The Academic Council of CRCD was created to provide academic oversight which will ensure that students have access to education that is responive to community, program, and individual student needs.

* Term end date

CRCD Department Chairs, Co-Chairs, & Vice Chairs and Course Designators - posted 9/5/13

Julie Maier has lived in Alaska for 23 years, after a life as an Air Force dependent when she lived in eight different states, Germany, and Greece. She has worked for CRCD for seven years including five as an Assistant Professor of Science at Interior-Aleutians Campus and two as an Assistant Professor of Developmental Mathematics, where she currently works. She has served as the Division head for the Science Division, Co-Chair and Vice Chair of the CRCD Academic Council, and as a member on the UAF Faculty Senate Curriculum Review Committee. She received her BS and MS in Biology from Midwestern State University in 1984 and 1986, respectively, and her Ph.D. in Wildlife Management from UAF in 1996. She has 17 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and is currently working with a student on a project looking at the use of parasite control methods in sled dogs in rural Alaska and on her own project investigating geophagy in snowshoe hares and the effects on hare population cycle amplitude and frequency. She is currently serving as a Project ACCCESS fellow in the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC) during which she is conducting a project to investigate methods to improve student success in developmental mathematics .  She currently lives in Fairbanks with her husband, Hilmar Maier, children Josef and Jessica, one cat, two dogs, and a small flock of chickens.

Shawn Russell has lived in Alaska for fifteen years. She has worked in the healthcare field for more than twenty years, including eight years with CRCD where she has worked cross-regionally as an Assistant Professor of Allied Health developing and delivering e-learning curriculum for UAF's healthcare programs. She has served as the Chair of the Allied Health Department and as the Head of several Allied Health Certificate and Occupational Endorsement programs. She has served on the Academic Council since 2009, serves on the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Women, and serves on numerous committees addressing the needs of the healthcare workforce in Alaska and the needs of Alaska's rural campuses in serving their culturally and geographically diverse student bodies. She is a Certified Professional Coder, has a BA in Psychology from Arizona State University , and has a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Alaska Southeast. She is a Kuskokwim Campus faculty member and currently lives in Southcentral Alaska with her husband, daughter, dog, and cat.

Jennifer Carroll is a lifelong Alaskan and has worked for the Interior-Aleutians campus since 1999, first as the coordinator of the Yukon Flats Center in Fort Yukon and as a term assistant professor of Anthropology and Alaska Native Studies since 2006. She has been a member of the CRCD Academic Council for over a decade as the Division head for the First People's Division and then Department Chair of Indigenous, Community and Tribal Programs. She received her BA in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1990, her Masters in Anthropology from UAF in 1995, and her Ph.D. in Anthropology from UAF in 2010. Her dissertation, Maybe an Answer is in There: Life Story in Dialogue, explores the ways in which Gwich’in women’s lives have changed over the past century through the life story and historical and cultural reflections of Vera Englishoe, a Neets’ąįį Gwich’in woman from Venetie and Fort Yukon. She currently lives in Fairbanks with her husband, James Carroll, children Jeanetta and Lynneva, two cats, and two dogs, including her little man, Ziggy (in photo).

Diane McEachern has enjoyed living in the Bethel area for almost 15 years.  She initially moved to Bethel to work as an intinerant school social worker and after 6 years, transitioned to the Kuskokwim campus.  She coordinates the RHS and HUMS AAS cohort programs and she also is an Assistant Profressor in those programs as well.  Diane is Co Chair of the Chancellor's Diversity Action Committee (CDAC) and the Department of Social and Human Development.  When not Occupy the Tundra, Diane is hiking with her dogs, sewing quilts, and working on the last chapters of her doctoral dissertation on Adult learning and Indigenous populations.

Jenny Bell-Jones, Métis, is an Assistant Professor with DANSRD. She holds BA and MA degrees in Rural Development and an AAS in Paralegal Studies. Before joining DANSRD, Jenny had a successful career in heavy industrial construction management. Her experience included welding instruction, welding inspections and code compliance, workforce supervision, and contractor liaison. She has experience with rural alternative energy planning and development. Most recently Jenny Bell has served as Academic Program Chair and is actively involved in curriculum development for the Alaska Native Studies program including a Masters in Legal Studies. Her academic fields of expertise center on international Indigenous law and politics and especially in subsistence related matters and Federal Indian law and policy in Alaska.