The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents declared a financial emergency this week, a sign of the extraordinary pressure created by a drastic cut in state funding and a first step toward rapid reductions in spending. “None of us wants to be here today,” University of Alaska President James R. Johnsen told regents at an emergency meeting Monday, “and as I look at the faces of our students, faculty and staff — their anxiety and their loss — I wonder, how can our university, something so great, that has been built up by so many for so long, be crippled by so few so quickly.”
