President Pat Pitney Praises and Plugs UA to Legislators
By Colin A. Warren
At the Alaska Chamber Legislative Fly-in on January 30, 2025, in Juneau, keynote speaker President Pat Pitney gave an update during the luncheon at Centennial Hall. Pitney gave an update on the critical role of the University of Alaska system in building up the state’s workforce and its research contributions and touched on high merit throughout the system.
Pitney is the 17th president of the University of Alaska system; she was appointed in February 2022. Before that, she was the director of the division of legislative finance and a vice chancellor of administration at UA affairs. Notably, also, she was a gold medal Olympian in 1984.
She began her address by thanking board members, directors, elected officials, corporations, and many more. She stressed that UA is the best investment for the next generation of Alaskans. She touched on the changing leadership at UAA, particularly the coming retirement of Chancellor Cornell.
Pitney expressed the unique position of UA, which has a dual mission of vocational and technical education, and emphasized that UAF is the state’s premier research university.
“Our system provides the vast majority of post-secondary education accessible to Alaskans,” she stated.
She noted that this is partly due to the state and Board of Regents leveraging excellent loans and scholarships. She claimed our graduates' average debt and the proportion of graduates' debt are well below the national and regional averages. She also noted that our student average pay post-graduation is higher.
Pitney stated that two-thirds of graduates remain in the state when they attend the UA system, 75% of which stay long-term. She expressed the importance of this in fighting the state’s recent declining population issue.
She celebrated that UA research revenue has grown 50% over the last five years, currently pulling in $270 million annually. However, she noted the coming turbulence from federal executive orders and lauded researchers and their work, claiming it will position UA well to weather the incoming “turbulence.”
Pitney also took time to highlight specific interesting projects produced by UA, such as 3-D homes in Nome, the research vessel Sikuliaq, and glacial outburst mitigation research and planning around the Mendenhall glacier.