University of Alaska

The pandemic relief law Congress passed last month has a lot of money for Alaska schools: nearly $359 million for K-12 and $34 million for the University of Alaska. But the state may not be able to collect a third of it, due to the steep pre-pandemic budget cuts imposed on the university.

The problem for Alaska, as reported Tuesday by The Midnight Sun political blog, is the American Rescue Plan requires states to show “maintenance of effort” on education.

Alaska Legislative Finance Director Alexei Painter explained to legislators this week that to get the full amount, the state has to show “essentially, that we’re spending the same percentage of our state budget in FY ’22, and FY ’23 on (higher) education and K-12 as we were before the pandemic — FY17 through ‘19 is the reference here.”

Painter said the state appears to meet the requirement for primary and secondary ed. But in 2019, Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced three years of cuts to the university system, totalling $70 million.

Now it looks like that  $70 million cut could cost the state as much as $130 million — or a third of Alaska’s education money in the American Rescue Plan.

Painter said the state may be able to get a waiver but the federal government hasn’t made the rules clear yet.

“And so there’s at this point, just substantial uncertainty about whether we will be able to pass that provision,” he said at a hearing of the Alaska House Ways and Means Committee.

Painter said new federal guidance suggests the state can collect two-thirds of the education money without having to prove maintenance of effort. But he said the requirement applies jointly to both kinds of education spending. If the state is penalized for cutting the university budget, it would receive less K-12 money also.

The superintendent of the state’s largest school district, a former Alaska governor and a former head of Utqiaġvik’s tribal college are among the eight candidates in the running to serve as the next chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

UAA’s search committee announced the group of finalists on Thursday.

The three Alaskans are Anchorage School District Superintendent Deena Bishop, former Republican Gov. Sean Parnell and Pearl Brower, former president of Iḷisaġvik College in Utqiaġvik.

The other five candidates are university leaders from outside of Alaska:

• Satasha Green-Stephen, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System.

• Angappa Gunasekaran, dean of the School of Business and Public Administration at California State University, Bakersfield.

• Robert Marley, professor of engineering management at Missouri University of Science and Technology, and former provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.

• Rashmi Prasad, dean of the School of Business at Truman State University, and former dean of UAA’s College of Business and Public Policy.

• David Rosowsky, professor of civil engineering at the University of Vermont, and former provost and senior vice president.

All eight candidates will meet with UAA students and staff and attend community forums next week, according to Thursday’s announcement.

Interim University of Alaska President Pat Pitney will name one of the candidates as UAA chancellor next month, in consultation with the UA Board of Regents.

That person will take over the job once held by Cathy Sandeen, who left UAA earlier this year to become president of California State University, East Bay.

For more information on the candidates and upcoming forums, visit alaska.edu.

A National Science Foundation grant will allow the University of Alaska Fairbanks to expand its activities at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Gakona.

The U.S. military built HAARP in the 1990s for $290 million to conduct ionospheric research related to communications, navigation, surveillance and other applications. But in 2015 the Air Force ended the program and turned the HAARP facility over to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

UAF has since operated it sporadically for government and independent clients.

“We’ve been charging a little over $5,000 an hour to use the facility,” UAF Geophysical Institute Director Bob McCoy said. “But we haven’t had very many hours, so it’s been costing us quite a bit.”

McCoy says five-year, $9.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation will enable the university to maintain the HAARP facility and expand operations.

“Now we can open it up fully and invite in people to use it, so it’s a really big deal for us,’ McCoy said.

McCoy says the HAARP station is the most powerful of three ionospheric research facilities on the planet. It uses hundreds of high frequency radio transmitters and antennas, to probe the ionosphere.

McCoy says it’s a tool that will be increasingly valuable for scientific experiments involving the aurora as the solar cycle peaks.

“The next four or five years, the ionosphere should get a lot more exciting,” McCoy said. “You should see, in the winter, a lot more dynamic aurora.”

HAARP is also useful as a remote sensing tool, an application McCoy says is in demand as the Arctic warms and countries vie for control of it.

“We can actually look north several hundred miles from Alaska, and we can study the ocean,” McCoy said. “We can measure sea ice, and we can look for aircraft or ships out in the Arctic Ocean. HAARP can transmit, say, to the north, reflect off the ionosphere down to the sea ice, and you pick up that signal again either with an antenna or a satellite.”

McCoy says a separate grant will provide a million dollars to build and locate a LIDAR instrument at the HAARP site, for study of other parts of the upper atmosphere. That, together with other instrumentation UAF plans to relocate to the HAARP site, will make up what’s being called the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory for Space Physics and Radio Science.

Correction: The original version of this story put the dollar amount of the NSF grant at $3 million. The correct amount is $9.3 million.

A state-funded scholarship designed to boost academic performance and college access in Alaska isn’t paying out as many scholarships as anticipated, according to a new review.

