Education Across Borders and Generations
“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.
Bowers’ educational philanthropy is predated only by his familial background in education. Both of his parents were university professors. And when he first reached out to UAA, it was after Bowers had an inspiring chance encounter with two Russian academics in Nikolai, Alaska, during his days building rural airports as a project engineer.
Additionally, another person close to Bowers who can communicate to him the UAA student experience more personally is his wife Cheryl Childers, B.Ed. Elementary Education ’88, and a lifelong educator herself.
Stationed in Anchorage as an Air Force medic, Childers discovered her passion for teaching while enrolled at UAA. Over her 28-year career, Childers taught in Dutch Harbor and across Anchorage at Mountain View Elementary, Polaris K-12 School, Chinook Elementary and Airport Heights Elementary. She even met former President George W. Bush upon winning the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching.
Despite retiring in 2016, Childers wasn’t ready to leave the classroom. At first she stayed as a substitute teacher, but her eyes were set on something higher: the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project (ASMP), which provides mentor educators to teachers in rural Alaska. In 2019, Childers got her chance when ASMP received funding to hire six new mentors, effectively going from teaching students to teaching teachers.
“Rural Alaska has a turnstile — teachers come and go, and that’s not helping students,” said Childers. “When a doctor graduates from medical school, they don’t suddenly get their first job and are on their own, they’ve got people around them for support. But in teaching, you get your degree and you’re on your own in a classroom, and I just think our teachers deserve to have the support they need to ensure they’re going to give their best to students.”
Bowers and Childers aren’t leaving a legacy of education solely through the scholarships they provide, students they teach or teachers they mentor, but also through Childers’ daughter from a previous marriage, Fairview Elementary teacher Heidi Hilmes, B.A. Early Childhood Education ’14, G.C.R.T. Language Education ’17, M.Ed. Teaching and Learning ’18.
“[Heidi] knew from a very early age that she wanted to be a teacher,” said Childers. “Not only that, but she’s the second generation to graduate from UAA, and I anticipate that some day there will be a third.”