University of Alaska

University of Alaska Fairbanks associate professor of fisheries Peter Westley is clear that there’s nothing new about salmon straying into Arctic Ocean waters. Westley says the fish have long been occasionally observed and caught, but their numbers appear to be increasing.

“And we were interested in whether the change in the sort of frequency of salmon being encountered…is that a perhaps indicator that the salmon are not only showing up in the ocean but are showing up in rivers and are potentially working to establish populations in a new region.”

Last month, Westley lead a team that aerially surveyed two Colville River tributaries, the Anaktuvuk and the Itkillik, and counted about a one hundred chum salmon equally split between the two Arctic rivers. He says movement of a species farther north is a clear signal of climate change.

“So in the past where those fish might have been sort of hopeful colonists showing up and kind of giving it a go, the conditions are just changing enough that we might be on the cusp of having it be a viable success story for the salmon.”

Elizabeth Lindley, a PhD student working on the project, says that while the development is positive for the salmon, it’s not necessarily good for the region’s people.

“Being Yupik and from Bethel, I was really interested in this question about salmon, which are really important to me, maybe impacting other Indigenous ways of life and ecosystems,” she said.

Lindley helped organize and lead an Arctic salmon workshop last December where she says people shared difference perspectives on the movement of the fish.

“Some community members that were present expressed concern over increasing salmon and not wanting to catch more salmon because it interferes with cultural harvesting practices, but I think it really varies by the person and the community,” she said.

Lindley says the impact of salmon sharing spawning grounds with Arctic char and Dolly Varden is among the unanswered questions.

The UAF team deployed temperature sensors in gravel where the chum salmon were observed spawning to track whether the water remains warm enough for the eggs to survive. The origin of the Arctic chums is unknown, but Westley says analysis of samples gathered from the fish this fall will provide clues.

“Extract DNA and sort of compare that to the genetic structures of known populations,” he said. “You can also use the water signatures, the chemistry of the waters themselves that gets archived in the ear bones, the otoliths.”

Lindley and Westley both emphasize the value of Indigenous knowledge in understanding the history and future of salmon in the Arctic Ocean and North Slope rivers. The UAF lead research group plans to head back to the Anaktuvuk and Itkillik rivers next fall to look for smolt as well as more spawning adults.

Student enrollment is up at University of Alaska campuses overall, chancellors told the board of regents at their meeting Thursday.

The news of overall 4.7% growth systemwide comes after a five-year downward trend in student enrollment. College enrollment has declined nationally over the last decade, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regent Karen Purdue said the growth reflects well on President Pat Pitney’s leadership and said there’s still work to do.

“These growths are from a valley,” she said. “What’s reflected here is the confidence of the public in the ability of the university that we didn’t have over the past several years.”

The state cut funding to the university by $55 million from 2019 to 2022. The state spending rose by $47 million in the budget year that ended in June.

Less than half of college bound Alaska high school students attended college in the state in the last two years, according to a study by the Alaska Commission of Postsecondary Education.

University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor Daniel White said the budget cuts reduced Alaskans’ confidence in UA education.

“It used to be that most Alaskans went to one of the universities in Alaska. When big budget cuts happened, there was a shift,” he said. “More than half are going out and it used to be more than half stayed in.”

But UA chancellors boasted of full student residences and bustling campuses in the first days of the new school year. They urged the regents to invest in continued growth by modernizing campuses and empowering educators.

University of Alaska Anchorage Chancellor and former Gov. Sean Parnell asked the regents to hold tuition flat to encourage enrollment because an increasing number of students are arriving at the university that will not have help from their families to pay tuition.

“UAA is more accessible and affordable, but the financial needs of our students are also greater,” he said.

He said financial incentives worked when the university wanted to fill its student housing, so affordability could make enrollment more popular, too.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

A former University of Alaska Fairbanks student is suing the university, alleging she was injured during a culinary arts class in 2022.

Ariel Lamp, who left the university after the incident, filed suit July 14 in Fairbanks Superior Court. The suit requests more than $100,000 in damages, plus costs.

Lawsuits against the university are relatively rare; online court records show it listed as a defendant only 13 times since 1988.

Through her attorney, Jeff Barber of Anchorage, Lamp declined an interview request.

According to the complaint, a UAF professor invited students to consume three spoonfuls of “Da Bomb” hot sauce directly. The lawsuit did not name the professor or class.

Da Bomb sauces, manufactured in Kansas City, are among the spiciest commercially available products on the market, with some variants approaching the heat of pepper spray.

Reviewers, and the company’s own instructions, say the sauce should be diluted before use. Without dilution, it’s frequently painful to consume, so much so that its use in a YouTube series called “Hot Ones” — in which celebrities are interviewed while eating hot wings — has become notorious.

According to the complaint, Lamp suffered months of abdominal pain and discomfort after eating the hot sauces, sought medical treatment and left UAF because of her continued pain.

The complaint says she “suffered severe, permanent physical injury from consuming the hot sauce at UAF” or that it may have exacerbated a pre-existing condition.

Lamp altered her diet and is continuing to take medicine but is still experiencing symptoms, the complaint said, and one doctor “discussed removing her gall bladder.”

The lawsuit alleges that by failing to follow warning labels on the bottle, “UAF’s teacher … negligently encouraged the students in the class to consume Da Bomb hot sauce when he knew or should have known that the product was not safe for everyone to consume,” thus making the university liable for the harm that ensued.

Marmian Grimes, the university’s public information office, said it has received a copy of the complaint and is reviewing it, but she declined to comment, citing the university’s policy of not speaking about ongoing litigation.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

A special denizen of the upper Lynn Canal might be hiding in plain sight, undocumented by science. Derek Sikes, a professor of entomology in Fairbanks, wants to know if the western bumblebees are in Haines.

