Jamie Diep

A lot has changed at the University of Alaska since President Trump’s inauguration. After executive orders, the University of Alaska Board of Regents directed its university leadership to remove mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion to protect its federal funding. But the Trump administration still froze or canceled millions of dollars in federal funding.

At the University of Alaska Southeast, Chancellor Aparna Palmer said she’s trying to balance upholding the university’s values with maintaining federal funding. Two of the campus’ grants have been affected, but it has been able to restore or find other sources of funding for them.

Palmer said she’s focused on federal financial aid, which hasn’t been touched yet.

“My priority is to make sure that we do what it takes to preserve that federal student aid for our students. That would be a huge, huge percentage of students who would be affected,” she said.

She said about 40 to 50% of UAS students receive federal student aid. Palmer said students should continue applying for aid. 

On top of funding, UAS is keeping an eye on its international students’ immigration status. Elsewhere in the state, four University of Alaska Anchorage students have had their visas revoked.

But Palmer said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers haven’t been on any UAS campuses.

“So far, none of their visas are being revoked, but we monitor the situation daily,” Palmer said.

She said anyone who sees immigration enforcement officers on campus should report it immediately to the university so they can support and advocate for students.

Juneau School District Board of Education member Will Muldoon stepped down from his position on Monday.

According to a press release from the district, Muldoon submitted his resignation effective immediately and gave no reason for his departure. 

“The district and board appreciate Mr. Muldoon’s service to the community of Juneau, and the time and effort he has devoted to the district’s students and employees,” the district’s statement reads. 

Muldoon won his seat in 2021 as the first write-in candidate elected to the school board in decades. He was re-elected to another three-year term last year.

Muldoon did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The board has 30 days to fill Muldoon’s position. The board will choose from a pool of applicants at an upcoming meeting where members of the public will have an opportunity to comment. The date of that meeting has not yet been set. 

The newly appointed member will serve until this year’s municipal election in October, when voters will elect a member to serve the remainder of the term.

Applicants for the position must be qualified to vote in Juneau and cannot be a district employee.

Listen here:

Learning to swim is an important skill, especially in Alaska. The state has the longest coastline and the highest rates of drowning in the country. One way to reduce that risk is through swim lessons. And in Juneau, babies can start learning as young as six months. 

The city’s Parent and Tot swim classes do more than give babies playtime in the pool. Juneau’s Aquatics Programming Coordinator Ellen Johnston said it teaches both parent and child how to be safe in the water. 

“The parent is learning how to make the water a safe and fun place and introduce basic swim concepts like buoyancy and breath control through blowing bubbles,” she said. “And the child is learning that the water is a safe, fun place to be, but also a place where, you know, there are limits and safety considerations.”

Southeast Alaska has the third highest drowning rate in the state, according to the most recent state report. Johnston said these classes can teach children life-saving skills. 

“Water is an unavoidable fact of life in Juneau, and making sure that kids know how to avoid unsafe incidents in the water and what to do if they see or [are] involved in a dangerous water incident can really be the difference in saving a life,“ she said.

Johnston said this class is one of the most popular ones the city pools offer. She said they’re currently running four classes, but that number changes throughout the year depending on staffing.

Katie McKeown is one of the swim instructors for the class. She got certified to teach in January because she thought the city needed to offer more classes.

“I noticed there were less and less swimming lessons available to my own kids, and I just saw that demand,” McKeown said. “And instead of complaining about it anymore, I really just wanted to do something.”

McKeown put her own kids through swim lessons at the local pool and wanted to make sure other parents had the same opportunity she did. She said it’s rewarding to teach classes for some of the pool’s youngest patrons.

“There are babies on the first day that are completely terrified, so mad about being there, and they’re crying, and then by the last class, like today, they’re completely relaxed in the water,” she said. “They’re going under with their parents, they’re all just so excited, and everybody is so supportive of all the other babies.”

Amanda Ryals is in the class with her nine-month-old son T.J. Ryals said she’s learned a lot from the class on how to be safe in the water with her baby.

“It’s not something that I know how to teach him, necessarily, without instruction,” Ryals said. “So the instructors are pretty awesome and working with us, and he’s doing great in the classes.”

She said they’re signed up for another session of classes and hope to keep coming back to the pool.

“He’s going to be a water baby, we think. So we want him to get as much time in the water as he can and enjoy it,” Ryals said. 

The current session of classes will keep running through May and June, and Johnston said they typically offer more year round.

Students at Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School and Juneau Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé wrote four plays earlier this year centered on deeply personal topics. They were performed live on the radio in February, and again this week. 

Theater Alaska hosted the performance Thursday at Thunder Mountain Middle School. It was followed by a forum with teachers, mental health professionals and policy makers that gave community members the opportunity to discuss the topics brought up by the plays, including addiction, climate change and consolidating the city’s two high schools.

National Alliance on Mental Illness Juneau is a local non-profit that provides mental health education. Executive Director Aaron Surma said the lack of resources locally means they work with students to help them support one another.

“Feeling comfortable supporting your friend always makes sense. But saying that we – people who make the worlds – are just not going to have good enough systems for you to make it be helpful is a pretty tragic thing,” Surma said.

Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi teacher Electra Gardinier said the opportunity to write radio plays helped students engage with writing in a new way.

“I, as a teacher, saw students who had never interacted with one another in a positive way suddenly be able to take on a character and interact as these characters in a really healthy and communicative way, and then also to make writing collaborative,” Gardinier said.

The performances come as schools and arts organizations face funding uncertainties in Juneau and across the state and country.

Thursday’s program wrapped up hours after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill that would increase the state’s per-student allocation by $1000. The Trump administration is also slashing grant funding for humanities organizations.

Still, Theater Alaska’s Artistic Director Flordelino Lagundino said they hope to continue working in local schools and expand the program next year.

Disclaimer: KTOO was a partner in the radio play performances, but the KTOO newsroom took no part in organizing the event.

Listen here:

Nearly two months have passed since the University of Alaska Board of Regents directed leadership to scrub mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion from websites and publications. The action was in response to federal threats to withhold funding from universities.

There have been some big changes across the University of Alaska system due to the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI. Campuses in Fairbanks and Anchorage have experienced federal funding cuts, revoked student visas and office reorganizations for people serving Alaska Native students and other underrepresented communities.

But these things aren’t happening at the University of Alaska Southeast, which has three campuses in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. UAS Chancellor Aparna Palmer said at a recent virtual town hall that the campus’ own Native and Rural Students Center hasn’t changed.

“The Indigenous heritage of Alaska is so central to our identity as an institution,” she said. “At UAS, it is part of the fabric of who we are, so our commitment to that continues.”

Instead, UAS continues to review and scrub mentions of DEI on campus webpages.

One name change includes the Chancellorʼs Advisory Committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Cultural Safety. It’s now the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Belonging, Empowerment, Access, Representation and Safety.

UAS Executive Director for Community Relations & Strategic Partnerships Elizabeth Cornejo said in an email that staff have updated about half of the webpages as of Wednesday morning. She said they expect to update the rest by the end of the semester.

Once that’s done, she said they’ll start reviewing PDFs, catalogs and other documents. 

UA President Pat Pitney said in a press release more than $5 million in federal grants has been frozen or canceled. At UAS, a federal grant from the U.S Department of Agriculture was temporarily frozen, but Cornejo said that’s since been restored.

While the changes have been smaller at UAS compared to the other campuses, students like sophomore Poppy McBride said the decision to scrub mentions of DEI has been demoralizing.

“This is just ignoring great majorities of the students that attend our schools,” they said.

McBride said they appreciate the support from campus staff since the decision passed though.

“I am grateful for the leadership we do have at this school, trying their very best to support students throughout it all,” McBride said. “I think a great majority of our faculty is pushing to stay inclusive and to keep supporting students and to not ignore all the identities and people who will be pushed kind of under the rug by this move.”

In the meantime, McBride and other students are finding community through campus events and student clubs as the Trump Administration continues to investigate and threaten other universities across the country.

State legislators grilled two University of Alaska Board of Regents appointees at a Senate Education Committee meeting last week as part of their confirmation process. That’s after the board approved a motion to scrub mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion from university communications. 

The February vote from the board has brought up criticism about the decision itself and the lack of transparency in the board’s process. 

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, criticized the decision during last week’s Senate Education Committee meeting. Tobin is also a PhD student at the University of Alaska Anchorage and said the board should have heard from the university community before making the decision.

“I have had my faith shaken over the last few weeks,” Tobin said. “It has been deeply shaken, and I know many of my fellow colleagues and fellow students are feeling similar. We are feeling unheard. We are feeling unseen.”

The University of Alaska Board of regents is composed of 11 members. Each regent serves eight-year terms, except for the student regent, who serves for two years. Members are appointed by the governor before going through a confirmation process with the Legislature.

Only one of the two appointees being considered was actually at the meeting. Anchorage-based Regent Christine Resler was appointed for her first term this year. She voted in favor of the motion to scrub DEI mentions from the university.

“I stand behind that we were trying to do the right thing, but I also recognize how hard it was for the community,” she said.

Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, said the decision gives the federal government a lot of power over the university.

“It doesn’t just say we’re going to follow the U.S. Constitution or federal law,” he said. “It said any guidance and executive orders or guidance on executive orders that come out of the federal government, anything from the U.S. Department of Education on Maryland Avenue in Washington, D.C. is the law of the University of Alaska system.”

Resler said she’s committed to supporting the UA community through any other changes from the federal government.

“We are in a very dynamic environment, and I can’t predict what’s going to happen next or what we’re going to be faced with, but what I can tell you is I will make sure the Board of Regents will react to support the students, the faculty and the alumni of the state and the university system,” she said.

Regent Karen Perdue was reappointed this year. She wasn’t at the meeting when the board approved the motion, but said that the university needs to maintain a stable environment to face what comes from the federal government.

“We see directives coming out sometimes on short notice,” she said. “But what we can do is we can stick together, talk to each other, and try to figure out how we might react and best adapt to these activities. I value the principles of academic freedom and the right to speak about issues. These are core values of our university.”

Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, was the only other senator to question the appointees during the hearing. He asked about accreditation and research within the UA system.

Resler and Perdue’s confirmations will be heard at a joint legislative session that has yet to be scheduled.