University of Alaska

The U.S. Department of Energy announced last week it was dedicating $45 million toward advancing the domestic supply of critical minerals. $7.5 million of that will go to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for research into Alaska’s critical mineral potential.

Coming in the wake of China’s new export restrictions on several critical minerals, the grant is part of the federal government’s push to become more resource-independent. Critical minerals — like gallium, antimony and germanium — are essential for most modern technology components.

Grant Bromhal, a science advisor for the DOE, says half of the United States’ critical mineral supply comes from other countries. But he says all but one of the 50 different types of critical minerals are present in Alaska.

“I think Alaska has incredible potential to support these critical mineral material needs that we know are coming,” Bromhal said. “Alaska has incredible natural resources that we’re looking to help use to support this need for cleaner, more environmentally friendly materials for our defense and national security and economic and energy security.”

The university’s Institute of Northern Engineering will use the funds to build off its ongoing survey of Alaska mines and start mapping out the Pacific Northwest for critical mineral deposits.

“This is a chance to evaluate what resources we have inside the US that can be brought in,” Bromhal said. “Particularly from secondary and unconventional sources.”

Finding critical minerals in tailings

The grant will help sustain UAF research on mine tailings, which are the leftover materials that pile up during mining activity. Some tailings contain trace amounts of critical minerals that could be extracted for commercial use.

Brent Sheets, who directs the project, says his team is sending researchers all over the state to test samples for critical minerals.

“We’ll collect the samples and then take a look at it with a handheld x-ray fluorescence XRF — it’s a screening tool,” he said. “It tells us whether or not it’s worth investigating that core through more sophisticated means.”

He says the research has already yielded interesting results for several mines across Alaska. Samples from Healy’s Usibelli Coal Mine, the state’s only operating coal mine, showed exceptionally high levels of tungsten, germanium and yttrium.

And the Greens Creek Mine, near Juneau, was flagged for having the greatest potential for extracting critical minerals from tailings out of all Alaska mines. Sheets’ team estimates the value of all metals in the Greens Creek tailings pile at $2.8 billion, with most of that coming from gold and silver. The zinc alone could be worth $395 million.

Getting minerals to marketplace

Sheets says the scope of the project is much larger than just finding the minerals. His lab is also trying to solve some of the huge logistical problems that stand in the way of extracting them.

Alaska’s size and geological diversity makes it as obstacle-rich as it is opportunity-rich for mineral development. He says the state’s remoteness and extreme terrain makes getting critical minerals out of Alaska difficult.

“What can we do to get those minerals into the marketplace?” he said. “Antimony is very big right now on the list of minerals. We’re working very closely with Alaska Range Resources down in the south central part of the state, but there’s antimony right here in the Interior too.”

He says the next step is to tackle the first item on their laundry list of logistical problems. Researchers at the Institute of Northern Engineering will speak with communities and Tribes about ways to recruit employees and invest in local infrastructure to support critical mineral mining projects.

Disclosure: Usibelli Coal Mine is a corporate sponsor of KUAC.

The University of Alaska system and the union representing nearly 1,100 faculty members and postdoctoral fellows are headed into federal mediation in January.

The bargaining parties announced a deadlock in negotiations earlier this month, and agreed to the federal mediation process, as the current three-year contract is set to expire at the end of the month. Representatives of both the university and United Academics Local 4996 told the Alaska Beacon they are hopeful.

“Both UNAC and the university felt that mediation would help us build on the progress that we’d already made towards that new contract,” said Jonathon Taylor, public affairs director for the University of Alaska system. “And [it would] increase the likelihood that we would be able to agree on a completed contract before some important state budget deadlines this coming spring.”

Bargaining began in August, and so far the parties have tentatively agreed to 17 of 22 contract provisions. The terms must be submitted to the Legislature no later than March 21, 2025, to be considered for the next state budget.

The bargaining deadlock is centered around compensation and benefits.

