students these days can get these degrees and certifications in more than 3,000 different colleges and universities across the country. But they are coming to UAF in greater numbers. We are still well off of our enrollment highs in 2011 and 2014, but our numbers are growing thanks to you and the work you do everyday. It is each of you, in your unique role at UAF, that makes people feel like they belong here. 

I encourage you to join our enrollment forum next Tuesday, April 1, from 1-2 p.m. in the Wood Center ballroom to learn more about our growing enrollment.

Thanks for choosing UAF.