September 1, 2017
Chancellor Daniel M. White will host UAF convocation at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12, in the Davis Concert Hall. A webstream link for the event will be available at the chancellor’s office website at www.uaf.edu/chancellor.
As of Aug. 21, UAF enrollment, in terms of student credit hours, has decreased 4.2 percent compared with the same time last August. However, that decline is being buffered by improvements in student retention. Among first-time freshmen who enrolled full-time in fall 2016, baccalaureate retention has increased 1 percent, while associate-level retention has risen 6 percent. Workforce development programs at rural campuses have also helped. The Bristol Bay, Interior Alaska and Northwest campuses have seen enrollment increases, which are partly attributable to welding, rural human services and prenursing programs at their respective schools.
More than 220 people attended the annual open house for the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona on Aug. 19. It was the second open house by UAF since the Geophysical Institute acquired the HAARP facility in 2015. Attendees made many positive comments about the tours of the antenna array and building, the planetarium shows, the talks about HAARP science, and the displays about permafrost and unmanned aircraft systems. Before the open house, a four-person VICE News (HBO) crew spent an entire day at HAARP.
Science writer Ned Rozell completed his walk across Alaska along the right of way of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Rozell wrote weekly Alaska Science Forum columns during his walk, which he also completed 20 years ago. The Geophysical Institute has provided such columns as a public service since the 1970s. They are published in outlets across the world.
After an eight-year hiatus, limited vegetable variety trials resumed this summer at the Georgeson Botanical Garden in Fairbanks. Tribes Extension Educator Heidi Rader is coordinating the five-year project, which is supported by a federal grant. The research will determine which vegetable varieties perform best in Interior Alaska and possibly other locations. Sixteen varieties of carrots, beets, radishes and turnips are being grown this year, with more varieties expected next year.
UAF was ranked the No. 1 college in Alaska for 2017 by College Choice. The ranking is based on three main data points — excellence of the institution, return on investment and student satisfaction. Excellence is a composite of statistics from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and U.S. News & World Report. Return on investment is a weight of program cost versus the expected early career salary of graduates. Student satisfaction is an aggregate of student reviews of their college.
International Arctic Research Center chief scientist John Walsh has won the American Meteorological Society's "Walter Orr Roberts Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Sciences" award.
Alaska Sea Grant has a new free publication that answers questions about who can collect marine mammal parts and where. It’s titled, “Collecting Dead Marine Mammal Parts While Beachcombing.” Gay Sheffield, a Marine Advisory Program agent and UAF associate professor, wrote the guide.
The Institute of Arctic Biology and Institute of Marine Science hosted Professor Barry Lovegrove from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa for the 2017 Irving-Scholander Memorial Lecture. His presentation, "Fires of Life: Why We Are Hot," was held Aug. 31 in the Murie Building auditorium.
Alaska Sea Grant’s Marilyn Sigman helped coordinate a teacher workshop in Fairbanks, “Engaging Alaska Youth in STEM and Community Resilience.” Thirty-five teachers attended her presentations on community-based monitoring and student filmmaking. Community resilience specialist Davin Holen gave a presentation to the teachers on the Adapt Alaska project, which is designed to foster monitoring and adapting to change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sponsored the workshop.
Alaska Sea Grant’s Melissa Good spent three weeks aboard the research vessel Oceanus in the Aleutian Islands on a trip led by Brenda Konar of the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and Matt Edwards of San Diego State University. With funds from the National Science Foundation, the team used scuba, trawl gear and grab tools to study kelp forests and bottom-dwelling organisms. One result, based on prior years’ work by the scientists, is the exhibit “Underwater Forests of the Aleutians,” which opened in July at the Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska.
International Arctic Research Center researcher Katie Spellman is leading a new berry research project that involves citizen scientists. Alaskans will track berry harvests and help make the information more useful to northern communities.
Vinay K. Kayetha of NASA and Professor Richard L. Collins of the Geophysical Institute received an award for their paper titled “Optically Thin Midlevel Ice Clouds Derived from Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations.” The Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, which published the article in 2016, named it as the year’s best paper in interdisciplinary applications.
Alaska IDeA Network of Biological Research Excellence, a National Institutes of Health program to build biomedical research capacity in Alaska, is hosting a research summit and retreat Sept. 9-10 in Denali. The event will bring together leaders of other health programs and students, faculty and other scientists doing biomedical research throughout the state. In the coming grant year, Alaska INBRE is investing $749,000 in pilot projects across UA’s three major academic units and partners at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Southcentral Foundation. Since the first year of this competitive segment, Alaska INBRE has invested $2,235,015 in research projects across the system.
UAF Community and Technical College hosted the Summer Firefighter Academy Graduation Ceremony at the University Park Building on Aug. 11. Fairbanks-area fire chiefs performed a formal final inspection and Alaska State Fire Marshal David Tyler was a featured speaker. This was the first blended online/in-person fire academy in the history Alaska. The 24 students first completed five weeks of online instruction, followed by five weeks of in-person paramilitary-style training. Upon successful completion of the academy, students earn 12 credits toward an associate’s degree in fire science and are eligible to test for Alaska Firefighter I certification.