Union President Jill Dumesnil pointed to high costs of living, particularly in Southeast Alaska.

“Faculty members can barely afford to live in the communities in which they work and are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Dumesnil, a professor of mathematics at the University of Alaska Southeast.

“One tragedy, one flood, one power outage, one big snowstorm away from, you know, catastrophe,” she said. “So it’s really important that our members get significant pay raises.”

The union has proposed raising wages by 4%, 4.5% and 5% annually over the next three years, while the university administration has proposed 2.75%, 3% and 3% increases.

Dumesnil said university faculty have been hit hard by inflation, and argue that without any raise in wages it’s like a pay cut. “[Union members] have lost between 12.5 and 14.5% of their purchasing power since 2018 because we either received no raises, or raises that were significantly below the consumer price index for urban Alaska,” she said.

Inflation hit a 41-year high in 2022 at 8.1%, according to an Alaska Economic Trends analysis, and while those rates eased last year, prices continued to rise for transportation, groceries and housing. A 2023 survey by the Council for Community and Economic Research compared the costs for a fixed standard of living across 276 U.S. cities, and showed that Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage ranked 18th, 21st and 24th. They ranked in the top three for highest grocery and health care costs in the survey.

“We also are grappling with some increasing costs as far as health care, and health care benefits are concerned,” Taylor said. The university’s employer-sponsored health coverage costs have increased almost 25% since 2023, he noted. He cited a national survey projecting that employer health coverage costs will increase by 9% in 2025.

“So we know that even as we are working to do what we can to address compensation, we also have to be mindful of other rising fixed costs and account for those as well,” he said.

The union has said they will agree to the status quo on health care benefits in the new contract, even as out-of-pocket expenses are expected to rise for members — in exchange for increasing wages.

“While the benefits package has been really good, we can’t eat the benefits or feed them to our children or pay our bills with them,” Dumesnil said.

The bargaining parties are also keeping in mind that the negotiations’ outcome ultimately depends on the state Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy agreeing on funding.

In a Dec. 3 letter, university President Pat Pitney raised a concern that the union’s compensation proposal would cost $113 million over three years, an estimated $40 million more than the university proposal. “If we ask for that amount and the state didn’t fund it, we would be forced to make significant reductions similar to those made over the past decade,” she wrote.

But Dumesnil said the union has faith that the Legislature would provide enough funding for their proposal. “The Alaska Legislature, as far as we know, has never failed to appropriate union-negotiated raises,” she said.

Additionally, union representatives argue the $113 million figure is an overestimate. They say the university is accounting for a wage increase for all staff, rather than just their bargaining unit, which they estimate would be around $20 million. “UA is choosing to give those groups raises equivalent to those negotiated by the unions,” said Dumesnil in a follow up email to the Beacon. “While we favor all employees being treated and compensated fairly, we are neither authorized nor obligated to negotiate on behalf of employees who are not in our bargaining unit. Again, this is a choice that UA is making and is doing so independent of negotiations with United Academics.”

The university says they are obligated to account for all union-represented staff and faculty raises, as part of what are known as “me too” clauses in employee contracts, which guarantees bargained raises apply for all employees, as well as to maintain equity.

“So the Board [of Regents] and university leaders have really sought to strike a balance of acknowledging and providing compensation increases that we know are key for recruitment and retention, but balancing it within our end state’s budget constraints,” said Taylor.

Last week, Pitney praised the governor’s proposed budget in a letter, saying it provides solid support for the university’s priorities. Among these items, the proposal includes $24 million to support negotiated wage increases for faculty and staff. That doesn’t account for the faculty union contract, which has yet to be determined.

Dumesnil said the increases the union seeks would offset years of sacrifices.

“During budget cuts and during COVID, the administration asked the faculty to step up and do more and, you know, get through the trouble. And then, we would be essentially made whole later,” she said. “Well, it is later. The budget has turned the corner. The president often says the university is stable, and so faculty are still being asked to do more work for less and less compensation, and we don’t think that’s reasonable.”