The biggest barriers appear to be SAT/ACT test requirements and political and funding instability around the University of Alaska system.

The report analyzed use of the Alaska Performance Scholarship, which pays scholarship money to Alaskan students based on GPA and standardized test scores, for the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. Money for the scholarship comes from the state’s Higher Education Investment Fund, which was initially created by the Legislature with $400 million.

Legislators expected the scholarship to give out more money over time when it was created in 2010. But after a few years of initial growth, its use has steadily declined, said Rebecca Braun, part of the research team that conducted the review of the APS. In 2019, she said, it paid out $9.4 million.

“If you look back at the legislative history, and when it passed, that’s less than half of what was anticipated as the annual payout,” she said.

Millions of dollars are not being used by Alaska students each year. In fact, the fund has never given out the $20.6 million in annual awards that it anticipated.

According to the report, only 644 Alaska high school graduates used the scholarship in 2019, far fewer than the 2,305 students it was anticipated to serve each year.

The scholarship was designed to encourage students to achieve higher academically as well as encourage students to stay in Alaska for their post-secondary education. Alaska has struggled with both objectives.

According to state data, 66% of Alaska’s 9th graders tested below or far below proficient in English language arts and 73% tested below or far below proficient in Math on the PEAKS assessment in 2019. And, the percentage of Alaska high school graduates enrolling in college has been on the decline since at least 2013 according to the ACPE. Just 44% of Alaska’s high school graduating class of 2019 enrolled full-time in college, well below the national average of 61%.

The biggest barrier for Alaska students to qualify for the scholarship is SAT/ACT scores, Braun said. And the review found racial disparities in which students were eligible for the scholarship were also largely driven by the testing requirement. Less than 10% of Alaska Native students were eligible for the scholarship in 2019 compared to an average of 23% of all students statewide.

“A lot of Alaska students, particularly in rural Alaska and in groups such as those who are first generation to go to college, have low awareness of the test they may have barriers to access not just paying the fees but in some cases finding a place that administers it,” Braun said.

There was one outlier in the data: the graduating class of 2020. Eligibility for the scholarship for Alaska Native students increased by 159%, and increased by 60% for all students. This was the same year most colleges, and the scholarship program, waived SAT/ACT requirements due to the pandemic, further implicating standardized tests as a barrier to the scholarship money.

Even though the scholarship can offer up to $4,755 to recipients per year, the review found that when students do qualify for the scholarship, some aren’t using it, in part because it comes in too late compared to other college’s financial aid offers. But also, some survey responses indicated that staying in Alaska is becoming less attractive to college-going students.

In 2019, thousands of students who received the APS were notified months before fall classes started that the money might not be available due to a legislative budget issue, although the funding was ultimately restored. Before that, lawmakers proposed cutting the scholarship fund entirely in 2017.

More recently, the state’s major college option, the University of Alaska system, has been navigating through the final year of implementing a $70 million state funding cut, which resulted in cuts academic programs, proposed campus mergers and the proposed elimination of some sports teams.

The scholarship can only be used at in-state institutions, and it isn’t large enough to keep students who have competing offers from other colleges in Alaska, Braun said.

“The state is going to have to do something different to achieve that objective of making the University of Alaska more attractive and keeping these students in state. But meantime, we’re losing the opportunity to help some of these rural students, first generation and underrepresented groups get to college. They are much more likely to use this scholarship if it’s offered to them.”

The review’s recommendations include getting rid of the standardized test requirements and simplifying eligibility. Because the scholarship program is written into law, Braun said any changes to the program would require legislative action.

Bethel Elder Esther Green is going to be honored with the Meritorious Service Award from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, becoming the first educator from the Kuskokwim Campus to earn that distinction.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks describes the Meritorious Service Award as a “high and rare honor.”

“When I was told, tears came out. I was shocked,” Green said. “In my lifetime, I thought I wouldn’t be in that situation.”

Green’s journey in the educational world wasn’t an easy one from the beginning.

“When I entered BIA for the very first time, I did not know any English. Somebody interpreted to me that I cannot speak my language in the classroom. So it was really, really hard not being able to speak my teacher’s language,” Green said.

She dropped out of school in 6th grade and started working odd jobs to help her mother pay the bills.

“My mom was in my heart. I need to help her,” Green said.

Green went on to work at the first prematernal home in Bethel. But someone suggested she would be a good teacher, and she received a call from UAF, recruiting her to teach Yup’ik.

“Man, I was so happy,” Green said. “Because I love to work with kids. And depending on my experience, how hard it was for me, I want to help the kids.”

Rather than turn her back on the school system which had denied her parts of her culture as a child, Green set out to make it better. But it was going to be a challenge for someone who had dropped out of formal education in 6th grade. She started as a classroom aide, and went back to get her associate’s degree.

