Published Oct 30, 2023 by Carter DeJong

Graduate student workers throughout the University of Alaska system will soon enter negotiations with the university after voting overwhelmingly in favor of forming a union.

“We’re looking forward to channeling this support and energy into creating a stronger UA together at the bargaining table — one which allows us to focus on the research we love and the contributions we make,” Caitlyn Oliver Brown, graduate research assistant at University of Alaska Fairbanks said.

The final vote was 314 to 11 as voting ended on Oct. 26, according to a release from Alaska Graduate Workers Association-United Auto Workers. Around 76% of eligible voters turned out.

“We are confident our union will be good for Graduate Student Workers at UA, and good for the university and our broader community,” said Sofia Sytniak, a graduate worker at UA Anchorage said. “We look forward to preparing to bargain as equals with the university administration for the first time to improve our working conditions.”

The vote will be certified on Nov. 2, according to an email from Memry Dahl, UA chief human resources officer.

“After certification, university leadership looks forward to bargaining with the new unit in the future,” Dahl said.

Published Oct 29, 2023 by Tim Bradner

Another of Vic’s accomplishments was his role in the 1960s as founder of the University of Alaska’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), the university’s venerable public policy think tank.

Over the years, ISER has been involved in research on most of Alaska’s important public policy issues and state legislators paid attention.

What struck me about Vic’s early leadership at ISER was that he was not afraid to employ young, independent economists who documented important and unpopular facts about some of the boondoggles Alaska politicians were promoting. The Institute was on UA’s Fairbanks campus at the time (it is now at the University of Alaska Anchorage) and I remember Fairbanks businessmen putting intense, but unsuccessful, pressure on university leaders to fire Vic and one of his economists, Arlon Tussing.

I also remember Vic’s views that ISER’s research should be relevant and user-friendly for the public. He hired writers and journalists like myself to write on complex topics in terms ordinary people could understand. Judy Brady, a former reporter at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, wrote one of the first papers published that explained new complications for Alaska public lands and the emerging Alaska Native land claims movement.

Published Oct 29, 2023 by Caleb Jones

The University of Alaska Nanooks swim team hosted Cal State East Bay for two dual meets on Friday and Saturday. UAF dropped both events by a score of 134-64 and 146-59, respectively.

Despite the losses, there were still positive results in the pool for the Nanooks. Dorka Dancsok continued her strong start to the year after being named the PCSC Freshman Swimmer of the Week for her performances in the teams opening meets against Azusa Pacific.

This time around, she finished with four event wins. She claimed top spot in the 200-yard individual medley in the first meet with a time of 2:07.65, roughly nine seconds faster than second place finisher Hannah Sharp of Cal State East Bay. Her second win came later in the 100-yard breaststroke.

Published Oct 29, 2023 by Ned Rozell

“We found microplastics in every single rain sample (gathered in Juneau),” Sonia Nagorski told a group of people listening to her talk at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans two winters ago.

Nagorski — a professor at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau — was presenting via her computer while she sat in Alaska’s capital city during the New Orleans conference. 

“In the fall of 2019, I taught a new course on plastic pollution. I had twice as many students as expected. I decided to make use of the high number by sending everybody out to various environments in Juneau to collect samples.

“We collected water and sediment from various streams, lakes, and beaches; from the Mendenhall and Herbert glaciers, and we collected rainfall.

“We were amazed by how many small plastic fibers and fragments we easily found, especially considering we were seeing only a fraction of them using our fairly simplistic methods. In 2020-21, I collected rain and snow samples with a couple of students, and added to the dataset I built with the class.”

Published Oct 28, 2023 by Anchorage Daily News editorial board

Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, there’s a good chance Fischer did work that impacted your life for the better. As a city planner, he helped ensure the Delaney Park Strip remained undeveloped, a tremendous asset for Anchorage’s downtown (and, fittingly, the site of the giant celebration bonfire when Alaska finally won statehood). He helped set aside land for Westchester Lagoon and the Chester Creek greenbelt, where thousands of residents and visitors recreate and commute every day. It’s a defining, connecting trail feature that helps remind us all that Anchorage is part of Alaska’s wilderness (tired jokes notwithstanding), and that wilderness is at the heart of what makes this place special. Fischer even helped plan the towns of Cantwell and Tok, small communities with outsized roles in providing services in some of the more remote stretches of Interior Alaska.