Bargaining is expected to resume in January, with the federal mediator. The federal mediation process is free, and provided by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an agency devoted to helping resolve labor-management disputes.

Both parties have expressed hope for the process, and that a deal will be reached by the March deadline. They have agreed that although the current contract will expire Dec. 31, the contract terms will continue through the bargaining process.

Correction: The article has been updated to reflect the fact that the “me too” clauses are in union-represented worker contracts.

When Tara Palmer checked her upcoming paycheck online on Tuesday, she got an unwelcome surprise. For her first weeks back to full-time work as a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage, she was scheduled to be paid $0.

“I am a single parent. I have a daughter in college that I help support, and a daughter in high school, and this is a very significant financial issue for me,” she said. “I try to plan ahead. I try to be careful with my money, of course, but missing an entire pay period is significant, regardless of how carefully one plans.”

An unknown number of university faculty learned this week that they were not scheduled to be paid on time for their first weeks of work after three months of summer without paychecks. Faculty and union representatives said Tuesday that the state university system’s failure to pay certain employees on time would be a breach of trust – and the law. They brought up their concerns at a public meeting with the university regents on Tuesday, when one faculty member called it a “travesty.”

Palmer said the situation has left her feeling uncertain about the future. She testified at the meeting.

“If I knew it was just me, and they screwed up something, I could roll with it. But this is numerous people. It’s not just my college, it’s not just UAA, and they aren’t fixing it. They’re just saying, ‘Oh, we’re short staffed,’ which is just utterly unacceptable,” she said.

Several other faculty said they would also not receive their next paycheck, but had concerns about speaking out.

Employees can manage their paychecks through an online portal, which shows the amount that they will receive on the upcoming payday. For the pay period of Aug. 11-24, for which employees are scheduled to be paid on Sept. 6, several faculty members see they will be making $0.

Palmer said she has been with the university for two decades and it is the first time her employer will have missed a paycheck. But she said she was disappointed that the university didn’t reach out and let her know that it would be failing to uphold one of its basic obligations as an employer.

“It’s a terrible way to treat your employees. I’m utterly baffled. And I love my job. I really love my job, but I do not love how they are treating us right now,” she said.

Jonathon Taylor, a spokesperson for the university system, said that university leadership has identified solutions over the course of the day on Wednesday and may be able to pay all employees on time.

“UA has been aware of the issues for several weeks, and we are working diligently to resolve them. Employee compensation is at the heart of our responsibility, and we are working to get all of our employees paid as quickly as possible,” he said in an email.

Taylor said the university does not yet have a count of how many faculty may be affected.

“The issues stem from a confluence of factors, including the start of the academic year, the holiday weekend, and the deadlines for getting hire paperwork submitted for the start of the semester,” he said in a subsequent email. “The full scope of the potential issue came into focus after the holiday weekend. There has been an effort to warn staff who may be affected.”

That message has not been making it out to faculty in the right way, said Jill Dumesnil, a math professor at University of Alaska Southeast and the union president there.

“They’re getting emails from their deans and directors saying … they might get paid next week or in two weeks,” she said. “Part of what’s really upsetting is just the casualness with which our members are being contact and told, ‘Oops, this happened.’”

Union members say they are hearing from administrators that the issue is a result of understaffing in human resources. Dumesnil stressed that the affected faculty are not to blame: “They signed their paperwork, they did their part, they did their job, they showed up, they worked and they should be paid on time. Understaffing in HR is not a legitimate excuse for not paying employees.”

The news comes as United Academics, the union for full-time university faculty, negotiates a new contract with the university. Several faculty members who called into the Tuesday meeting with the regents said their pay is not keeping up with the cost of living in the state. One faculty member from UAA described seeking relief at the local food bank because her salary is too high to qualify for food stamps.

Dumesnil said the paycheck issue comes on top of other financial concerns.

