College of Liberal Arts pained by massive deficit
By Tane Timling and Colin A. Warren
As the College of Liberal Arts looks to hire a new dean, it faces a budget deficit of approximately $700,000 from fiscal year 2025 that resulted in a frozen budget, removal of autonomy over their budget, enlarged class sizes, and limited graduate student working hours. Faculty at the college say the strained budget made it hard to do their jobs due to a lack of resources and question the benefits of administrative overreach.
After discovering the deficit, UAF’s Office of Management and Budget bailed out the College of Liberal Arts, or CLA, with an emergency cash infusion, but required it to pay back the money over five years. CLA is the largest College at UAF with 17 departments and programs, 92 full-time faculty, 44 graduate student teaching assistants, and 18 staff members.
The ongoing search for new leadership at CLA follows the termination of Ellen Lopez, who had served as dean for five years.
Former CLA financial officer Heather Foltz’s position was dissolved last summer. In an interview with The Sun Star, Foltz said she was offered a lower-paying job with less responsibility that she declined.
Associate Professor Sarah Stanley, who chairs the English Department, said she’s trying to stay creative and resourceful during these tough budget times. “It’s hard to work toward any kind of future,” Stanley said.
The debt
Photo courtesy of UAF
When Professor Alexander Hirsch was transferred to the College of Liberal Arts from his other roles on campus his salary caused significant strain on the budget.
Over half of the deficit is the result of a timing mismatch between labor wins and budget deadlines. Last summer, CLA had to turn in their budget shortly after finishing negotiations with the graduate student union in June. Each college under the University of Alaska system submits budget proposals at the beginning of the fiscal year in July. The graduate students’ successful unionization effort left financial officers with unanticipated costs of about $450,000. “The rates came in for the grad students just astronomically higher than we ever expected,” Foltz said.
Another $125,000 blow to the CLA budget occurred when Professor Alexander Hirsch suddenly stepped down from his roles as director of the Honors College and associate vice chancellor of student experience to return to CLA’s political science department. Salaries do not transfer from college to college if an employee moves. According to Hirsch, he stepped down because he had a relationship with an employee. The Sun Star asked UAF if Hirsch was demoted due to violation of Board of Regents code which states that supervisors who engage in relationships with employees they have authority over are abusing their power, “even when the relationship is consensual.” The university won’t comment on Hirsch’s transfer due to privacy laws, UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes stated.
“It’s a moral failure on my part,” Hirsch said.
Hirsch currently teaches ethics at CLA.
Budget pullbacks are a “strategic mechanism” used by UA central financing and, according to Grimes, accounted for the remaining $125,000 of CLA’s deficit. Pullbacks are funds from central finance that are moved around by administration to meet the universities’ strategic priorities. For instance, after a budget from a college has been proposed, central finance might reallocate money from a college towards a more important priority. “They say plan your budget,” said Foltz, “but just plan that you know we’re going to take another $140K from you.” These pullbacks happen during every budgetary process and they are ultimately at the discretion of the chancellor.
Photo courtesy of UAF
Former College of Liberal Arts Dean Ellen Lopez was terminated from her position when the budget fiasco came to light in summer 2025.
CLA’s budget has faced more uncertainty in recent years because of the pullbacks, which take revenue from tuition, rent, fees, and other flexible money pools at the mercy of university leaders.
“As dean,” Lopez said, “my focus was continually on building back CLA because it has been reduced and reduced and reduced over many years.” She said her job was to advocate for faculty and not get in their way of working with students. “It was very challenging to work with a budget that just kept shrinking.” Lopez, who moved from her leadership position back to teaching psychology in fall 2025, is set to retire next month.
When pullbacks occurred in spring 2025, Foltz said CLA immediately informed then-Provost Anupma Prakash of the deficit. An emergency spending freeze ensued. Under a mandate from Prakash, CLA’s budget management was transferred to the Signer’s Business Office, or SBO which currently contracts fiscal services for CLA.
CLA faces an uncertain future
Although CLA has lost management control of its own budget, interim Dean Carrie Baker, who is vying for the job permanently, said CLA’s fiscal partnership with SBO is “a game changing improvement" allowing for "strategic academic decisions" to maintain programs. Monthly meetings take place between SBO and CLA to communicate financial decisions.
Foltz took a different view.
The way the former fiscal officer sees it, the move of CLA’s budget management to UA’s central financial office was a consolidation of power by the administration that took agency away from the college.
Photo courtesy of UAF
Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Carrie Baker is seeking to hold the role permanently through the ongoing dean search. UAF is set to announce their selection for the position in the coming month.
Baker acknowledged that CLA no longer has a grants support position within the college, even though they used to, leaving them vulnerable to further economic problems, because grants can amount to significant money for the college. “That’s the sad thing,” Foltz said, “staff are always low-hanging fruit.”
CLA continues facing uncertainty for future budgets because of evolving union negotiations. Health benefits are currently being negotiated with UA student relations according to Alaska Graduate Workers Association, or AGWA President Kyra Bornong.
More increases are likely to follow after the formation of the largest union in the University System on April 1 with 64% of the votes in favor of unionizing. The Coalition of Alaska University Staff for Equity, or CAUSE in conjunction with the United Auto Workers union represents non-faculty staff. Contract negotiations between members of CAUSE and the university are ongoing. University administration claims union members will not be eligible for the proposed 3% salary increase that will automatically apply to university employees next year.
A program director who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by the university said they worry about the “financial duress” the college is under. They noted that cuts to teaching assistants have limited their ability to recruit and fund new graduate students compared to previous years. They say the lack of resources had direct consequences as departments can no longer fund student support.
“Our MA [Masters of Arts] is probably going to be gone in three years because we have no students,” said English Professor Terry Reilly, who has seen 11 different deans run the college during his over 30 years working there. “The administration doesn’t seem to understand that by cutting the number of TAs [teacher assistants], you’re actually killing our programs,” Reilly said.
Department Chair of Music Juanelle Celaire argued that the solution to the college’s financial woes shouldn’t fall on those providing education. While acknowledging that a robust administration can be a good thing, UAF’s upper administration’s strength is leading to imbalances, in her view.
“I want to see budget cuts on a broader spectrum as opposed to the faculty and anything related to students,” Celaire said.
The high salaries of a few administrative positions could instead fund three more faculty members, she added.
English Department Chair Stanley confirmed that working hour constraints are hitting student workers. Graduate students who previously held 20-hour per week contracts have been reduced to 15 hours, according to Stanley.
The broader university budget picture will become clearer after the state legislative session concludes, Baker said by email.
Others aren’t so sure the future will look any brighter anytime soon.
“I just feel like the ceiling has to expand,” Stanley said. “We have to have more resources to bring in more outside perspectives to Alaska, and then hopefully these people stay in the state and we build stronger infrastructure for higher education.”