Gretchen T. Bersch, Ph.D. , began her career in adult education in 1971 working for the University of Alaska (UA) system in Alaskan villages. In 1990, she was commissioned to create and coordinate an adult education master's degree program for UA-Anchorage.   Internationally, she was a U.S. Representative to the United Nations UNESCO conference on adult learning in Germany in 1997. Bersch also focused on creating a partnership between the UA-Anchorage and the university in Magadan, Russia. Her work led to a faculty and student exchange program, joint conferences, policy and curriculum work, and eventually being awarded the title of honorary professor of the university in Magadan, Russia in 2001. A research interest of Bersch's has been to film interviews of noted national and international adult education scholars. She created and produced a video (DVD) series titled, Conversations on Lifelong Learning .  To date, 76 scholars have been interviewed and 35 finished programs are available to the field. Bersch has received numerous awards for her work, including the Edith R. Bullock Prize for Excellence; she has also been honored as the Alaska Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the UA-Anchorage Chancellor's Awards. In June, 1997, Gretchen T. Bersch was awarded Emerita Professor Status by the University of Alaska-Anchorage. Recently Dr. Bersch was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.