FEATURES

1. Cannabis course aims to cultivate budding marijuana industry
   Despite the growth of the legal recreational cannabis industry, navigating its regulatory landscape can still be confusing. Journalism alumna and culinary arts assistant professor Riza Brown hopes to provide clarity through a new cannabis information course at UAA.
2. Driving the future of mental health response
   Anchorage’s new Mobile Crisis Team — which includes psychology alumna Jennifer Pierce and fire service administration alumnus Michael Riley — responds specifically to mental health emergencies, saving traditional first responders crucial time and resources.
3. Reporting authenticity at Amazon
   It can be easy not to think about the thousands of people involved behind the scenes in every Amazon purchase. But for journalism alumnus and Amazon communications manager Todd Walker, thinking about those unseen workers is his prime deliverable.
4. Adidas sneakers to Meta headsets
   Meta/Facebook has been working to bridge the gap between athletics and technology for the past nine years, tapping into sociology alumnus Brandon Walker’s experience as a professional athlete to help those efforts as their strategic partnerships lead for basketball.
5. Education across borders and generations
   Months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Jim Bowers established the Ukrainian Student Support Fund. Bowers’ history of educational philanthropy is predated only by his familial background in education, which includes his wife, education alumna and lifelong teacher Cheryl Childers.
6. How black holes answer our biggest questions
   Erin Hicks, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been studying supermassive black holes and their relationship to galaxies. With the James Webb Space Telescope launch, she is one step closer to unlocking their confounding mystery.
7. UAA rolls out tuition benefits for students
   It’s no secret that students today face more considerable financial barriers compared to previous generations. The good news is since 2019, tuition at universities have stagnated, including at UAA, where a number of new tuition benefits have been made available to students.
8. Alumni Homecoming Luncheon returns in person
   UAA’s largest alumni tradition returned after two years of virtual celebrations. Nearly 400 graduates gathered at the Alaska Airlines Center to hear from keynote speaker and journalism alumna Lauren Magiera and raise over $20K to benefit UAA programs and scholarships.

DEPARTMENTS

1. From the Editor
2. From an alumnus
3. From the chancellor
4. News Briefs
5. Class Notes
6. Lens on Campus

ON THE COVER

From the Editor

That Groundhog Day effect can be seen in the last few years of Spirit magazine, with issues themed reactionarily around preparedness, gratitude and recovery. More recent issues have begun peeking ahead at what’s next and a new day. But for this issue, I want to go further, to be future forward.

So for this issue of Spirit, we’ve spoken to UAA alumni leading the charge in some of the world’s trailblazing companies and industries, like sociology alumnus Brandon Walker and journalism alumnus Todd Walker (no relation), who work at Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon, respectively.

From An Alumnus

My wife, Karin, and I spent the last six years living in central Texas. I had the opportunity to work for SpaceX, and I loved my time there. Working at a rocket test facility opened my eyes to an amazing suite of technologies, an incredible group of people and experiences I will never forget. From watching rocket engine tests almost every day, watching two rocket launches in Florida and watching astronauts return to the space station from U.S. soil on rockets I helped test. These experiences could not temper our desire to be back home in Alaska.

If the last two years have taught us anything, it is that Seawolves are resilient. We kicked off the fall semester by welcoming students, faculty, staff and alumni back to UAA for some great in-person events like Campus Kickoff, Homecoming and bringing hockey and gymnastics back to campus. It’s been a great beginning to the academic year, and I am excited to see what the spring semester will bring.

Looking forward, we are moving past the challenges the pandemic brought, and I am happy to announce that enrollment is up across four of our six campuses. In addition to increased enrollment, we are keeping UAA affordable with a tuition freeze for the fall ’23 semester. We also rolled out many tuition benefits for students taking in-person and online classes.

In 2014, Alaska became the fourth state in the U.S. to legalize recreational cannabis use after Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Since then, more than 150 retail cannabis stores have opened in Alaska and remain operating. But despite this growth, navigating the cannabis regulatory landscape can feel like trekking through the precarious Wild West.

UAA alumna and culinary arts assistant professor Riza Brown, A.A.S. Culinary Arts ’11, B.A. Journalism and Public Communications ’11, hopes to provide clarity amid the haze through a new class at UAA: CannaBasics: An Introduction to Culinary Cannabis, which debuted fall 2022.

