Abstract

Happy New Year! The halfway point of the academic year is also the start of the new calendar year, and so it’s the perfect time to reflect and recharge. As a university, we have come so far in such a short amount of time; it’s good to remember our goals and what’s next as we move forward through the first half of 2025.

At the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year, we announced four pathways that would facilitate the full integration of UAGC with the University of Arizona (U of A). Since July, UAGC faculty and staff have executed planning, organizing, and reflection exercises that are critical to reaching our unification goals. At the same time, the evolution of the U of A leadership structure has halted key decision-making processes that are necessary to our unification progress. These two circumstances understandably might be causing a sense of limbo, but platforms like The UAGC Chronicle can help ground us in the vision of the University of Arizona Online Initiatives and motivate us to define these changes for our academic community through scholarship, innovation and care.

Indeed, the fall edition of The UAGC Chronicle featured articles from several faculty about actions they are taking – like updating their scholarly and professional profiles in the UAGC Faculty Portal – to maintain a sense of control during a time of flux. This winter edition expands on those ideas about maintaining control during flux by exploring ways to make the change we want to see. For example, Dr. Hazar Shehadeh writes about how the research and publication process not only contributes to knowledge in a field but also supports one’s sense of control and achievement in one's career. Likewise, Associate Faculty member Carol Bishop distinguishes critical thinking from critical intelligence, the latter being what allows us to adapt effectively to our changing environment. And, while UAGC is awaiting important unification-related decision-making, we are exercising our critical intelligence through research that is helping us define our unified future with the U of A – for example, through the inaugural Online Student Success Initiatives Fund (OSSIF), which supports research toward instructional, student support, curricular, and learning technology innovations.

As you read this edition of The UAGC Chronicle, I invite you to consider how you can embrace its articles’ call to action to make the change that will usher UAGC into its future.

Sincerely,

Jackie Bullis
Lead Faculty Support and Classroom Consultant, The UAGC Chronicle Editor

How to Cite:

(2025) “The UAGC Chronicle - Winter 2024-2025”, The UAGC Chronicle 10(3).