Q&A With Kim McGinnis - One Health, One Future

By Morrow Duszynski

One Health is a concept that focuses on the intricacies of human, animal, and environmental health. Earlier this month, UAF hosted the 2023 One Health, One Future Conference. It was anticipated to be the largest circumpolar One Health conference held in the United States this year.

With the support of the Educational Legacy Foundation, the UAF College of Business and Security Management sponsored two panels: Indigenous Economic Systems and Communal Well-Being and Doing Good by Doing Well: Sustainable, Just, and Regenerative Business. In an interview with Kim McGinnis, UAF’s MBA Program Director, a member of the conference’s planning team, she talks about the conference from her perspective:

As a member of the planning team, what was the ideal outcome and were there any specific goals you wanted to accomplish?

First, all the credit should go to the One Health team—Arleigh Reynolds, Kesley Nicholson, and Elizabeth Van Ha, for doing all the heavy lifting. I planned only a small part of the much larger event. My goals were simple: first, to bring together several different viewpoints and have a respectful conversation; second, to give attendees some pragmatic and useful ideas for how they can tackle challenges in their own communities.

As the director of the MBA program, do you plan to work more with One Health in the future? Was there a correlation with the MBA at CBSM and this conference?

We are adding a One Health concentration to the MBA program for next year (pending approval!). The MBA program has a history of partnering with other programs across UAF and the UA system, offering concentrations like the Blue MBA in conjunction with the College of Fisheries and Ocean Science. At the end of the day, I want our MBA program to be relevant for our students' professional interests, and also relevant for our mission as a school. When we collaborate, we can offer the scale and expertise of the entire University, not just CBSM's faculty.  One Health in particular is aimed at addressing some of the pressing challenges facing our communities in Alaska and across the circumpolar North. Coupling a One Health perspective with the analytical skills offered by an MBA can really open possibilities for students.

Indigenous cultures, people, and health were very prominent in this conference. How can we bring more awareness and be more inclusive in different programs at UAF and CBSM? 

Serving our Indigenous communities and addressing health and wellness are such important objectives for us as a college and as a society. At CBSM, we do this by ensuring our staff and faculty are comfortable working in multicultural environments;  and by tailoring our curriculum and offerings to be relevant to the educational needs of our students, as well as to greater labor market and societal needs.  I'm constantly learning from my students in order to do both these things better. When I first started teaching, I'd use a lot of case studies centered on big Fortune 500 companies headquartered far away from Alaska. Now I understand the importance of also incorporating local examples, as well as examples from rural and Indigenous-owned businesses.  

I'm also a huge fan of working through collaborative partnerships to meet these goals. For example, CBSM has a partnership with Tanana Chiefs Conference to serve students at Effie Kokrine High school and in the Yukon Koyukuk School District.  By working alongside TCC, we are better able to co-create culturally responsive programming.

What was a presentation, activity, or conversation that stood out to you?

We had such interesting panelists, including one of our own CBSM alumna, Amber Vaska, and experts in everything from hydroponic growth systems and responsible finance. I also enjoyed engaging in some conversations on issues I don’t typically think about, like food security. You often hear the statistic that Alaska only has 3 to 5 days worth of food on hand. This is the kind of challenge that I think needs to be tackled from all sides. That includes state, federal, and tribal governments creating reasonable policies for subsistence hunting and fishing, but also for the business community to help build the resiliency of our supply chains and support the growth of mariculture and innovative agriculture systems.

To view more information about the 2023 One Health, One Future conference, visit UAF's Center for One Health Research website.