“When I first entered college, it was like entering into another dimension,” Green said.

Green persevered, became a certified Yup’ik Language Arts teacher, and taught with a passion. Even after retiring, she couldn’t stay away from the classroom. Fifteen years ago, she became a program elder for the Rural Human Service Program, or RHS, at the UAF Kuskokwim Campus, a program for rural, village-based human service workers like social workers or counselors. In the classroom, Green translates, shares stories, and offers wisdom in a way that only an elder can. RHS professor Diane McEachern said that her classes often discuss difficult issues like domestic violence, substance abuse, trauma, and grief.

“And sometimes there’s strong emotions,” McEachern said. “And I know that I can turn to Esther and say, ‘What could we do now?’”

McEachern also said that for many students, Green’s presence alone is comforting.

“My students have said that when they walk into the classroom and they see the elders, they get a almost a physical sense of relief,” McEachern said. “Because education has been traumatizing and damaging in many ways. And so to see an elder, your own elder there, is very relaxing and reassuring. And it lets people know that you’re Yup’ik, no matter what. And just because you enter this university, your identity comes with you.”

That’s something Green always emphasizes for her students.

“I always tell them that you can still be yourself, and go to Western education, and what might be useful for you, you can take. It’s ok. Take, and leave what you won’t use,” Green said.

McEachern said that Green has taught her that non-Yup’ik students and teachers can practice that same philosophy of melding the teachings of multiple cultures to realize something greater.

“I’m still Diane, kass’aq Diane, but I see in the Yup’ik culture things that are really healing for society, really. So I kind of do the same. I take her advice and I do it in my way, the way that she’s advising her students,” McEachern said.

Green and McEachern haven’t been able to see their students in person since September 2020 due to the pandemic. In that time, Green became sick with COVID-19 and was medevaced to Anchorage. She said that the journey was a lonely one, and that she’s looking forward to being reunited with her second family.

“I’m anxious to see the students again. When I think of the students, I think of them as my family,” Green said.

In-person classes are due to resume at the end of March, so Green should be able to see those students again soon. Plus, there are plans to hold a special event on April 30 to honor Green for her Meritorious Service Award.

Thousands of library books — some of them rare — are in cold storage after a sprinkler pipe burst on the University of Alaska Southeast’s Ketchikan campus. College librarians went to great lengths to salvage items from the collection.

Repairs to the library are progressing and librarian Kathy Bolling said they hope to reopen to the public next Monday.

Freezing temperatures in Ketchikan brought the mercury down to single digits at night and in the 20s during the day in Ketchikan in early February. That’s thought to have caused a pipe to burst on the top floor of the Zeigler building at UAS, with water flooding down to the second floor that houses the library and student center, said campus business manager Chris Hoyt.

“It soaked a good portion of the library and a good portion of the collection of books and the flooring,” Hoyt said. “We lost ceiling tile in that space. The water continued through the roof panels and went into the Student Center and did the same thing in there.”

Water continued to flow through the walls and floors, soaking portions of first-floor offices. Computers and workstations were damaged before the maintenance staff shut the water off after about 15 minutes. A thousand gallons of water had been released.

The sprinkler system triggered an alarm that called the fire department. Hoyt said it was “all hands on deck” to do what they could to rescue the campus’ library collection.

Fortunately, those cold temperatures also proved useful.

“It was still freezing weather, so that’s the best solution for a wet book — to get it frozen,” he said.

Freezing keeps the books from developing mold and mildew. To protect the books that remained indoors, temperatures in the library were kept low.

Campus librarian Kathy Bolling said commercial dehumidifiers and high-powered fans were deployed to dry everything out.

“If we’ve got 70-degree temperatures at 70% relative humidity for just a couple of days, that could have taken out the entire collection,” Bolling said.

That would be 33,000 books.

Books were put in carts and boxes based on the extent of saturation and stored outside to keep them cold until a freezer van arrived the next morning. And there they’ll remain until a plan is in place to restore them.

Some books may be beyond repair. Bolling said they’re not sure just how many. The UAS Ketchikan campus library has an academic library for its classes and research.

“We have such a unique collection. We’re going to do our best to salvage what we can and replace what we can, and try not to cry too much during that. This has been a library that’s been built over decades,” Bolling said.

One of the hardest hit areas is the Alaska Native culture and language collection. But Bolling said, fortunately, none of the rarest books were damaged.

Bolling describes the painstaking restoration process.

“Putting them upright, fanning the pages — of course, this is for hardbacks that can stand up — with fans in the room not pointed directly at the books and have a dehumidifier in that room,” Bolling said. “We’ll see, a day or two, how long it takes for those to dry out and then book press them.”

UAS Ketchikan staff is consulting with other libraries and experts to determine the best path to take to restore its now frozen collection. Despite the catastrophe, librarians are still checking out books remotely. The building, however, remains closed to the public until further notice.