SHORT TAKES
August 9, 1996 | |
| Kids Voting Project Pairs Up University, FNSB School District | The vote is in and political science senior Shannon Nagy has come up a winner. Nagy's senior project, an evaluation of the Kids Voting Program in Alaska, earned rave reviews from this year's Western Political Science Association's (WPSA) annual conference and was cited as "an example of excellent student research" by WPSA president Arendt Lijphart.
The in-depth analysis was requested by Gene Redden, Executive Director of Alaska Kids Voting. The results from the yearlong survey will be completed by Aug. 16 and distributed to the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) School District. Technical assistance for the project was provided by Nick Stayrook, Director of Program, Planning and Evaluation for the FNSB School District. Alaska Kids Voting is a statewide program whose participants range in age from kindergarten to high school. Fairbanks is home to the longest running participating district in the state.
Nagy attended the WPSA conference with funding from the UAF Chancellor's Office. Contact: Gerald McBeath, UAF Political Science Department Head, (907) 474-6505 . |
| Environmental Chemistry Program Receives Accreditation | The UAF chemistry and biochemistry department's formula of outstanding faculty and research has created a solution of success. The undergraduate program in Environmental Chemistry was recently accredited by the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training.
The program is one of only five accredited Environmental Chemistry programs in the nation and the only one offered in the Pacific Northwest. Contact Larry Duffy, UAF Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Head, (907) 474-7525. |
| UAF Elementary Education Senior Earns Top Honors | Michael R. Rice, a senior elementary education major, has been named a United States National Collegiate Award Winner in Education from the United States Achievement Academy. Nominated by education professor Nora White, Rice was given the award for academic performance, leadership, enthusiasm, dependability and cooperative spirit.
Rice has also been named to the National Dean's List, a recognition of outstanding academic achievement for the upper 1 percent of university students nationwide.
He will complete his methods and student teaching requirements at the newly founded Chinook Charter School in Fairbanks this fall and will graduate next May. Contact: Michael R. Rice, (907) 474-0972. |
| Biology Professor Wins Award for Innovative Teaching | During the past 15 years he has taught at UAF, Assistant Biology Professor Douglas Schamel has provided his students with a full range of field opportunities- from collecting snow samples at 40 below zero to tracking migratory waterfowl at 60 miles per hour.
Because of his innovative teaching methods, as well as his commitment to furthering science education for students in high school and college, Schamel was selected by the Society for College Science Teachers (SCST) to receive the 1996 SCST-Kendall/Hunt Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher Award. This national award recognizes an outstanding teacher of natural sciences at the undergraduate collegiate level. His commitment to promoting the understanding of scientific issues extends to the local level as well. He co-founded the Alaska Statewide High School Science Symposium and, in cooperation with the FNSB School District, established the Fairbanks Science Center.
Schamel will continue teaching at UAF this fall. Contact Douglas Schamel, UAF Biology and Wildlife Department, (907) 474-7542. |
| UAF Anthropology Professor Named Distinguished Lecturer | UAF Anthropology professor Lydia Black has been invited to deliver three "distinguished lectures" in October for the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.
Black will present a three-part series on "The Christianization of Alaska" as part of the events leading to next year's international bicentennial celebrations commemorating the birth 200 years ago of Russian Orthodox Priest Ioann Veniaminov, renown educator, ethnographer and linguist. Contact: Lydia Black. Department of Anthropology, (909) 474-6760. |
| New Business Honor Society Chapter Established | Fourteen UAF business majors have been nominated and accepted into the founding class of UAF's Beta Gamma Sigma chapter, an honor society for American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). Membership in Beta Gamma Sigma is the highest national recognition a student in business can receive in an undergraduate or master's program at an AACSB-accredited school.
To be eligible for nomination as a member, the academic ranking of students must place them in the upper 7 percent of the junior class, upper 10 percent of the senior class and upper 20 percent of the graduating master's class.
Members include: Ric Adams, Deborah Bole, Jacquelyn Burke, Susanne Cerven, Julee Duhrsen, Jennifer Hiser, Todd Kesl, Tammy Kosa, Carol Lundgren, Elizabeth Murphy, Deona Rager, Chandra Stone, Jana Walters and William Welch. Contact Jeanne Yoder, School of Management, (907) 474-7461 or at fnjy@fortune.uafsom.alaska.edu. |
| UAF Economics Department Ranked Nationally | The University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Economics was ranked 149th out of the top 240 economics departments nationwide in the recent issue of "Economic Inquiry." The ranking is based on the total number of pages published in the top 36 economic journals by members of an economics department over a ten year period ending in 1993.
UAF beat out several larger schools, including the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Colorado State University, Portland State University and Western Michigan University.
In a previous ranking using data between 1978 and 1983, the UAF economics department was not listed. Contact: Michael Pippenger, Assistant Professor of Economics, (907) 474-6530 . |
JCS/8-9-96/97-009