The College of Rural Alaska changed its name to the College of Rural and Community Development to better reflect its community-driven educational efforts across the state.

The Alaska State Legislature appropriated $10 million in general funds to complete the Ocean Sciences Facility at Lena Point, providing UAF a total of $21.5 million to construct a fisheries and marine biology teaching and research facility in Juneau.

The National Institutes of Health awarded UAF $3.8 million to finish space in the $19 million Biological Research and Diagnostics facility, a 42,000-square- foot animal care facility that will expand UAF's biomedical and behavioral science programs, including infectious disease and environmental health and toxicology. The award represents more than 10 percent of the total NIH construction grants awarded in 2005. Work done in BiRD will complement that conducted in the adjoining state virology lab, to begin construction in summer 2006, where UAF will also have research space.

The new Office of Advancement and Community Engagement focuses on outreach, community engagement and coordinating development efforts.

The engineering programs in the College of Science, Engineering and Mathematics, the School of Mineral Engineering and the Institute of Northern Engineering are now combined to form the College of Engineering and Mines. The remaining programs reorganized into the College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

The School of Education received national accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the highest level available for teacher preparation programs. UAF provides a broad range of undergraduate, licensure and master's degree programs for educators at all levels of their profession. The accreditation applies to programs in Fairbanks and the communities served by UAF's Kuskokwim, Bristol Bay, Interior-Aleutians, Northwest and Chukchi campuses.

Syndonia Bret-Harte, Institute of Arctic Biology research assistant professor; Terry Chapin, IAB professor of ecology; and colleagues at IAB's Toolik Field Station published in Nature their finding that changes in the composition of arctic tundra plant species due to climate warming could lead to much greater release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, accelerating global warming.

Professor Glenn Juday, President's Professor John Walsh and professors emeriti David Klein and Gunter Weller were among the lead authors of the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, produced by the International Arctic Research Center for the National Science Foundation.

The 2005 steel bridge team (pictured above) finished first in the northwestern regional competition and later placed sixth among 43 teams in the national competition, the fifth time since 1993 that UAF finished in the top six nationally.

Four of UAF's athletics teams advanced to the post-season, with three going on to the NCAA Championships. Six student-athletes were named All-Americans. The hockey team won the Alaska Airlines Governor's Cup for the fifth straight year.

The Army ROTC program was recognized as the Best Small School Program in its brigade in 2004, while five senior cadets were selected as distinguished military graduates for the 2005-2006 academic year, an unprecedented number to come from a single program.

Thompson Drive opened as the new main entrance to the Fairbanks campus. A cooperative effort with the Alaska Department of Transportation, the road serves as a demonstration project for a new approach to building roads on permafrost. The design was developed by Doug Goering of the College of Engineering and Mines.

Cooperative Extension Service celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2005.

The UA Museum of the North celebrated its expansion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in September.

Graduate enrollment was the highest ever in 2004-2005, with 1,052 master's degree candidates and 250 doctoral candidates. There were 236 master's degrees awarded in May 2005, also the highest ever for UAF.