Published Jan 11, 2024

Multiple employees for Fish and Game, who didn’t want to be named amid fear of repercussions, told Grist that the agency was ignoring basic scientific principles, and that political appointees to the Board were not equipped to judge the effectiveness of these programs.

Even these criticisms of the agency’s science have been subject to politics: This summer, a committee of the American Society of Mammalogists drafted a resolution speaking out about Alaska’s predator control — only for it to be leaked to Fish and Game, which put up enough fuss that it was dropped. Link Olson, the curator of mammals at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, was one of many who supported the group taking a position on the issue. Olson says that even as someone who “actively collect[s] mammal specimens for science,” he is deeply concerned with Alaska’s approach to managing predators.

A month later, 34 retired wildlife managers and biologists wrote an open letter criticizing the bear cull and calling the agency’s management goals for the Mulchatna herd “unrealistic.” Meanwhile, neither Demma nor Sattler, the biologists who cautioned the board, are still studying the herd; Demma now works in a different area of the agency, and Sattler has left the state and taken a new job, for what she says are a variety of reasons. 

Published Jan 11, 2024 by Staff report

Swimming lessons for beginners and advanced beginners, taught by the UAF Swim Team, take place Jan. 20 through April 13 at the Patty Pool on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus.

The cost is $235 for 10 weeks.

The beginner course is designed for children who do not know how to swim but are not afraid of the water. Swimmers learn floating, breathing, kicking and rotating. Students will swim on their backs and chests with or without flotation devices.

The advanced beginner program is designed for children with some swimming experience who can swim at least 25 yards, a standard pool length, by themselves, regardless of time. They will learn proper breathing techniques, how to swim longer distances and learn different strokes.

Parents and guardians are responsible for the supervision of their children in locker rooms and on pool grounds and must remain on-site for the duration of the lesson.



Published Jan 11, 2024 by Staff report

Alaska Native and rural Alaska high schoolers are invited to apply for the Rural Alaska Honors Institute, a summer program where students take classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to earn college credit before they graduate high school.

According to RAHI’s website, to be eligible for the program students must be a high school junior or senior, have an accumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher and be committed to achieving a college degree.

Applications are due by March 1 and can be found at uaf.edu/rahi. The program runs from May 28 to July 12.

Students will live in UAF dorms and usually complete an average of nine credit hours. The program is free and covers transportation to Fairbanks, housing, tuition and meals.

Since RAHI began in 1983, 1,896 students have earned more than 1,400 credits through the program.

Published Jan 11, 2024 by Alex Johnson

There’s some big news coming out of the Patty Center from the Hockey Team, as seven new additions have fully committed to the Nanooks.

Head Coach Erik Largen opened up about the incoming recruiting class and the overall theme for the class being physical play and offensive abilities, whether as a defenseman or forward.

The combination is great, but for Largen it’s finding a guy that fits the team’s culture. That culture being a hard worker, and a physical in your face type of guy. “I think that’s going to help, since the Carlson is being shrunk down to an NHL size rink too. There’s going to be more contact, there’s going to be less space out there. So, adding some size and competitiveness to the group is an important trait. So that we play on that edge, said Largen.

The names on the first list of players joining the team for the first group of recruiting are 6-foot Madison Capitals Defenseman Noah Barlage from the United States Hockey League. The Alberta Junior Hockey League has two athletes joining the Nooks, 6-foot-3 Blackfalds Bulldogs forward Brendan Ross, and The Okotoks Oilers 5-foot-10 forward Dean Spak.

The next four are from the North American Hockey League and are familiar names for the Ice Dog faithful. Janesville Jets 6-foot-1 forward Haden Kruse, 6-foot-1 Chippewa Steel forward Peyton Platter, and the last two are from the Anchorage Wolverines, 6-foot-1 forward Bryce Monrean, and 5-foot-11 forward Fyodor Nikolayenya.



Published Jan 11, 2024

The Alaska College of Education Consortium (ACEC), encompassing the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and University of Alaska Southeast (UAS), has officially announced its second year of its Teacher Internship Scholarship Program. 

According to Monique Musick, the Manager of Communications and Marketing at the University of Alaska, this scholarship is extremely beneficial to any education student because it helps them focus on their T. A program, without having to worry as much for their cost of living.

“And the biggest thing is that if you’re going to complete a full-time internship, you can’t really work even part time. And so, recognizing that committing to that year of training makes it hard for people to finish that full time internship here,” said Musick.

The recipients who are awarded this scholarship not only get up to the $10,000 stipend but are also eligible for full tuition support during their final full-time internship year. Graduate students who are enrolled in an initial licensure program are also eligible for tuition support and a $10,000 living stipend.

And from what the data shows, Musick says that this scholarship made quite a difference for many students.

“Last year was the first year and we were able to give out $1.3 million to 75 different teacher candidates. And so those are all students that were in their final 30 to 60 credits of getting their teacher licensure,” says Musick.

Published Jan 11, 2024

In college, Glenn-Borade trained as a geoscientist and learned about research in other parts of Alaska: “I felt like I had a perspective I could share that could help bridge these two worlds.”

In January 2022, for her master’s thesis at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Glenn-Borade published a story map — a digital map and narrative — that showcased the photos, data and voices of local observers across the state along with Western scientific information. Entries about stormy weather, for example, appeared with a chart on the multi-year trend of increasingly wet summers, as well as a vignette from Iñupiaq Bobby Schaeffer of Qikiqtaġruk (Kotzebue) from September 2021:

“We had two storms go by back-to-back, producing gobs of rain and howling winds. ... Rising river and creek waters will cause more erosion. South winds will bring in storm surge and huge ocean waves will batter the beaches and cause more erosion on permafrost hills. ... Hunting efforts have been hampered by a lot of wind and rain.”

Now, Glenn-Borade is the project coordinator and community liaison for the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub (A-OK), a partnership of communities in Arctic Alaska. The hub gives observers in several villages a platform to share their observations, knowledge and expertise on Arctic environmental change with each other as well as with other scientists.

Published Jan 10, 2024

A new bill that aims to address backlogged maintenance projects at the University of Alaska will be up for consideration as lawmakers return to the Capitol next Tuesday. The bill would set aside some $35 million this year to address some of the biggest priorities in the roughly $1.5 billion backlog.

The university system’s chief financial officer, Luke Fulp, said in a phone interview that catching up on deferred maintenance has been the top capital priority for the UA’s governing Board of Regents for more than two decades.

“This legislation is our plan to address that, and not just address it with one-time funding, but to look at a way that we can engage in in long-term planning around meeting the maintenance needs of our facilities and making sure that we’re avoiding critical failures and costly repairs as a result of not addressing the maintenance needs in a timely manner,” Fulp said.

Fulp said it’s a new approach for the university system. Instead of asking the Legislature to fund a specific slate of projects each year, the bill would lay out a six-year list of maintenance and modernization projects. 

Unspent money would carry over to the next year, and regents would update the list as projects are completed. The Legislature would retain control over especially large projects that require more than $2.5 million in annual spending, and lawmakers would have the power to add or remove projects from the list.

In the past three years, Fulp said UA has received roughly $15 million a year despite $60 to $70 million in annual requests.