With the school year winding down, Alaska Pacific University took time last week to recognize it’s exemplary students, staff, and faculty members during the Annual Honors Assembly. Here are the highlights from the April 20th event. Faculty Merit Awards: It is one of the longstanding traditions at APU, that faculty would recommend one another for…
Sustainability Studies
Year in Review
As Alaska Pacific University closes in on the end of the 2016-2017 academic year, let’s take a look back on the learning, adventuring, and growing the University and the members of it’s community experienced since last fall. Welcomed new students, faculty and staff APU welcomed 215 new to APU students, both undergrad and graduate this…
APU Professor Recalls Oil Spill Impact
by Miriam Mezzetti On March 24th, 1989, over 2 decades ago, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker famously struck a reef and spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound. The event made a lasting impression, not only upon the environment, but also upon the humans it impacted. Many…
The New Face of Nature in the Last Frontier: Creating a Digital Resource Guide for Environmental Educators in Alaska
Thesis project by APU Outdoor and Environmental Education graduate student Jennifer Stein The purpose of this project was to create a single, streamlined source of information for Alaskan educators seeking to provide most relevant and pertinent environmental and resource education for their students. It has taken more than 100 hours to complete this database, proving…
APU on the Web: Candela explains icefield study for LinkTV viewers
Glacier science undertaken by double-major Sal Candela is showcased in a short film that takes viewers to one of the world’s largest non-polar masses of snow and ice. Candela, ’15, is completing bachelor’s degrees in Outdoor Studies and Earth Science and was selected for summer 2013 fieldwork by the Juneau Icefield Research Program. It recruits…
University teams with tribe-based council to gather watershed data
Efforts to gain knowledge about the Kuskowkim River watershed is the object of a canoe trip that will take team leader Martin Leonard, ’02, from the foothills of Mount McKinley to the Bering Sea coast. “There’s very little cohesive baseline water science data,” Leonard told the Journal of Commerce in its September issue. Leonard earned…
Bantz: Expedition Alaska is ‘transformative’
Among faculty traveling the Yukon River with APU’s Expedition Alaska course was University President Don Bantz. He’s back at his desk, giving thought to Expedition AK 2014, and sends along these thoughts: I’ve taught in several first-year college programs that I thought were excellent, but nothing even remotely resembling Expedition Alaska. The course sent APU…
Chosen: Mei Mei Evans’ first novel attracts notice for social justice theme
When one of the nation’s worst oil spills contaminated Alaska shores, APU’s Mei Mei Evans did more than watch in sadness. She wrote. And wrote. The result is “Oil in Water,” a first novel gaining national attention. One of the first things Mei Mei Evans wants you to know is that Alaska is home. Born…
NANANordic Photo Book Now Available
NANANordic is introducing the lifetime sport of cross-country skiing to rural Alaska through a sustainable Nordic ski program, starting with villages in the NANA region. The NANA region, located in northwest Alaska, encompasses 38,000 square miles, most of which is above the Arctic Circle. The region includes 11 villages: Ambler, Buckland, Deering, Kiana, Kivalina, Kobuk, Kotzebue,…
Alaska Pacific University is alive with entrepreneurs!
More than 50 local entrepreneurs eager for real-world advice gathered at APU for the annual Entrepreneurial Edge Speed Coaching and Boot Camp. Held Feb. 23-24, Day 1 brought together entrepreneurs and business professionals for speed-coaching sessions. Each expert met one-on-one with an entrepreneur for 15 minutes before a bell went off, signaling time for entrepreneurs…