The University of Alaska Fairbanks is excited to announce its new partnership with Keli Hite McGee of HITES Consulting Inc. Keli ’90 & ‘00 is a University of Alaska Fairbanks alumna with a Masters in Professional Communication.

In spring of 2009, Keli began a partnership with UAF Development and is sharing her expertise with the UAF Development team in areas such as team building, time management and strategic planning.

HITES Consulting excels at facilitation because they listen and truly understand the needs of the client in order to apply years of research and experience to assist them in their unique opportunities.  The UAF development team salutes Keli for sharing her valuable insight and providing professional development opportunities that will strengthen our UAF Development team as we move forward.

For nearly 90 years, the University of Alaska Fairbanks has successfully met the educational, cultural and professional needs of Alaska and our community, as we have all grown together. The prominence UAF has gained as America’s arctic university is due to valuable partnerships with our dedicated faculty, students and staff, certainly, as well as friends, alumni, and supporters of all kinds, all over the world.

We dedicate this page to highlight the achievements and successes that partners who support the mission of UAF with philanthropic gifts have made possible.  Thank you all!

In April 2009, Boeing gave two renewal gifts totaling $10,000 to support two priority programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks – the Rural Alaska Honors Institute and the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program – which Boeing has generously helped sponsor with a combined total of nearly $35,000 over the past year.

The Rural Alaska Honors Institute (RAHI) support provides tuition for students attending RAHI’s 6-week summer academic bridge program. This year, nearly 65 students will participate, representing a 20 percent increase from last year in the number of students, thanks in part to the Boeing support. “We thank Boeing for its belief in the rural and Alaska Native young people of Alaska, as they pursue their dream of higher education,” says Denise Wartes, Director of RAHI.

UAF’s Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) received generous donations from Boeing, as well. This gift provided scholarships to UAF students Ernestine Ahgeak and Jeremy Maguire. Ernestine is an Inupiaq from Barrow majoring in Physics who just completed her sophomore year with a GPA > 3.5.  Over the summer of 2008, she worked for the Arctic Research Consortium in Barrow and this coming summer she will work for NOAA at the Alaska Fish and Science Center in Seattle, WA. 

Jeremy is an Athabascan majoring in Wildlife & Biology who has been in the ANSEP program since he started at UAF.  Now in his senior year with nearly a 3.0 GPA, he plans to graduate in May 2010.  Over the summer 2008 he did his internship with ABR, Inc. (Environmental Research and Services) and will continue his internship with ABR this summer.  Like Ernestine, his ANSEP experience will have been an important contributor to his success on the path to graduation.

Additional funds from Boeing provided support of senior design projects, required for most engineering majors, as well as Incentive Awards to full-time ANSEP students for GPAs of 3.0 or better, and Study Group Leader Awards to leaders of the peer-led study groups which motivate and guide students toward success and encourage leadership.

ANSEP is helping to enhance career options for Alaska Natives in the sciences and engineering fields, with about 60 active students at UAF pursuing BS, MS, and PhD degrees in STEM (science technology engineering mathematics) fields. Approximately 90% are Alaska Native and, with retention rates better than 70%, the graduating students will be well situated to enter their professions due to the experiences they have had in the ANSEP program with teamwork, professional internships, career services training, etc. 

“The benefits to these students and the Alaskan communities as a whole would not be possible without the support of ANSEP’s partners, including Boeing,” notes UAF ANSEP director Thomas Clausen.
 

New York Life’s three-year, $450,000 grant to the UAF will support ASRA and RAHI, two programs for high school students, in keeping with the firm's dedication to educational enhancement programs.

Introduced in 2001, ASRA provides an intensive, two-week residential learning experience for 8th to 12th graders who have an interest in science, engineering or liberal arts, emphasizing the importance of a college education.

RAHI is a bridging program that helps ease the academic and social transition between high school and college.  Students live on the Fairbanks campus for six weeks in the summer, taking courses and experiencing life in a college setting while earning between seven and 10 college credits for their work.  Forty to fifty students participate each summer.  RAHI was created in collaboration with the Alaska Federation of Natives in 1983 to prepare rural and Alaska Native high school students for college.

New York Life Insurance Company, founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States and one of the largest life insurers in the world.  Headquartered in New York City, New York Life’s family of companies offers life insurance, retirement income, investments and long-term care insurance.

Engineers Week or “E-Week" was held on Feb 15 – 21, 2009, with the highlight of the week on Saturday, February 21, when the Open House at Duckering Building, and a High School Robotics Competition were held.

Flint Hills Resources' generous $20,000 gift made many special activities possible, including the first ever high school Alaska state robotics competition, called the Alaska Tech Challenge. T-shirts featuring the Flint Hills Resources sponsorship were handed out to visitors, with more than 1,000 people attending. Ads were placed, and food and refreshments were sponsored by Flint Hills Resources, including the purchase of a new popcorn machine.

At the Open House, Girl Scouts earned badges with various activities, and the materials and some equipment to create special foam cut-outs free for visitors were also sponsored by Flint Hills Resources. In addition, their gift also allowed the College of Engineering and Mines to videotape the events, and  to create recruitment DVDs  to increase attendance and participation in the Robotics Tech Challenge next year. The week is meant to give the general public, and high school kids in particular, an introduction to engineering as an educational and career choice.