“We’ve already suffered the loss of purchasing power and a lot of faculty are living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “A lot of faculty can barely afford to live in their communities, especially in the rural communities and in Southeast.”

Dumesnil added that the problem of late pay has come up before. “To our knowledge, this is at least the third occurrence of this problem in the last four years,” she said.

Douglas Cost, a union representative, associate professor and program chair in the education department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said he has been getting texts, calls and emails from faculty concerned to see the university will not pay them at the end of the week.

“In cost-cutting measures, (the university) reduced HR to a shambles of what it once was. Now the HR concerns come to the union because faculty know that HR is not going to be able to really help them,” he said.

Cost said his colleagues have worked hard to get their degrees and achieve their roles on faculty at a university, but said it was laughable to have “made it” and then find you can’t count on a paycheck: “You’ve arrived, and you’re like, ‘Wow. T.J. Maxx has never not paid me.’”

UAF is currently seeking to double its doctoral student graduation rate to become a top-tier research university. Cost said he is unsure how the university can be top-tier without attracting talented faculty with competitive wages.

Graduate students are also affected. K. Janeschek, an organizer of the newly formed graduate student workers union, said not all graduate student workers have gotten their contracts processed by the university either, including several who have already started work. Janeschek said paperwork issues like this are “standard operating procedure at this point” for graduate student workers, but that has cascading consequences.

“For students the effects are pretty extreme,” they said. “Their salaries are small and most people can’t pay rent without biweekly paychecks. People I’ve known have missed rent payments in the past.”

Janeschek said that the union made sure their contracts included protection from late fees on tuition if contracts are processed late because students were charged late fees on tuition they don’t even owe.

They said human resources employees have pointed to short-staffing as a reason for delays, as well as the time-consuming nature of inputting the information by hand.

“Manual data entry in 2024 for thousands of contracts is not a good system,” Janeschek said, adding that, according to another union member, the university had about 150 graduate student contracts left to process as of last week.

In Anchorage, Tara Palmer said she has not heard anyone from the university say the problem may be resolved soon enough that employees like her are paid on time, but she hopes it will be. She checked her online account again on Wednesday afternoon, and her pay for the last two weeks of full-time work was still scheduled to be $0.

There are still some power tools and a clear plastic tarp scattered in the entryway of the newly constructed science building at the University of Southeast Alaska. Inside, there are shiny floors and a new building smell.

The first room you see after you walk through the main entrance, is a lounge with a few sets of tables and chairs and a giant picture window.

“This is the student lounge, which has a pretty stunning view out over Auke Bay and looking at Admiralty [Island]” said longtime professor of environmental science Eran Hood.

The brand new building is called Áakʼw Tá Hít, which translates to House at the Head of the Bay in Lingít.

In the 20 years since Hood joined the faculty, the department has always been a bit scattered, with offices and classrooms spread across campus. But starting next fall, faculty, researchers, and students in ecology, glaciology, geophysics and more will come together here.

“After many years of waiting, we have our own program space, which will be really fantastic,” Hood said.

The 16.1 million dollar construction project was funded with money from the university’s existing budget, along with reserves for building renewal and profits from the sale of the University bookstore building.

The project has been in the works since 2016, though COVID-19 pandemic delayed construction. But now, the two-story with modern gray wood paneling is nearly ready for people to move in.

It’s right next door to the Anderson Building, which houses the biology department. So the many students who study across disciplines will have an easy walk back and forth. Both buildings are just up the road from the university’s main campus on Auke Lake.

The lounge, with its high ceilings and a big wrap-around deck, will be the main gathering place for studying and group projects.

Faculty, including Hood, are just a few feet away.

“When I come out to have lunch there, I’ll be sitting with the students,” Hood said.

His office is just up the hall, in a row of offices that line one side, and his lab, which will be used for hydrology research, is right across the hall.

It will replace the old environmental research lab, which is a mile and a half away, in the Mendenhall Valley. Hood said that distance has been a challenge in the past.

