UAA Center for Community Engagement & Learning

Professor of Biology Deborah Boege Tobin at Kenai Peninsula College received our CAFE Oh Wow (COW) award this year for Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarship: Community Engagement!

Through collaborations with organizations such as the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, NOAA Fisheries, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, her research examines marine mammal behavior and habitat use in places like the Kenai River and Kachemak Bay. Her work integrates community concerns, agency expertise, and student-led field research to generate data that can inform conservation and coastal development decisions.

Learn more about her and other COW awardees on our website! https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/office-of-academic-affairs/faculty-success/events-programs/facultyrecognition.cshtml

Community engagement in action! Thank you for joining us at the Community Engagement Forum last week - we appreciate that you took time out of your afternoon to be with us. It was great to see so many of us in one room sharing with each other, building new connections, and getting inspired. We hope you'll come back again next year and stay involved with our programs. Good luck with the last push through finals and end of semester!

We're excited to see you at the Community Engagement Forum today, 2-5 p.m. in the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building (CPISB)! Every year, this event rejuvenates us as we celebrate the community engagement work we are all doing in our communities. Everyone is welcome to attend, we hope to see you!

Schedule:
2 - 3 p.m.: CESA Poster Presentations in the Atrium
Learn about nearly 40 community-engaged projects completed by students, faculty, and community partners this past academic year.

3 - 4 p.m.: Program in the Auditorium
Hear from university and community leadership about the impact of community engagement, get inspired by wide-ranging projects, and celebrate the people who receive CCEL’s competitive awards.

4 - 5 p.m.: Refreshments and Continued Conversations
Connect with partners and dream for what is to come over food and drink.

Tomorrow is our Community Engagement Forum! Come to the CPISB Atrium at 2 for the Community Engaged Student Assistant poster gallery walk, followed by our program in the auditorium at 3. Community engagement is part of who we are at UAA, and we hope to see you there to celebrate the students, faculty, staff, and community partners who are doing amazing work!

Save the date in your calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit/copy/Nmg1dDQ1YmdmYnRtNW80c3N2cmozcXB0OWYgY183OTk4OGI4NjNlMzQyYWQwMmE1N2FhYWMyNjVkMzdlYTA4MjUyNDkzNmQwMmQxNGEyOTg5OGQwZTNjNThkNDY1QGc/bGJyb2xsaW5pQGFsYXNrYS5lZHU

Join us for our Community Engagement Forum this Friday, April 24, from 2 - 5 p.m. in the CPISB Atrium! This event gathers students, faculty, staff, and community partners to highlight the community engagement work they’ve accomplished throughout the year. Take some time to celebrate the work you, your colleagues, and your students are doing to better our communities and UAA! All are welcome, no registration is required.

Save the date: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=Nmg1dDQ1YmdmYnRtNW80c3N2cmozcXB0OWYgY183OTk4OGI4NjNlMzQyYWQwMmE1N2FhYWMyNjVkMzdlYTA4MjUyNDkzNmQwMmQxNGEyOTg5OGQwZTNjNThkNDY1QGc&tmsrc=c_79988b863e342ad02a57aaac265d37ea082524936d02d14a29898d0e3c58d465%40group.calendar.google.com

Huge thank you for speaking at our Community Engagement Gala, Amy Bishop & Hannah-Marie Ladd!

Dr. Bishop’s research focuses on the movement and behavioral ecology of marine predators and food-web dynamics in the North Pacific and North Atlantic coastal oceans. As an Assistant Professor at UAA, Dr. Bishop prioritizes partnerships with nonprofits, industry, and local and Indigenous communities and is committed to research, mentoring, and teaching environments that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.

Hannah-Marie Ladd is the Indigenous Sentinels Network Program Director and is of Native American (Sicangu Lakota), Spanish, and European descent. With a Master's degree in Marine Policy and an environmental science background, she supports communities in developing monitoring programs in her current position.

We'd like to thank the wonderful Kimberly Pace for joining us as a speaker at the Community Engagement Gala last month!

Kimberly Pace has been the UAA Faculty Director of the Model United Nations (MUN) program since 2004 and has been proud to partner with High School teachers throughout Alaska to produce MUN conferences. She has happily partnered with the CESA program since 2014. Each student is assigned to serve as a member nation-state, or Representative of an Indigenous People of the Arctic Council, play a major political figure on the Crisis Committee, or to try a case before the International Criminal Court. Students learn research skills, enhance their public speaking, and networking abilities. It’s educational, engaging, and fun!

Last year, Jennifer Bernard received the Selkregg Award for her "Tenant Success Workshop." Are you the next Selkregg Awardee? We encourage UAA faculty to apply to this $5,000 award that supports faculty in developing community-engaged research, creative activity, and course-based service-learning projects. The deadline is next week, March 20!
Apply: https://uaa.infoready4.com/ /2005085
Learn more: https://www.uaa.alaska.edu/academics/office-of-academic-affairs/faculty-success/community-engagement/selkregg-award-about.cshtml