UAF INTERIOR-ALEUTIANS CAMPUS RECEIVES $1.9 MILLION GRANT FOR VILLAGE-BASED STUDENTS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2001

Fairbanks, Alaska – The University of Alaska Fairbanks Interior-Aleutians Campus received a five-year, $1.9 million grant to provide science, mathematics, engineering and technology courses to village-based students in Alaska’s Interior and Bristol Bay regions in collaboration with UAF’s Bristol Bay Campus.

The project, called "Hutlee/Umyuarchdelee," the Athabascan and Yupik words for leader, boss and a good thinker, will utilize a combination of teaching strategies with proven records for educating minority students. A goal of this project is to ease the transition for students from village life to successful study and completion of a bachelor’s degree in science, math, engineering or technology-related field.

The grant will provide two-year scholarships for 16 students each grant year for travel and lodging, as well as computers, calculators and speakerphones. Classes will be delivered to students in their home villages through audio conference and web-based technology, and through face-to-face intensive sessions on the Fairbanks campus. Students will also attend a week-long orientation.

After receiving a Title III grant in 1999, a federal program that helps develop and strengthen minority educational institutions, I-AC was able to hire math faculty and a student services coordinator, which set the framework for the latest grant through the National Science Foundation’s Tribal Colleges and Universities Program.

Partners in the latest educational project include Alyeska, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Bristol Bay Native Association. They will provide student job shadowing, internships and mentoring opportunities.

Students from 90 villages in the Bristol Bay Campus and Interior-Aleutians Campus regions are currently being recruited for spring semester. A new group of students will start each fall for the next four years.

-30-

CONTACT: I-AC Student Services Coordinator Rita O’Brien toll free at 1-866-474-2711 or Bristol Bay Student Services Coordinator Christine Sasaki toll free at 1-800-478-5109 or Kas Aruskevich, Project Manager at 1-907-474-5546.

CJB/12-11-01/028-02