Published Feb 23, 2023 by Eric Engman/News-Miner

The Festival of Native Arts returns as an in-person celebration Friday and Saturday at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Davis Concert Hall. The student-led event showcases Native culture through dance, music and arts.

This year’s celebration includes two evenings of live performances, vendors and workshops.

Performances begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday and at 3 p.m. Saturday. All events are free and open to the public.

The 2023 theme, “Revitalize and Rise,” highlights the festival gathering in person for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

“As we reunite and reinvigorate the practice of coming together once more,” student coordinator Lou Yur’acung’ Frenzl said, “[we] greet each other with smiles, laughter, handshakes, high-fives and hugs, and the determination to keep doing what it takes to create a healthy, vibrant Indigenous community.”

Published Feb 23, 2023 by Kade Mendelowitz, Theatre UAF

What if, instead of admiring the art, you become the art? More than a muse, a living work to be crafted and altered?

That’s the crumbling world four college friends and lovers find themselves in when “The Shape of Things” opens Friday in the Lee H. Salisbury Lab Theatre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The production is Theatre UAF’s spring performance, running at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24, Feb. 25, March 3 and March 4, and 2 p.m. March 5.

Directed by Fairbanks theater veteran and UAF alum Rachel Blackwell, the cast of four is made up of Seamus Knight as Adam, Riley Von Borstel as Evelyn, Hannah Greene as Jenny and August Cooper as Phillip.

The play, written by Neil LaBute, premiered in 2001 and was turned into a movie by the same in 2003, which LaBute also directed. The New Yorker wrote of the production, “[LaBute] continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism, whose ultimate evil is an inability to imagine the suffering of others ... “

Published Feb 23, 2023 by Eric Engman

The University of Alaska Fairbanks is featured on an upcoming episode of the streaming TV show “The College Tour.”

The half-hour episode, developed in partnership with “The College Tour,” offers a view of UAF through the voices of current students. The episode is part of UAF’s strategic marketing efforts aimed at increasing enrollment.

“It’s so important for prospective students to be able to see themselves as members of a university community,” said Anna Gagne-Hawes, UAF director of admissions. “We know that campus visits are foundational in helping students imagine themselves attending UAF. This show offers that opportunity to anyone, anywhere in the world.”

TV host Alex Boylan developed “The College Tour” during the Covid-19 pandemic as a way for students to “visit” colleges without having to go there in person. The show highlights each school’s culture and location, covering topics like academics and campus activities and resources.

Each of the 10 UAF students featured in the show wrote their own scripts, which share their personal interests and reasons for attending UAF.

Published Feb 23, 2023 by KTVF

[Broadcast Clip] Things are looking up for the Alaska university system, according to UA president Pat Pitney. She delivered her annual state of the university address to the greater Fairbanks chamber of commerce Tuesday, sounding a positive note for developments going forward. Among the accomplishments of the last year, Pitney mentioned a legislative victory that may lead to more land for the University of Alaska.

Published Feb 23, 2023 by Jeff Olsen

Two weeks ago, University of Alaska Fairbanks hockey coach Erik Largen discussed the reward of his team having eight meaningful games left on their schedule. Meaningful as in there existed the opportunity for them to play their way into the NCAA Tournament. 

Halfway through that stretch, the Nanooks haven’t been perfect, but the games remain meaningful. 

The good news is they’ve won three of those four against Long Island University, splitting on the road before sweeping the Sharks at the Carlson Center on Friday and Saturday.

The bad news, obviously, was the loss in the series finale in New York and placing themselves in a 3-0 hole early in Saturday night’s game.

But as Largen told the Daily News-Miner’s Bob Eley after Saturday’s win bolstered the Nanooks to 18-10-2 for the season, “We’ve lived to fight another day.”

Specifically, UAF is No. 17 in the Pairwise standings, designed by U.S. College Hockey Online to replicate the formula the NCAA uses in selecting and seeding the 16 teams for the Big Dance, err, uhh Big Skate. 

Published Feb 23, 2023

A team of University of Alaska Anchorage students will lead other students from across the state and beyond in 30-minute sessions of physical activity, from the Special Olympics Alaska Headquarters in Anchorage, via live stream.

PLAAY DAY is Thursday, Feb. 23 beginning at 8 AM, with the last session at 1 PM AKST.

Elementary-aged students participating in PLAAY Day will gather in school gyms, recreation centers, common spaces, outside or in classrooms to participate in a half hour of fun physical activity. Alaska role model athletes will lead and encourage students of all abilities through exercise routines.

It's in coordination with the Special Olympics Center in Connecticut and will be carried through 5 times-zones, across the United States.

Collaborators represented on the PLAAY Day planning committee include the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, Anchorage School District, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, Play Every Day Campaign, Special Olympics Alaska, Alaska’s Best Water, University of Alaska Anchorage, The Dome, and other physical activity supporters.

Published Feb 23, 2023

Fairbanks and nuclear fusion research usually aren’t mentioned in the same sentence. But they could be.



Plasma physicist David Newman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute is a leading researcher in nuclear fusion energy.

Fusion is seen as a possible clean energy source because it leaves no long-lived radioactive byproduct, as fission nuclear plants do, and produces no greenhouse gases.

Newman, a former chair of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics, has been working in nuclear fusion research for decades. He has been at UAF since 1998 and was previously at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

Published Feb 23, 2023 by Adrian Peterson Adrian Peterson

The Festival of Native Arts saw cancellations and virtual attendance, like many other local community events, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, for the first time in 3 years, the festival is returning to an in-person status.

This year FNA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Language Center and there is plenty to celebrate.

Activities this year include “performances, artisans and workshops,” said Lou Frenzl, student coordinator for FNA. Part of celebrating the half-century anniversary means this year’s FNA will have multiple language workshops. There will even be a skin sewing workshop.

Published Feb 22, 2023 by KATH

TODAY IS GIVING DAY AT UA... A DAY WHERE DONORS CAN HELP PROVIDE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AID FOR STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA.

Sean Parnell/ UAA Chancellor: "You can give to a student athlete funds you can give to a particular college you could give to a particular cause within the university. So it really is an opportunity for Alaskans to give according to their passions and contribute to the bettering the lives of students who share those passions."

THIS IS THE THIRD YEAR THE UNIVERSITY HAS HELD GIVING DAY AND THIS YEAR DONATIONS ARE ACTUALLY BEING ACCEPTED FOR 49 STRAIGHT HOURS, FOR THE 49TH STATE... SO IT'S TECHNICALLY GIVING DAYS