“If I wanted to go from my office to my lab, I had to get in my car and drive. And if I wanted to have a student working with me, they had to have a way to get out there,” Hood said. “Now what you’ll see is, I can walk out of my office, across the hall and into the lab.”

A lab next door holds the university’s research on glaciology and drones. Each lab is equipped with all the basics — benches, fume hoods, and plenty of storage space.

“Both of the lab spaces are very flexible, so as we get new and different faculty in the future, you could use this space for a lot of different kinds of research,” Hood said.

On opposite ends of the building, there’s a wing with offices for administrators and visiting faculty, and another wing with desks for graduate students.

There are also classrooms. On the top floor, there’s a smaller one that holds about 20 students. Downstairs, a 40-person seminar room will hold introductory classes.

The downstairs also holds a lot of extra storage space and a dive locker for students studying marine biology and oceanography.

Almost all of the rooms have huge glass windows and doors, which let in sunlight and views of spruce trees and the beach.

“It really kind of opens to the environment,” Hood said. “Which is just what we were hoping for when developing the space.”

Hood said it will be a great place to study the natural world once students, faculty and researchers move in this fall.

Just before receiving her diploma as a University of Alaska Anchorage graduate on Sunday, Katie Scoggin spoke to her classmates about the importance of being part of a community.

“There is strength not only in numbers, but especially in dedicating yourself to serving others and giving back to the communities that raised you,” Scoggin said during her commencement speech.

Then, Scoggin walked across the stage to accept her diploma and the assembled crowd of her classmates went wild.

Sunday’s ceremony stands in stark contrast to the first time Scoggin earned a diploma. Four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person gatherings to a halt across the globe. Like high school seniors nationwide, the graduation ceremony Scoggin dreamed of was reduced to a car parade and a zoom call. Greeted by her masked teachers outside the entryway to Steller Secondary School in Anchorage, Scoggin shared her thoughts with classmates in front of a laptop and drove away.

“I feel like I really missed out and all of the other class of 2020 high school graduates missed out,” Scoggin said. “It’s our chance at redemption. It’s our time to shine, and be surrounded by the people we love.”

The pandemic also derailed Scoggin’s plans to attend college out of state. She had toured colleges in California and planned to visit more during spring break of 2020. Scoggin’s travel plans were canceled, and she opted to stay at home for school and attend UAA.

“I was sad at first because I was like, I can’t apply to these schools if I haven’t been on their campus and I don’t know what the environment is like,” Scoggin said. “At that point, I was just kind of like, okay, well, Plan B, actually, it was probably more like plan D, E to go to the University of Alaska Anchorage.”

Once she got to campus, Scoggin was busy. Her college extracurriculars involved a term as the student body president, she served on UAA’s Panhellenic council, as a peer health educator, a model United Nations delegate and she volunteered with the Alaska Innocence Project. She graduated with a degree in political science with minors in legal studies and Spanish.

Scoggin adapted to the new normal of the pandemic and found success at UAA, but there were challenges. Scoggin’s first semester of college started with online classes.

“There were just so many unknowns, uncertainties about this time period,” Scoggin said. “I knew that I wanted to be close to my family, because none of us knew what was ahead. So I decided to stay with my family, and I’m really glad that I did.”

Katie is the youngest of Bob and Ginger Scoggin’s five daughters. Bob said that out of all five, Katie takes after her mother the most. During Katie’s graduation speech, she spoke about the importance of giving back to the community — a value she said she learned from her mother. Ginger Scoggin emphasized the disruption caused to Katie and her classmates by the COVID-19 pandemic that changed so much about the way students attended class.

“The disconnect was so much bigger than just not graduating, you know, or doing a prom by zoom,” she said. “It was an emotional and physical disconnect that became, I guess, normal for them. But at our age looking, you know, down, it was not normal at all. It was tragic and sad.”