Sikes is looking for a bee with one feature. The western bumblebee has that fuzzy bumblebee look. It has some yellow on its thorax, but its abdomen is all black, except for a splash of white at its very end.

“It has this very distinctive white butt,” he said.

Western bumblebees were once common throughout Western North America. As global warming progresses, Sikes says the bees are disappearing from the southern part of their range. But so far, biologists are not seeing them move north to follow their preferred temperatures. This means their range is shrinking.

Sikes says if current trends continue, they could go extinct by the end of the century. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the species as endangered.

To determine if these bees occur in Alaska, biologists are modeling their current habitat.

“Looking at all the parameters like temperature, precipitation, and a whole lot of other things. And then seeing, ok, this is where it occurs, where might it also occur?” he said. “What other parts of the world have the same niche, the same basic habitat?”

This is what has led Sikes to Skagway and Haines. He says currently the western bumblebee population peters out in British Columbia, at the latitude of Southern Southeast. Much of the panhandle is too wet for the species. Hoping to find them, Sikes went to Haines last summer, and a colleague went to Skagway. They headed for the flower patches to collect some specimens.

“The basic method is we go around, we look for flowers, we net them, we move on to another site, and we try to cover as much of the road system as possible in the short time that we are there,” he said.

To assist in the search, the biologists have enrolled some local volunteers. Haines resident Patty Kermoian is one of them.

“He came down to Haines, and I met with him briefly, and he set me up with a bee net and some collecting vials and told me what to do, and gave me paperwork,” she said.

So far, no luck.

“Mostly, it’s when I’m out, I look at all the bees, I’ve caught a few in my net but they weren’t the right ones, so I let them go,” she said.

Sikes says after searching for two summers in a row, he is confident he has a representative sample of the upper Lynn Canal bee population. He says so far he has identified six different species of local bees, but found no western bumblebees.

He says if those bees do occur in Skagway or Haines, they probably came through the Interior and traveled along the road system.

“In our surveys, virtually all the bees were found feeding on introduced plants like ox eye daisies, and clover, and orange hawkweed and all these other non-native plants that grow along the roads,” he said.

Sikes says the roads probably help the bees by mimicking their original meadowland habitat.

“Because they don’t occur in the dark, cold forest. They like it sunny and warm,” he said. “And the road system, as artificial as they are, is like an incredible advantage to these bumblebees. And all these invasive plants. We tend to think negatively of invasive plants, but they are providing a lot of food for these bumblebees.”

To assist Sikes in his search, anyone can take a picture of a bee and upload it to iNaturalist, a free app. A good image of the abdomen is crucial.

Sikes says if the bee was caught in a net, put it in a cooler. When it comes out, the bee will move slowly for a moment while it warms up. This allows you to get a better picture. He’d like to see it. You can send the picture to dssikes@alaska.edu

Tuckerman Babcock resigned from his post as a member of the University of Alaska Board of Regents on Wednesday, after two months in the role and before his confirmation by the state Legislature.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Babcock, his former chief of staff and a longstanding Republican figure, to the board that guides policy and appoints the president of the state’s university system on June 1, after legislators rejected Bethany Marcum for the position in May.

In his resignation, addressed to the governor, Babcock thanked him and said he was humbled and honored by his appointment.

“I simply find myself unable to devote the full time and attention to the Board that you, my fellow Regents and the University certainly deserve,” Babcock wrote in the short letter, which he emailed Wednesday morning.

Babcock could not be reached by phone for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

Babcock served as Dunleavy’s chief of staff from December 2018 until July 2019. In 2021, a federal judge found that the men violated the U.S. and Alaska state constitutions when they sent letters seeking the resignation of hundreds of state employees. Babcock said the letters were intended to confirm that the employees wanted to work on Dunleavy’s agenda.

The state paid a total of $845,000 to settle lawsuits for the wrongful firings of three state employees as a result.

Babcock also served as the chair of the Alaska Republican Party and as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for state Senate in 2022.

Some legislators said they thought Babcock’s confirmation would be unlikely. He was a supporter of Dunleavy’s deep cuts to the university budget in 2019, among the reasons legislators cited when they rejected Marcum for the same role.

The board will still conduct “business as usual” with only 10 members, said Jonathon Taylor, a spokesperson for the university. He added that Board of Regents Chair Ralph Seekins and University President Pat Pitney thanked Babcock for his service on the board.

The governor’s office gave no comment on Wednesday, but a spokesperson for his office said there will be an announcement when the governor selects a new appointee.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.

Dr. Aparna Palmer took over as chancellor for the University of Alaska Southeast earlier this month. Palmer will manage Southeast campuses in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan.

Palmer outlined her goals during an appearance on Juneau afternoon. She said she hopes to increase the visibility of UAS after the pandemic, with a focus on student recruitment. 

“We don’t want to be a hidden gem,” she said. “We want to be that visible, shining gem that is present in the minds’ of all Alaskans, and also has a presence in the Lower 48.” 

Palmer pointed to world-class faculty and small class sizes as draws for recruiting new students.

Palmer also said she hopes to promote student retention across the spectrum of university programing, from training and certifications in the skilled trades to bachelor’s and master’s programs. 

“When they’re here at UAS, I want to make sure that they feel like the barriers to completion are lower,” she said. “No matter who you are, I want to be that institution that helps people to overcome those barriers.” 

University of Alaska President Pat Pitney appointed Palmer earlier this year to take over after the retirement of former Chancellor Karen Carey. 

Palmer was previously the vice president of Front Range Community College in Colorado. Before that, she was the assistant vice president for academic affairs at Colorado Mesa University, where she taught biology.