After 43 years of service, UAS Ketchikan Director Dr. Priscilla Schulte to Retire December 31

After 43 years of dedicated service to the University of Alaska Southeast, Dr. Priscilla Schulte announced plans to retire after the 2023 fall semester. Schulte has served as the Ketchikan Campus Director since 2013.

Dr. Priscilla Schulte joined the faculty of Ketchikan Community College in 1980 as Instructor of Anthropology/Sociology and was promoted to Professor of Anthropology/Sociology in 1994. She continued her teaching assignment after the transition to the University of Alaska Southeast, also serving as Assistant Director of Instruction. In recent years she took on a variety of interim leadership roles, including Interim Ketchikan Campus Director in 1999-2000 and again in 2012-2013, and as Interim Provost from 2015-2016.

Dr. Priscilla Schulte retires at the end of the Fall 2023 semester at the university, on December 31. Of her time serving the University of Alaska Southeast, Priscilla had these words to say: "It has been very rewarding to work with students throughout these years. I have had students return after working for many years and start a new career and others have gone on to get graduate certificates and degrees. UAS changes lives and I'm glad that I have been part of these experiences."

As an educator and researcher, she specializes in cultural anthropology, multicultural education, Alaska Native cultures, sociocultural change, and the archaeology of southeast Alaska. As part of a partnership with the United States Forest Service, She has coordinated an annual field trip to do archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork with local Native elders, cultural teachers, and UAS students, which focus on the survey and inventory of important cultural sites located in southern southeast Alaska.

Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Schulte produced the Alaska Public Television documentary The Bear Stands Up (1994), that features Tlingit Elder Esther Shea of the Tongass Bear Clan, who dedicated her life to teaching the songs, language and values of Tlingit traditional life in Southeast Alaska. In 2008 she was recognized with an Emmy for her work as a content advisor for the series Physical Anthropology: The Evolving Human in the category of Best Instructional Programming. She is an adopted member of the Tongass Brown Bear clan of the Tlingit people, bestowed the name Seitkwa.

UAS Chancellor Aparna Palmer shared, "During her career, Priscilla has been an amazing leader, mentor, and colleague. She has given her heart and soul to UAS and has contributed so much to the Ketchikan campus and community. We will miss her greatly but we are happy for her as well!"