Published Mar 6, 2023 by Lex Yelverton

Alaskan parents and educators are calling for more education funding and got the chance to tell legislators face to face Sunday.

A legislative town hall hosted by the Anchorage Delegation on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus was completely packed. It was full of people passionate about changes they want to see in their communities.

While topics ranged from housing and homelessness to climate change to mental health and disabilities, the overwhelming majority of speakers wanted to talk about the importance of education and why many believe it needs to be better funded in the state of Alaska.

“Your jobs as legislators are to protect our democracy and to grow our economy, and that all starts with education,” one UAA student testified.

Published Mar 6, 2023 by Mariana Low/News-Miner

Students from across rural Alaska gathered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus last weekend to discuss earthquake research they’ve conducted in conjunction with the Alaska Earthquake center.

“These kids are doing important work,” Alaska Earthquake Center director Mike West said in an interview Sunday. “Even I learned something today.”

Groups of two to four students from Wrangell, Chevak, Brevig Mission, Sitka, Seward, Bethel and North Pole have been working for the past three months with small programmable seismographs called “Raspberry Shakes” to monitor seismic activity in their communities.

“We learned a lot about coding and problem solving,” Wrangell High School student Ander Eden said. “And now being here, it’s like it all paid off; we reached our goal.”

Students programmed the seismograph to give an alert when a certain magnitude earthquake was detected. People in the community could also sign up to get alerts on their phones, which the seismograph would automatically send out.

“They are learning about geohazards and, really, becoming specialists in their communities,” West said. Students in Brevig Mission, for example, have figured out that in their community, it makes more sense to use their seismograph to measure wind than earthquakes, since the strong wind in Brevig causes the buildings to move.

Published Mar 5, 2023

The University of Alaska-Anchorage partnered with Fur Rondy to hold a free skate with local mascots and some UAA hockey players at West Chester Lagoon on Saturday, March 4.

Published Mar 5, 2023 by Eric Engman

This month, the University of Alaska Museum of the North is looking forward to bringing back the annual Museum Open House. The event, from noon to 4 p.m. March 25, provides the community a chance to explore labs and work spaces and will be the first Open House since 2019.

The museum holds more than 2.5 million artifacts and specimens in its collections, representing millions of years of biological diversity and thousands of years of cultural traditions in the North. Collections at UAMN are organized into 10 research disciplines: archaeology, earth sciences, entomology, ethnology and history, film center, fine arts, fishes and marine invertebrates, genomic resources, herbarium, mammalogy and ornithology. The breadth and depth of the museum’s research work as well as teaching and outreach is not always apparent to the average visitor touring galleries. Open House provides an opportunity for a deeper look.

UAMN has an incredible amount of research, projects and exploration going on within all of the departments, and faculty and staff are excited to open labs to the public.

Published Mar 5, 2023 by Staff report

Nominations are being accepted for the 2023 University of Alaska Fairbanks Business Leader of the Year Award.

The submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. March 10. Learn more and submit nominations via the form on the Business Leader of the Year website, www.uaf.edu/cbsm/news/bloy.

The award, presented by the UAF College of Business and Security Management, honors a person who has shown leadership, business acumen, community engagement and educational support at any level. The award will be given Nov. 18 during an evening dinner at the Westmark Fairbanks Hotel. Students play a major role in planning the annual event.

Nominations are kept active for three years. They should include biographical information (such as a resume), website links, press clippings and letters of support.

Published Mar 5, 2023 by UAF Summer Sessions

It is also time to register for Summer Sessions classes. There are 19 non-credit classes for adults, 28 different summer lectures, 12 summer concerts, and two international travel programs. There are 90 different summer day camps for children. The SMART Academy (Science Math Art Recreation Technology) provides statewide virtual courses and local in-person enrichment classes for the home school audience during the academic year.

Adults can sign up for Adult Bug Camp, Bicycle Maintenance and Repair, Advanced Bike Hacking, Bookmaking: the Expanding Gallery Box, Field/Landscape Photography, and fly fishing. Check out workshops on geocaching, mushroom identification, intro to weaving and modern embroidery.

Published Mar 5, 2023 by Miles jOrdan / UAF Athletics

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has stated its case for earning a berth in the NCAA Division I hockey tournament.

The Nanooks, playing an NCAA Division I independent schedule, completed a 22-10-2 regular season on Saturday night at the Carlson with a 8-0 triumph over the Lindenwood University Lions, but they won’t know their postseason fate until the NCAA Division I Hockey Committee announces the 16 teams to play in the national tournament on March 19.

“I think we’ve done everything we can and made a good case for ourselves,” Nanooks coach Erik Largen said. “We’re one of the hottest teams in college hockey right now and we’ve put ourselves in good position to make a run for it.”

The Nanooks are tied for 11th with Ohio State in the Pairwise Rankings that replicate the formula the selection committee uses to determine the 16-team field. Barring any major upsets in conference tournaments, that could be enough to get UAF into the field.