While no actual marijuana is handled in the class, CannaBasics provides a comprehensive, primarily theoretical overview of all things cannabis during six three-hour sessions. Topics covered include everything from plant anatomy, manufacturing equipment and appropriate dosing to sales, history and laws. But most importantly, the course emphasizes safety.

Dial 911, and the responding dispatcher might send one of three options: a police officer, a firefighter or an EMT. But what if no crime has been committed, no laws broken? What if there’s no actual burning building, just the feeling that everything is on fire? What if the medical emergency isn’t of the body but the mind?

Enter a fourth option: Anchorage’s Mobile Crisis Team (MCT), arriving not in a police cruiser, firetruck or ambulance, but in an inconspicuous SUV. Launched in the summer of 2021 and housed within the Anchorage Fire Department (AFD), MCT responds specifically to mental health emergency calls, such as suicidal ideations, schizophrenic or bipolar episodes, and even feelings of grief or loss.

Funded by roughly $1.5 million generated from a 2020 alcohol tax in Anchorage, MCT includes two units operating 10 hours a day, seven days a week. Each unit comprises a licensed clinician and a paramedic. The earliest of these units consists of clinician Jennifer Pierce, M.S. Clinical Psychology ‘17, G.C.R.T. Children’s Mental Health ‘17, and paramedic Michael Riley, A.A.S. Fire Service Administration ‘05.

It can be easy not to think about the thousands of people involved behind the scenes in every Amazon purchase — from the moment you add something to your cart to the day it arrives on your doorstep. For Amazon communications manager Todd Walker, B.A. Journalism and Public Communications ’11, thinking about those unseen and unsung workers is his prime deliverable (no pun intended).

Walker describes how his duties as communications manager have changed since he joined Amazon in August 2019 due to the shifting landscape caused by the pandemic and the company encouraging employees to experiment and innovate. Currently, he leads video storytelling for Amazon’s operations network, telling employee stories in an unscripted documentary style.

“Good storytelling makes you feel something that you’re going to remember long after you’ve forgotten the pretty picture or the sound bite,” said Walker. “You can always tell when you’re watching something that’s purely PR. But when you’re watching someone talk in an authentic way, that’s going to come through in a way a scripted segment never could.”

In this role, Walker manages Meta’s relationship with NBA and WNBA athletes while strategizing how the company engages with basketball holistically. According to Walker, Meta has identified basketball as a high priority because of its young, highly-engaged and international fanbase.

“In the immediate term, there was an inclination to help after witnessing people in this awful situation,” said Bowers. “In the longer term, when it comes to repairing what’s been destroyed, whether we’re talking buildings or bodies, you’re going to need people to be engineers or nurses to put all the broken pieces back together.”

This fund is the latest in a long history of philanthropy to UAA. In 2003, Bowers approached the university to establish a cultural exchange program between students of Russia and Alaska. To date, he has awarded $45,700 in scholarships, helping 27 students graduate in various fields from sociology, journalism, business, global logistics and international studies.

Erin Hicks, professor in UAA’s Department of Astronomy and Physics, is asking some really big questions — perhaps the biggest question that has ever existed — why are we here?

She may be one step closer to finding the answer.

Last fall, Hicks and her collaborators were awarded observation time on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for two research projects to be carried out as part of a larger effort known as the Galactic Activity, Torus and Outflow Survey (GATOS). Hicks’ JWST research time is focused on studying supermassive black holes. This summer, JWST began providing Hicks and her team with photos and data.

“Keeping UAA affordable is essential to building and retaining Alaska’s workforce,” said Chancellor Sean Parnell. “Whether we have students seeking a four-year degree, pivoting in their career through one of our Fast Track Career Certificate programs, or are interested in graduate studies, we’re here to offer our community an affordable and accessible option that offers a pathway to a career.”

This year’s theme was diversity, equity and inclusion, with the program featuring stories of two alumni who changed history through their accomplishments: guest speaker Kenneth McCoy, B.A. Justice ‘96, the first diversity, equity and inclusion officer for Providence Alaska; and keynote speaker Lauren Magiera, B.A. Journalism and Public Communications ‘09, the first sports anchor for Chicago WGN News.