YEAR IN REVIEW
Fred Hall IV waves a special greeting to the crowd after being awarded his Ph.D. in space physics at UAF's commencement ceremony in the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.
The KUAC TV production team for The 49th Star: Creating Alaska at the Emmy Awards. Left to right: Michael Letzring, Aaron Elterman, Deb Lawton and Claudia Clark. Photo by Team Photogenic
The new Cold Climate Housing Research Center facility. UAF photo by Nicole Behr
Laying a foundation today for success tomorrow
UAF developed Strategic Plan 2010, which, along with a revised mission statement, new vision and core values statements, will help guide the university over the next few years.
Drawing upon the expertise of its many friends and supporters from throughout the state and country, UAF has formed a Vision Task Force. These 55 leaders and thinkers will first meet in March 2007 to help begin charting a 10-year path for the university.
UAF awarded 1,065 degrees, certificates and licenses during the 84th commencement in May 2006.
The completion of Kotzebue's Chukchi Campus nursing and science addition was celebrated with a formal ribbon cutting in January 2006.
The Cold Climate Housing Research Center facility opened on the Fairbanks campus. CCHRC will collaborate with UAF's Cooperative Extension Service to develop energy-efficient and cost-effective building technologies for the world's cold climate regions.
The University of Alaska Museum of the North opened its new addition and remodeled areas during FY06, including laboratories, exhibit spaces and a museum café.
Learning and discovery
The Tanana Valley Campus initiated Project RAVE--Rural Alaska Vocational Exploration--which introduces rural Interior high school students to TVC's career, technical and allied health certificate programs.
The psychology department instituted the Rural Behavioral Health Training Academy for rural mental health professionals.
UAF hosted Creating Alaska, which celebrated 50 years of Alaska's statehood with a series of commemorative events attended by the surviving constitutional delegates. The Conference of Young Alaskans echoed the original state constitutional debates and delegation.
Scientists from the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences discovered seven new species of marine life in the Arctic Ocean.
Mammals curator Link Olson, of the UA Museum of the North and the Institute of Arctic Biology, and undergraduate wildlife biology student Kyndall Hildebrandt conducted the DNA analysis that led to the documentation of a new genus of monkey discovered in Tanzania. The results were published in Science in May 2006.
Awards and accolades
KUAC won an Emmy Award for promotional advertising of its documentary, The 49th Star: Creating Alaska, which tells the story of Alaska's struggle for statehood. The station was also nominated for its four-part travel series, Anywhere, Alaska.
Judith Kleinfeld, northern studies, was invited by the White House to deliver a paper on Five Strategies to Engage Boys in School.
Katey Walter, a 2006 graduate, was one of only two doctoral candidates to receive the nation's most prestigious honor for doctoral dissertations by the Council of Graduate Schools for her Ph.D. dissertation, "Methane Emissions and Biogeochemistry of North Siberian Thermokarst Lakes." Walter will continue her work as a UA International Polar Year postdoctoral fellow in biogeochemistry at UAF's Institute of Arctic Biology.
The rifle team won the 2006 NCAA national championship, its eighth national title, and will host the 2007 national championship in March.
Image of Mount McKinley © Andrea Swingley. All other UAF photos by Todd Paris unless otherwise noted.