UAA Faculty Success

Our team is looking for an Instructional Designer; applications will be reviewed starting on June 15 (this coming Monday), so submit your application soon if you plan to apply! The ID will support faculty with course design, the learning management system (LMS), and related instructional technologies.

If you’re excited about working with faculty to help students succeed, we encourage you to apply! Learn more: https://careers.alaska.edu/jobs/instructional-designer-3-anchorage-alaska-united-states-11463630-f45f-4128-a628-56e8d6c8facd

Our UAA Center for Community Engagement & Learning team accomplished so much this year. Thank you for providing opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to involve community partners in our work at UAA!

We awarded $15,000 in Community Engagement Mini-Grants to 15 faculty and staff

Through the Community Engaged Student Assistantship program, 36 students received $37,400 in scholarships to help faculty and staff do community-engaged work

Last month, we hosted the annual Community Engagement Forum with over 150 people in attendance

The Selkregg Award has now invested $85,000 in 17 faculty since 2010

This year, UAA was reclassified as a Community Engaged Institution! https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/office-of-academic-affairs/institutional-effectiveness/carnegie-classification.cshtml

We celebrated 25 years of CCEL with a Community Engagement Gala and received a legislative citation for CCEL's 25th anniversary from Representative Genevieve Mina

We re-envisioned our Faculty Fellows program, supporting two fellows this year (Rei Shimizu and Amy Bishop)

Today we're highlighting the work of the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence (CAFE). Thank you for your work in supporting faculty and facilitating faculty development at UAA!

CAFE had over 300 faculty and staff attend our professional development programming this year

We increased our program offerings by almost 40% across 22 different programs, including new faculty onboarding, teaching academies, communities of practice, the CAFE Book Club, and more

New programming focused on academic integrity in the age of AI, campus safety, navigating conflict, and career transitions

We welcomed three new CAFE Faculty Fellows (Tracey Burke, Kimberly Pace, and Vinod Vasudevan) who hosted faculty professional development and support programs

We celebrated the exceptional accomplishments of 11 faculty members from the Anchorage, Mat-Su, and KPC campuses at our annual CAFE Oh Wow (COW) Awards: https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/office-of-academic-affairs/faculty-success/events-programs/facultyrecognition.cshtml

Today, we want to highlight the work of our Instructional Design team - thank you for your hard work in supporting faculty and staff at UAA! (And if you want to join the team, we are looking for an Instructional Designer https://careers.alaska.edu/jobs/instructional-designer-3-anchorage-alaska-united-states-11463630-f45f-4128-a628-56e8d6c8facd)

Over 60% of UAA faculty have adopted Blackboard Ultra, and 62.5% of Spring 2026 courses were in Ultra
- 230 faculty participated in our Blackboard Ultra Course Conversion training
- 58 faculty attended this year’s Ultra-focused Winter Teaching Academy
- Over 60 faculty attended a live Ultra workshop
- Over 300 faculty accessed the Blackboard Ultra Faculty Community

We helped over 120 faculty develop their online teaching practices this year through our Teaching Online - No Set Time training and the Quality Matters: Improving Your Online Course workshop

We supported 112 instructors who used Honorlock in 340 courses this year for remote proctoring, promoting academic integrity in online courses

We worked with over 250 instructors on course design and instructional technology issues

Over 110 faculty (plus another 30+ staff!) participated in accessibility training and direct support, with 20 people completed the Make Your Content Accessible training we developed and piloted this year

We provided ePortfolio support to 36 faculty as well as many of their students, and trained IT Services and Learning Commons staff to offer student support on ePortfolio

The Instructional Media Studio worked with 39 instructors on recording and editing video and audio content. The Media Studio also created instructional videos on Blackboard and integrated tools for faculty and student use

We developed new resources and workshops on Blackboard Ultra, accessibility, generative AI, academic integrity, and teaching online

We collaborated with IT Services and instructional designers across UA to keep Blackboard and other instructional technologies updated and running smoothly

This last year, the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence supported three Faculty Fellows - thank you for your work in supporting faculty at UAA!

Tracey Burke, Professor of Social Work - Mentors of Undergraduate Researchers and Scholars Community of Practice

Kimberly Pace, Associate Professor Political Science - National Coalition Building Institute Trainings

Vinod Vasudevan, Professor of Civil Engineering - Retirement Planning Across Career Stages

If you teach an online course, join the Quality Matters (QM) Improving Your Online Course workshop! The workshop is June 9 and 11 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Zoom. Please register by June 2! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdXXxawlpKgqyQCHnmecOEGsn4zM6zU3nSQSfaDObgdTV0Zg/viewform

This workshop explores the 7th edition of the QM Rubric and provides a framework to improve the quality of online courses. Participants will use the QM Rubric to review one of their existing online courses and develop a course improvement plan. Completing this training satisfies UAA's online teaching training requirement, and it’s also a great way to evaluate the accessibility of your course.

We want to share some highlights from the work our Faculty Services unit did this past year:

- 24 faculty will be tenured and/or promoted effective July 1, 2026!
- In AY25-26, we gave $184,760 in faculty development awards to 100 UNAC faculty
- UAA hired 54 new faculty (13 tenure track and 41 non-tenure track) in AY25-26
- We handled 51 comprehensive faculty evaluation files (4th year, tenure, promotion, and post-tenure)

Our team is looking for an Instructional Designer! The ID will support faculty with course design, the learning management system (LMS), and related instructional technologies. The Faculty Success Instructional Design team is responsible for faculty training and development, support of teaching and learning across modes of delivery, and the effective use of academic technologies and platforms. If you’re excited about working with faculty to help students succeed, we encourage you to apply! Learn more: https://careers.alaska.edu/jobs/instructional-designer-3-anchorage-alaska-united-states-11463630-f45f-4128-a628-56e8d6c8facd