Geography & Environmental Studies, University of Alaska Anchorage

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By Nabi Qureshi, one of our majors!

Opinion: What Alaska can learn from Texas about utilities | Juneau Empire It is showing us the dangers of poorly run utilities.

UAA College of Arts and Sciences receives unequal cuts | The Northern Light News UAA College of Arts and Sciences receives unequal cuts By Gabby Vance - May 18, 2020 Budget cuts affected many programs and colleges within UAA. UAA’s College of Arts and Sciences, or CAS, has seen repeated cuts over the last five years and received over a 60 percent reduction of Undesignated...

If you were unable to share your comments with the Board of Regents at yesterday's oral testimony opportunity, you can still share your thoughts! Please send an email to the regents at [email protected] and support the continuation of environmental education at UAA.

Board of Regents Livestream CT No Record, Cloud Transcode

Please call in and support our program! This is an extremely important moment for the future of environmental education at UAA.

Oral Public Testimony

We have been told that oral public testimony will be very important in swaying members of the board. The day for giving testimony is May 26th from 4-5 p.m., though it will likely be extended to 6 p.m.

If you plan to testify, sign in early and get in queue! If you wait until late in the testimony, you will not get a chance. And, yes, you will need to stay on the phone until it is your turn to testify.

Written Testimony

This can be sent at any time to the board, but the best timing will be just before the board takes oral public testimony on May 26th from 4-5 p.m. (see more information below).

Your written testimony should be relatively short and to the point. Try not to exceed one typed page (perhaps shoot for 300-350 words?). If possible, use bullet points to emphasize your arguments.

There are likely some key arguments that will have appeal with the board and they are listed in order of importance:

1. The Environment and Society major was designed to meet workforce needs and to ensure that Alaskans (as opposed to non-Alaskans) are trained to do the environmental assessment needed to develop our natural resources. The program is successful in graduating young Alaskans who end up working for private firms and public agencies who do this work.
2. A large number of students will lose access to a valuable program. The major has averaged a population of 73 students and 12 graduates per year with only three faculty members. Two of those faculty members also teach in other programs. All of them teach popular general education required courses in valuable, 21st century disciplines.
3. The program is very efficient. The faculty are all extremely committed to teaching and rarely take “teaching releases” for research or administrative reasons. The tuition revenue generated last year by those three faculty members was $371,607.
4. ??? - tell them your story

Dear Supporters of the Environment and Society program,

If you have been following our travails, you will know that we have been “recommended for deletion” by Dean John Petraitis of the College of Arts and Science”, Provost John Stalvey, Chancellor Sandeen and the Statewide Academic Affairs Committee. But, the Board of Regents Academic and Student Affairs Committee did not recommend deletion in a 3-3 vote. (We were the only bachelor’s program to not be fully recommended for deletion!) They will revisit this decision in their May 28-29th meeting and the full board will vote on June 4th.

If deleted, the Environment and Society BS program will be deleted and all three faculty positions in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies will be terminated at some point in the future, probably after some period of “teach out” to last two to four years, unless the decision is reversed.

But, as hinted at before, it’s not a done deal! This decision can be reversed by the Board of Regents! And there are hints that this is a real possibility.

We know that many of you have already written letters of support, and we really appreciate that. Unfortunately, whose letters had no impact with the provost or chancellor, but we have some indication that the board may be more readily swayed. In fact, we know that there are board members who actively support our program!

So, we are asking you, again, to write letters and if you are brave, give a two minute oral public testimony to the board. The following information gives some instructions on how to submit your testimony, and we have relinked our “talking points” beyond that.

Thank you so much for all the help you have already provided.

Shannon, Audrey, and Dorn

https://www.alaska.edu/bor/public-testimony/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1itfZBjlP8AnLFNRd5Ieg6pY7XA0k68KO0WSCZ3Ma3Ik/edit =0

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fBWE3WXQJDu0xgYklg08daLsyK-doP2n8gr8en6hbrk/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sCDNpp7OF3Me6mbHRi_P1b5Iy-Y5L0TJvuqjuh8_St4/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1prtXDY5mR8mtVo7_yU5RUT19l0vZguF_vVQNnUw4EO8/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bq86kNhy9fkodSH61NtgZSrwkW2bAXpapb-4KDfZIW0/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iXufiVeXw0PrAZ-j9MwwusPx2IK2RYtvwXy8L_RBZT0/edit

Public Testimony | Board of Regents Public Testimony One hour of in-person public testimony will be held at each of the regularly scheduled full board meeting locations. Please see the individual Board of Regents' agenda pages for more information.

It is with heavy heart that we come to you with one more update on our program. Chancellor Sandeen has proven to us all that she is a hypocrite and has no real passion for climate education. Yesterday our program was recommended for deletion by her. The internal review process at UAA is now complete, and with it most of the lobbying power that we had. We ask you now to call and email the Board of Regents, and to brace yourselves for the loss of all climate policy education in the State of Alaska.