2.D.1 Honest Representation
The institution represents itself clearly, accurately, and consistently through its announcements, statements, and publications. It communicates its academic intentions, programs, and services to students and to the public and demonstrates that its academic programs can be completed in a timely fashion. It regularly reviews its publications to ensure accuracy and integrity in all representations about its mission, programs, and services.
Representation and identity. ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ upholds integrity in its self-representation and the information it communicates across various platforms. This includes sharing information such as institutional student success analytics and data dashboards, mission fulfillment indicator measures, and the financial aid net price calculator on the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ website. Additionally, ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s success metrics are available through federal resources like .
University Relations (UR) leads strategic marketing and public relations efforts to enhance awareness, build support, and foster engagement with both internal and external stakeholders. Communications include The Cornerstone, the official email newsletter provided by UR that covers university news and announcements, and Aurora, the quarterly magazine for alumni and friends of ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ from the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Office of Development. These efforts also include maintaining consistent and clear institutional design, photography, and web and social media guidelines and standards consistent with the UR communication plan. UR brand guidelines provide clear guidance for messaging, visual identity, editorial style, and trademarking that are followed by all units to ensure consistency while also strengthening and elevating ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s reputation and standing as ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s research university and America’s Arctic university.
The UR team, together with colleges, units, and individual staff, faculty, and administrators, also ensures that information about programs, events, research, and other news is communicated with clarity, consistency, accuracy, and integrity. The individual units (e.g., colleges and schools, departments, centers, etc.) are responsible for maintaining and updating their websites and ensuring that these sites are accurate and current. As a general rule, websites link to policies, such as those in the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Office of the Chancellor, , and/or , rather than repeating policies to ensure consistent, accurate, and current information across the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ website. Primary policy documents, such as the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Academic Catalog and the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Student Handbook, and websites, such as the Student Consumer Information website, are maintained and reviewed for accuracy and currency through established processes, as described below. The vice chancellors provide additional guidance for the areas under their purview.
Communication of academic programs and services. The is the primary resource and publication for all academic policies, undergraduate and graduate , , and services, and can be filtered by college, degree, and program. The academic catalog includes ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) as well as a listing of programs with .
The academic catalog includes information on . College, department, and program pages include specific program admissions requirements, degree and program requirements, program learning outcomes, and total program credits. ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ has developed and added academic program roadmaps with recommended semester-by-semester plans of study. These roadmaps illustrate to full-time students the sequencing of classes to take and the timeframe to completion depending on the specific degree level. Students or advisors can individualize the plan of study based on student placement into mathematics or writing courses, prior credits earned either as a dual enrollment or transfer student, credit load, or other constraints. Sample roadmaps or plans of study have been created in ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Degreeworks for programs at all academic levels starting in AY2026-2027 for students and advisors to utilize for the development of their academic plans.
The Academic Catalog also includes policy, resources and services for all undergraduate and graduate students related to , , , , , as well as the . In addition, the catalog includes the . Students can also access important academic calendar dates and deadlines on the Office of the Registrar website that include the academic calendar, final exam schedule, Graduate School, and graduation requirements and commencement. Scheduling of the academic calendar common dates is coordinated by a multi-university committee and approved by the UA BoR. Specific ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ deadline dates, such as undergraduate and graduate student admissions and graduation application deadlines, academic scheduling, and the schedule of the summer semester, are set by the Office of the Registrar in coordination with the Faculty Senate and various departments. Current and most recent class schedules are available through the , which is used by all three universities in the UA system. During the spring semester of AY2024-2025, UAOnline was upgraded to offer a more modern, mobile-friendly experience for our students. The three universities retained the feature in the to allow students to search for courses by campus and modality. This feature meets the needs of ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s students, who often work or have other personal obligations that limit their ability to take a full slate of in-person classes and might need to select courses based on their modality.
The ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Office of Admissions, in collaboration with ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ’s 10 academic colleges, schools, and divisions and the Graduate School, offers prospective students online access to information on the 220+ undergraduate and graduate degree programs, along with hundreds of minors, concentrations, occupational endorsements, and certificates. Each website for undergraduate, graduate, and online programs includes robust search and filtering tools to help students explore their academic options efficiently.
The , which is part of the Academic Catalog, communicates , including the , , and , along with information about the , which provides support to students who may be at risk or in distress. The ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Student Handbook is updated annually, as supervised by the Office of Rights, Compliance and Accountability (ORCA) and approved by the vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management, and it links to the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Academic Catalog as appropriate, e.g., to the , and to relevant student-facing web pages, such as for the Office of Disability Services and ORCA.
Review procedures. ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ has established procedures to routinely review its publications to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. The university’s mission, outlined in , is revised only with formal approval from the board. Course offerings, academic programs, and policies are regularly updated in the Academic Catalog following a comprehensive, multilevel review process as detailed in the Academic Course and Degree Procedures Manual.
The Academic Catalog is published and maintained by the ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Office of the Registrar. Annually, the entire catalog is reviewed for accuracy and compliance. While the individual colleges, departments, programs, and units are responsible for updating their own websites, those updates must remain aligned with the Academic Catalog. University Relations collaborates annually with the Office of Admissions to develop recruitment materials, such as the Viewbook, for prospective students. These materials include a comprehensive list of the university’s academic majors, minors, and options, as well as general university information and details about ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ's student programs and services. To ensure accuracy and consistency, UR consults the Academic Catalog and incorporates updates from curriculum management when revising the list of academic programs.
Faculty initiate changes to courses, degrees, and certificates, which then move through a structured approval process outlined in the Academic Course and Degree Procedures Manual. New academic programs follow a similar process but require additional approvals. In compliance with , new programs are neither published in the catalog nor advertised until NWCCU approval is obtained. Academic policies follow a similar approval path through the Faculty Senate and the provost, and when applicable, the chancellor. Each step of the review process is designed to ensure both accuracy and currency, with final oversight by the provost and follow-up by the Office of the Registrar as needed. Suspension or deletion of academic programs are also outlined in the Academic Course and Degree Procedures Manual. These guidelines require a detailed teach-out plan and communication strategy to support enrolled students before a suspension request is submitted to the provost. Once approved, the UA BoR and NWCCU must provide approval before admissions can be officially suspended. The suspended status is noted in the Academic Catalog until all students complete the program, after which a formal request for deletion is submitted for final approval.
The ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Academic Catalog, ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Student Handbook, and all ÃÛèÖÊÓƵ websites are maintained and reviewed for accuracy and currency of content through the established processes described above. These documents and websites are revised at least annually, and more frequently if changes are necessitated. The unit(s) responsible for the content is also the unit responsible for maintenance and keeping content updated.