Willow Kristeller is Scoggin’s neighbor, and a fellow 2024 UAA graduate. Kristeller was sitting on the couch in her living room when she graduated from West Valley High School in Fairbanks in 2020. Kristeller said she’s always loved going to school, but attending online classes during a global pandemic tested that love.

“I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy,” Kristeller said. “I took five to six classes every semester for four years straight, and I’ve worked at least two right now three jobs while I’ve been in school.”

Kristeller was most disappointed when her senior softball season was canceled in 2020, along with the rest of the senior year traditions.

“We didn’t get our senior skip day, we didn’t get graduation, we didn’t get any of the precursor things that you do with your class,” Kristeller said. “It didn’t really hit how much I would want that stuff, and you don’t think about it until you don’t get it.”

On Sunday, she earned a degree in journalism and public communications, but said she wants to go back to school to become a teacher eventually. For now, Kristeller said, she’s ready for a break. During an interview before her graduation ceremony, Kristeller said she wanted to make sure to stop and enjoy the moment.

“We’re not only getting a graduation, but we’re finishing college,” Kristeller said. “That’s a pretty big achievement, and I think that’s what I’m trying to do is just take a second to be like, I did this, and I worked hard and I finished it.”

Scoggin summed up her feelings after graduating with nearly 950 of her classmates.

“Kind of speechless,” Scoggin said. “But mostly excited and really really happy to be surrounded by everyone I love, and everyone who loves me.”

Hundreds of University of Alaska graduate students protested in marches on Monday at the Fairbanks and Anchorage campuses to increase pressure on the university system as it negotiates a contract with their union.

The marches are a step down from a strike the Alaska Graduate Workers Association planned, after a Fairbanks Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday at the request of the University system.

Student employees say the marches come as their window to negotiate closes. The state’s Legislature must approve any agreement made between the students and the state-run university and only two weeks remain until the session adjourns, union member Isabel Olazar said.

“The deadline is rapidly approaching, which is why the union feels the need to ramp up action,” she said.

University of Alaska Public Affairs Director Jonathon Taylor said the university system also wants to reach an agreement soon. “It certainly would be the university’s preference that we’re able to reach an agreement in time for the monetary terms to be included for this budget cycle for this fiscal year,” he said.

But Taylor disagreed with the union that this week is a deadline for negotiations. “There are still other ways for funding and monetary terms to be considered,” he said. “A couple of years ago, we were unfortunately not able to reach a contract with one of our bargaining units in time for inclusion in the legislative session and there was retroactivity language included in that contract so that that could be funded.”

Taylor emphasized that the university is negotiating in good faith. Its bargaining team worked over the weekend and recently put in 12-hour days to come to an agreement, he said. He added that labor negotiations typically take more than a year; bargaining between the university and its student employees began three months ago.

The students voted to unionize in October.

Last week the nascent union issued an ultimatum to the university that it must ratify a final contract by April 29 or face a graduate student worker union strike, according to court filings. The university system said it became aware of the strike plan through social media and a news release. It asked the court to prevent a strike because the union lacked the legal prerequisite to do so lawfully: Negotiations between the union and the university have not reached an impasse.

The workers’ demonstration comes as the University of Alaska Fairbanks pushes to increase its graduate student population in an effort to become a top-tier research university. To be rated among the top 4% of the nation’s research institutions, it must double its Ph.D student count.

For Carter Freymiller, a research assistant pursuing his master’s degree, increased wages and a fair contract are critical in his decision to continue his graduate work in the state. He said he will likely wait on his doctoral studies if the university can fire workers at will.

“It is unfortunate that if this doesn’t happen, that I wouldn’t be able to pursue a Ph.D. here. Or it would be very challenging. And I would love to be able to do that,” he said. “We’re not really given a livable wage. At least, it’s very hard to live here on this salary — and I just live in a dry cabin.”

Increased wages and job security are two of the main sticking points in ongoing negotiations. The union and the university are scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday for continued bargaining.