Published Mar 22, 2023

The highly anticipated 7th season of the award-winning series The College Tour, from Emmy-nominated producers Alex Boylan, Lisa Hennessy, and Burton Roberts, continues to break new ground with its intimate look at American colleges and universities told from the perspective of its student body. Hosted by The Amazing Race winner Alex Boylan, The College Tour has become a valuable tool for families around the world to gain access to information about higher education without the burdens of travel costs or logistical limitations.

Featured universities include:

• Western New England University
• Illinois Wesleyan University
• UC Riverside
• University of Tulsa
• University of Idaho
• Western Colorado University
• The Catholic University of America
• University of Alaska Fairbanks
• The University of Vermont
• Tarleton State University
• Roger Williams University
• Saint Peter’s University
• University of Texas at San Antonio
• University of Wisconsin River Falls

“There is so much of America to explore, and this season truly does it! The viewers really get a sense of what life can be like at any of these amazing locations both in and out of the classroom,” Boylan added.

Published Mar 22, 2023 by Indigo Olivier

Academic workers are having a moment. This past year,2,500 NLRB petitions were filed for union elections and graduate workers at MIT, Yale, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Boston University, and the University of Chicago represented the six largest. And graduate workers weren’t the only ones organizing: Non-tenure contingent faculty mobilized at Howard, NYU, The New School, Fordham, and Rutgers. Union organizing has also spread to the University of Southern California, Syracuse University, the University of Illinois Chicago, Washington State, Barnard, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, and the University of Alaska, among other campuses. 

Outside of academia, last year saw growing union momentum across industries, attributed partly to inflation, Covid-19, and high approval ratings for unions. But the surge in campus organizing is also an expression of – and response to – an ongoing austerity campaign against public higher education that dates back half a century. By challenging corporate business models and articulating the connection between privatization and deteriorating working conditions, academic workers have aimed their sights at reclaiming higher education as a public good, and they see unions as the primary vehicle with which to do so.

Published Mar 22, 2023

Join Perseverance Theatre, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the UAA Department of Theatre & Dance, for UAA NIGHT at THE GREAT LEAP.

5:30 PM - 6:30 PM - Cast Meet & Greet

7:00 PM - 7:30 PM - House Opens For Seating

7:30 PM - 10:00 PM - Performance: THE GREAT LEAP

10:00 - 11:00 PM - Talkback with the cast of THE GREAT LEAP

All tickets are $25 for this evening's performance.

UAA Student tickets are $10 using code UAATGL2023

Published Mar 22, 2023

Twelve high school students will visit Alaska’s remote Arctic during the summer of 2023 to learn about the effects of climate change on the region.

The students will spend five days at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Toolik Field Station, located in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range.

Toolik Field Station is partnering with the Oregon TRIO Association, the Juneau Icefield Research Project and the University of Maine to support the student trip.

The students are in Oregon State University’s TRIO Upward Bound program. TRIO programs provide federally funded student services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

At Toolik, the students will learn from the station’s scientists about topics like ecology and space physics, and hear from staff about the range of careers in Arctic research. The students will also gain firsthand experience communicating science to public audiences as they document the station’s long-term interdisciplinary research.

Published Mar 21, 2023 by By Carolyn Wilke

Some scientists think we can better understand volcanoes by learning how the gaseous vortices emerge. Some volcanoes perform a rather subtle trick: blowing rings of vapor that waft near their craters.

Dr. Scollo’s team scoured the internet and research footage for vapor rings caught on camera. The rings they found were 30 to 650 feet in diameter and lasted up to 10 minutes. Typically white, vapor rings were occasionally tinged with gray or brown from ash.

The researchers modeled the possible motion of gas and bubbles within the barrel of a volcano. For vapor rings to form, small gas bubbles had to merge and float up through the magma to create pressurized gas pockets. When such pockets explode, they could push out some gas fast enough to make a vapor ring. But the volcano’s opening also needed to be circular or slightly smushed. Volcanoes with irregular or more elliptical openings didn’t typically form rings. When they did, these apertures warped the doughnut shape or caused the ring to wobble, the team reported.

Combining the photo and video observations with the model allowed the team to find physical conditions needed to make vapor rings. “Once we understand that then we can understand something about the volcano itself,” said David Fee, a volcanologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who was not part of the work. As an example, ring emissions may say something about a volcano’s magma. Volcanoes that release hoops of vapor have liquid rock that is more likely to flow.