And, of course, Fischer was instrumental to Alaska history for his role in drafting our state’s constitution, one of 55 delegates who met at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks during the winter of 1955-1956 and hammered out what is widely regarded as one of the best, strongest founding documents of any U.S. state.

Vic Fischer didn’t accomplish a lot because he was the smartest guy in the room, though he was certainly the smartest guy in many of the rooms he occupied — he accomplished a lot because for nearly a century, he showed up to do the work. And that work took all forms — passing laws as a legislator, organizing friendship and aid missions to the Russian Far East, even passing out programs and helping folks to their seats as an usher at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. He didn’t treat any sort of work as beneath his station, and he recognized that all of it was worthwhile in making Alaska a better place. And that, ultimately, is the last and most important gift Vic Fischer gave us: The life lesson that extraordinary things are possible for us and for the place where we live, no matter who we are — if we just have the dedication to work toward them and never stop.

Published Oct 28, 2023 by The Cordova Times

Courtney Carothers, a University of Alaska fisheries professor, has been honored with the 2023 Denali Award by the Alaska Federation of Natives in recognition of her contributions as a non-Indigenous person demonstrating strong commitment to the Alaska Native community. 

Carothers was one of several individuals recognized by the AFN, which held its annual convention in Anchorage Oct. 19-21, for their contributions to Alaska Native people. 

Carothers has devoted her career to working with fishing communities in Alaska to better understand the social and cultural dimensions of fishery systems and to improve education, research and policy processes to better include these dimensions.  

She has also partnered with Indigenous communities to promote social and environmental justice goals.  

Published Oct 28, 2023 by Mark Sabbatini

An effort to change the name of Suicide Basin to Kʼóox Ḵaadí Basin is being made by a group of people who monitor and study the ice basin that caused record flooding in Juneau this summer, according to two experts during a presentation Friday night.

They also warned the deadly threat of more such flooding from the basin is increasing — yet the ice dam itself may vanish in a few decades as the Mendenhall Glacier recedes, while other such basins emerge as new threats.

The new Tlingit language name translates to “Marten’s Slide Basin,” said Eran Hood, an environmental science professor at the University of Alaska Southeast who studies glacier dynamics. The first word refers to a small weasel-like mammal that is in the area.

He and Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service Juneau, presented the proposed name and their findings to about 150 people as part of the “Evening at Egan” lecture series in the UAS library.

Published Oct 27, 2023

“Kuhaantí” means “orphan” in Lingít. Itʼs now the title of a childrenʼs book written entirely in the language with no English translations — the first of its kind in decades. The book will launch on Friday at 5 p.m., with a reading at Juneau’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall.

University of Alaska Southeast language professor X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, who collaborated with master Lingít speakers to write the book, says the lack of English translation serves two purposes.

“Very few people can speak our language, so it’s one of many different tools to help people learn,” he said. It’s also a way “to privilege our language, and to elevate it to this place to say, ‘Our literature can stand on its own.’”

Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and Goldbelt Heritage Institute are hosting the book launch. Twitchell will read the story aloud, and the illustrators G̱at X̱wéech Nick Alan Foote and Jaax̱snée Kelsey Mata Foote will sign copies for attendees. Little ones and parents are encouraged to wear regalia. 

“Kuhaantí” tells the story of a young orphaned girl named Saháan who is taken in by a powerful family and learns about the value of respect.

Published Oct 27, 2023 by Meredith Jordan

The biggest portion of the $110 million in state mariculture investment, about a third of which will come to Southeast, has come from the Build Back Better regional challenge ($65 million, which is the initial $49 million and a 20% match); the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council ($32 million); and $10 million from the Alaska Legislature ($5 million for mariculture matching grant program and $5 million to the University of Alaska).

Other money includes $2.5 million for seaweed research from the American Rescue Plan (ARPA), and $1.1 million from the USDA. That money includes $500,000 for the multi-user Prince of Wales processing facility, an ocean hatchery research project by OceansAlaska in Ketchikan, and $100,000 for the Alaska Oyster Cooperative’s Naukati project.

Thus far the BBB money funds three staff at Southeast Conference and parts of salaries for 20 other positions at sub-award recipients. That includes the University of Alaska, Spruce Root (a subsidiary of Sealaska Corp), Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, Alaska Mariculture Alliance, Alaska departments of Environmental Conservation and Fish and Game, and other economic development districts in Alaska. It also goes to pay contractors, among other things.

Lesh stressed the program is still in the early stages. “We just finished the first year of the four-year grant period, so we are just getting started spending most of this money.”