Saturday night’s victory finished off a two-game sweep for the Nanooks as they completed the season with a 15-1-0 win against fellow NCAA Division I independents. The Nanooks defeated Lindenwood 4-1 on Friday night.

Published Mar 5, 2023 by Ned Rozell

On April 1, 1946, in the Aleutian Islands, five lighthouse tenders died in a near-field tsunami, one of the greatest and most unpredictable threats to Alaska coastal villages

Three days later, just before most of the men left Unimak on a Coast Guard cutter, the men buried their comrades. They were victims of a “near-field” local tsunami caused by underwater landslide, one of the greatest and most unpredictable threats to Alaska coastal villages during big earthquakes.

Alaskans have just minutes to react to these near-field tsunamis. Researchers at the Alaska Earthquake Center at the Geophysical Institute have mapped tsunami danger zones here.

Published Mar 4, 2023 by Mark Thiessen

Climate change has and will likely continue to play a role in how the race is run.

The warming climate forced organizers to move the starting line 290 miles north from Willow to Fairbanks in 2003, 2015 and 2017 because of a lack of snow in the Alaska Range. That will become more common as the weather warms, and the Bering Sea ice leading into Nome could also become thinner and more dangerous, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Published Mar 4, 2023 by Lon Garrison

Tennessee currently has one of the nation’s highest FAFSA completion rates, while Alaska ranks 51st. University of Alaska President Pat Pitney has noted that if Alaskan students and their families fill out the form at the average rate of those in other states, Alaskans could tap into $9 million in free federal funding. If we completed the form at the same rate as students from Tennessee, that would give Alaska students access to a whopping $15 million in free funding for postsecondary education.

Here’s the thing: When our schools have the resources to provide support, our students do better. For example, when Bethel Regional High School had embedded career guides for five years through the Alaska College & Career Guides program, Bethel’s FAFSA completion rate rose to a high of 85% in 2016, and its postsecondary going rate rose to 65%. Compare that with the 28% of Alaskan seniors who completed the FAFSA last year, or the 37% of 2020 high school graduates who enrolled in postsecondary within a year of graduation, according to the Higher Education Almanac.

Published Mar 4, 2023 by Staff report

Author, professor and journalist Leonard Cassuto will deliver two public lectures on Tuesday, March 7, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The UAF Graduate School is hosting the lectures.

Cassuto co-authored “The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education” with Robert Weisbuch.

At 3 p.m. in Schaible Auditorium, Cassuto will speak on “Graduate School and Beyond: The Academy and Society.” At 7 p.m. in the Murie Building auditorium, he will address “A Cultural History of Toughness.”

Cassuto teaches American literature at Fordham University and writes a column for The Chronicle of Higher Education called “The Graduate Adviser.”

In their book, Cassuto and Weisbuch argue that graduate school should be “student-centered and career-diverse. Grad programs should prepare students for all of the jobs that they can get (not just professorships).”

Published Mar 4, 2023

The National Weather Service put out a blizzard warning that was in effect for much of the Bering Strait region until Wednesday morning. Flights were canceled again. Due to the unsafe conditions, Nome Public Schools closed, as did several other offices and businesses, from the courthouse and Kawerak’s Nome office to the AC store and Subway.

These big swings in weather are not surprising in a La Niña winter like the one we’re having, said Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“Very changeable weather certainly is part of what we expect,” Thoman said. “So while the details are always unknown, the fact that we’ve had these big flip-flops, from the rain and warmth in early December, and then sustained cold in late January and February, then a big warm up—all of that is par for the course for La Niña winters.”

Thoman was eager to see what the storms would do to the sea ice, especially because the sea ice strongly influences the so-called cold pool at the bottom of the Bering Sea. When sea ice melts, very cold water sinks to the seafloor, creating a frigid layer that is thought to be a critical part of the ecosystem.

Published Mar 4, 2023 by Bob Eley Daily News-Miner

The University of Alaska Fairbanks stayed on track to earn an at-large berth into the NCAA Division I hockey tournament this month after defeating the Lindenwood University Lions on Friday night at the Carlson Center.

Although the Nanooks dominated puck possession throughout the game and launched 51 shots at Lions golatender Trent Burnham, their 21st win of the season was anything but easy.

The Nanooks trailed 1-0 after the first period, but scored three unanswered goals in the second period and went on to claim a 4-1 victory over the Lions, who entered the game tied for 60th among the 61 NCAA Division I hockey teams in the Pairwise standings.

Published Mar 3, 2023 by Josh Reed

Heading into their game against Seattle Pacific University in the opening round of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament, the University of Alaska Anchorage women’s basketball team had bested their conference foes in each of their last nine meetings dating back to the 2017-18 season.

Thursday night’s game also marked the two teams’ third matchup of the season. Unfortunately for the fourth-seeded Seawolves (18-10), the third time proved to be the charm for the Falcons (15-12), the fifth seed in the tournament.

Seattle Pacific used a season-high 60.5 shooting percentage from the field to hand UAA a decisive 69-65 defeat, preventing the Seawolves from advancing to the semifinal round.