August 23, 2013
Researchers and engineers at the Alaska University Transportation Center and Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities are investigating how to keep a giant mass of frozen debris from devouring portions of the Dalton Highway and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Researchers have placed a series of GPS markers, enabling them to monitor movement of the frozen debris lobe. They say the mass, located at mile 219 of the Dalton Highway, consists mainly of silty sand and gravel.
UAF is one of 124 colleges selected by The Princeton Review as Best in the West in the website feature 2014 Best Colleges: Region by Region . UAF was selected from hundreds of institutions within the region. The designation is based in part on excellent academic programs and student surveys.
Three instructional designers from eLearning and Distance Education will be featured as guest presenters in an online Educause course this fall.
The Alaska Nanook swim team’s grade point average earned them Scholar All-American honor status from the College Swimming Coaches Association of America.
Rifle head coach Dan Jordan hired former student-athlete Ryan Baum as assistant coach. Baum shot for the Nanooks from 2004 to 2007 after transferring to Alaska from West Virginia. For the past three years, Baum has been a firearm instructor and range technician for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
There are several small projects associated with the Community and Technical College aviation program’s hangar, including exterior canopies, building foundation sealing, adding headbolt outlets and expanding the interior compressed air system. The main entry canopy concept is in planning, and foundation sealing work continues. Headbolt outlet construction continues with installation of entrance panels and conduit. Compressed air system construction will begin September in the hanger shop area. These projects are scheduled to be complete by the end of October 2013.
Alumni achievements: Clarissa Toupin received a five-year teaching fellowship from the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation. Alutiiq language scholar Alicia Drabek has been named the executive director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak. Michael Angaiak is the new principal at Anne Wien Elementary School.
During the past year, Cooperative Extension offered seven certified food protection manager trainings live or by videoconference to 110 individuals in 10 communities, including Fairbanks, Palmer, Nome, Sitka, Nome, Kodiak, Homer, Dillingham, Craig, Barrow and Dutch Harbor. Eight of those communities did not have access to this training previously. The state requires all food establishments to have at least one certified food protection manager.
The Rotary Service Fund partnered with UAF on a fundraising initiative for the Hulbert Nanook Terrain Park at UAF. More than $30,000 was raised at a reception held at the chancellor’s residence.
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. donated $60,000 to the College of Engineering and Mines to support student activities and competition, and an additional $60,000 to the Community and Technical College process technology program for an oil-and-gas separation process simulator.
The UAF Nanook Rendezvous reunion will celebrate the classes of 1963 and 1988 in September.
Kinross Fort Knox recently donated a Caterpillar D10 dozer to CTC’s diesel/heavy equipment program. Students will begin using the dozer this semester, including breaking down, reassembling and reinstalling the engine.
James Pruitt, ’73, recently made a $10,000 unrestricted annual gift to UAF. Alaska Communications Systems has made an in-kind donation of office modular units to the Geophysical Institute valued at $80,000. Joe Usibelli Sr. and Peggy Shumaker made a $20,000 gift to the Alaska Literary Series, which supports production costs for the series at UA Press.
Each year Extension agents in nine communities test more than 800 pressure canner gauges for accuracy. Workers from the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and volunteers have been trained to test gauges in other locations. More than half of the gauges require adjustment to ensure that temperature is adequate to kill microorganisms present in food and prevent botulism. The effort helps Alaskans preserve foods safely.