Opening student enrollment this fall at UAF is up 7.3 percent, reaching its highest level since 1995. Student credit hours Oct. 1 were up 6.6 percent, and enrollment within UAF's graduate school is up more than 10 percent over last year. Early predictions indicate overall enrollment at UAF could top 9,000 students before the end of the fall semester.

The UA operating and capital budget requests for next fiscal year are on the agenda at the next board of regents meeting Nov. 12 in Anchorage. A copy of the agenda will be available on the regents' home page five days before the meeting at www.alaska.edu/bor/.

Chancellor Lind and Gov. Knowles each received the 2002 Denali Award, the top honor the Alaska Federation of Natives bestows to non-Natives, at the AFN annual convention last week. Lind was noted for his commitment to serving the educational needs of rural and Native Alaskans dating back to 1961 when he moved to Kwigillin-gok as a first-year teacher for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

ASUAF President Derek Miller of Fairbanks was appointed last week by Gov. Knowles as student regent on the UA Board of Regents. Miller was selected from among six candidates, two from each of the university's three main campuses, and will complete a term that expires May 31, 2003.

UAF will close for the three days between the holidays celebrating Christmas and New Year's. Employees are required to take annual leave or leave without pay for Dec. 26, 27 and 30. All exceptions, regardless of funding source, must be reviewed and approved by the appropriate dean or director.

Free flu shots are available to UAF students, faculty and staff at the following times and places: Monday, Nov. 4 - Wood Center, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.; Tuesday, Nov. 5 - IARC lobby, noon - 4 p.m.; Thursday, Nov. 7 - 208E Butrovich, noon - 4 p.m.

A new web server has been created for UAF staff, paralleling an existing server for faculty. The Division of Computing and Communications has published documentation on using the staff web server. See the document "Staff Web Pages" at www.uaf.edu/dcc/www/staff.html for instructions and more information about the care of feeding of web pages.

Edith Curry, Codes and Safety, has been promoted to deputy fire chief with the University Fire Department. Curry will continue her role as fire marshal while developing and directing the facility's fire inspection program.

The UAF Alumni Association is once again selling holiday wreaths this year. Wreaths made from fresh fir, juniper, incense cedar and cones sell for $20. Orders received by Nov. 15 will be delivered free. Call 7081 for more information or to place your order.

Photographic works displaying the exotic and ordinary in Fairbanks comprise the new exhibit in the UA Museum's Interior Gallery. Call 7505 for more information.

A work by Mary Ehrlander, CLA, was recently published by LFB Scholarly Publishing of New York. The book, Equal Educational Opportunity: Brown's Elusive Mandate, traces the failure of the Supreme Court's landmark decision to effect desegregation in American schools and to create genuine equal educational opportunity.

The Campus Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 requires that colleges and universities publish an annual campus safety report, distribute the report to all students and employees, and inform prospective students and employees about the report. The information required by the law can be found at this website: www.uaf.edu/reg/schedule/policies.html#safety. People who desire a paper copy of these reports will be provided one upon request. Contact the dean of students office in 514 Gruening or call 7317.

The UA Museumhas been awarded a $100,000 grant from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service to archive marine mammal tissues and specimens in the museum's collections. The grant is the maximum allowed under the program and is one of only two such grants awarded in Alaska this year.

The Alaska Native Language Center and the Kuskokwim Campus will receive $1 million over the next three years from the U.S. Department of Education for a Yup'ik language education program in the Yukon Kuskokwim delta. The funding is part of the Alaska Native education program within the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and will focus on enhancing the second-language skills of Lower Yukon, Lower Kuskokwim and Kuspuk school district certified teachers and teacher's aides.

Carolyn Sheehy, SALRM, earned first place for the poster she submitted at the Society of American Foresters' National Convention in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in October. Sheehy is a graduate student in Forest Sciences. Her poster was a presentation of her research effort "Growth and Yield of Black Spruce in Alaska's Tanana Valley."

Nanook runner Sigrid Aas finished fourth and led the UAF women's team to fourth place in the team standings at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championship meet in Seattle Oct. 26.

UAF hockey returns to the Carlson Center Nov. 1 and 2 against Ferris State. It's "White-out Weekend" at the Carlson. Wear white and create a blizzard of Nanook pride!

The rifle team takes on Kentucky at the Patty Center Nov. 2 and looks to repeat its win over Xavier in October.

The men's basketball team opens its season in an exhibition game against the Akron Wing Foots Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Patty Center. They'll tip off against Walla Walla College Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. and again Nov. 9 at 4 p.m.

As provost of UAF I have overall responsibility for our academic programs. In any of the other 49 states I would also be responsible for promoting our programs with a system-wide vice president for academic affairs. However, in the UA system I am part of the System-wide Academic Council (SAC), in effect, UA's "vice-president for academic affairs."

In this unique arrangement, the provosts of UAA, UAF and UAS provide leadership for academic affairs throughout the UA system. As a group we develop academic policies and procedures, set priorities, solve problems, interact with statewide officers and staff, and generally provide an academic voice within the statewide administration.

Certainly the arrangement has its challenges. None of the provosts need the additional work, committees are always less efficient than individuals, follow-through on SAC actions is often difficult and "parochialism" at times hinders our efforts to make tough decisions.

On the other hand, there are some real positive aspects of this arrangement. The campus perspective is directly represented within the statewide administration, the working relationship among the provosts has a positive effect on collaboration among the three universities and each university has a regular participant in statewide meetings and deliberations.

Overall, the assessment of all three provosts is that the additional time and effort required for the SAC are well worth it. We believe it is an effective mechanism for keeping the administrative aspects of academic decision-making as close to the campuses as possible.