Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Mike Driscoll is pleased to announce that, in consultation with the search committee and UAA’s leadership team, he has offered the CAS dean position to John Stalvey, Ph.D. Stalvey will begin his work at UAA on July 8.

Stalvey comes to UAA from Kent State University where he’s served as an associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences since 2003. In this position he was primarily responsible for graduate affairs, faculty affairs and budget.

In addition to his college-level leadership, Stalvey has served as department administrator for computer science, as assistant chair for the Department of Biological Sciences and as coordinator of graduate studies for the department. A faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences, Stalvey has conducted research in the fields of endocrinology and genetics since 1987 and has published broadly on his work. He’s secured external, competitive funding for his own research and for STEM education over the years, resulting in more than $4 million in funding.

Additionally, as department administrator, Stalvey helped to raise $22,000 in private gifts for student support and facilitated a departmental workload shift that resulted in a 50 percent increase in faculty funding proposals in FY12.

A graduate of Williams College, Stalvey also earned a M.S. in physiology and a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of Southern California.

For the past year, Kim Peterson has served as the interim dean for CAS while the university conducted a national search to fill the permanent position. Peterson is planning to rejoin the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences beginning AY2012-13.

The Office of Student Affairs is proud to introduce the new VetSuccess on Campus counselor, Terry Jackson. Terry is a Veterans Affairs vocational rehab counselor by trade. As an advocate for veteran's benefits (past, present and future), he will be an invaluable resource for UAA's military and veteran students.

Born and raised in Sebring, Fla., Terry retired from the U.S. Army as a sergeant major. His last assignment was with the 21st Support Command, Kaiserslautern, Germany where he was part of a team managing five branch offices in southern Europe. His most enjoyable assignment was Command Sgt. Maj., National Support Element, Tazar, Hungary during the Kosovo engagement from 1998‐1999. Terry also served in Desert Storm/Shield with the 1st Cavalry Division and served in Korea during the 1988 Olympics.

Terry earned a master's degree in counseling from Webster University. He started his VA career as a veteran service representative in Houston, Tex. in February 2002. From May 2004-October 2009, he served in Albuquerque, N.M. as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. He also served as the vocational rehabilitation and employment officer in Anchorage, Alaska, from September 2009-April 2012.

To learn more about the VetSuccess on Campus program, see the previous Green and Gold story.

Friday, Aug. 24, 4-7 p.m.
UAA/APU Consortium Library, Room 309

Held annually on the Friday before fall semester begins, the Graduate Resource Fair introduces and reacquaints new and returning graduate students to and with the many resources available at UAA. This year's fair will be Aug. 24 from 4-7 p.m. in LIB 309. For more information, please visit the Graduate School website.

Marcus Welker (B.S. Natural Sciences '09, University Honors College) has been awarded an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR Fellowship to continue his Ph.D. at Dartmouth College studying the restoration of Atlantic salmon in Lake Champlain and the mechanisms of salmon migrations. The EPA STAR award is the top-of-the-line fellowship for graduate students in the environmental sciences. Welker will continue to work with state (Vermont and New York), federal (USFWS, USGS and NOAA) and international (Japanese salmon scientists) collaborators to broaden the reach of his impact.

"This award represents years of work and reflects all of the time and energy UAA and the University Honors College contributed to my education," says Welker.

Follow Welker and the other Dartmouth Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship students at http://dartmouthigert.wordpress.com.

Watch Welker on YouTube talking about his Atlantic salmon research in Greenland.


B.S. Nursing '08 & M.S. Family Nurse Practitioner '11
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Fun Fact: Has black belt ranking in several styles of martial arts and moonlights as a self-defense instructor

UAA alum Brian Erdrich was 26 years old when he found himself in an intensive care unit (ICU) in Houston after a bad accident. ("It's a long story," he says). As fate would have it though, it was that experience of having quality care in facing his own mortality that made him realize what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

"The nurses were just super nice to me, so I decided I was going to go into health care," he says. "After recovering from the accident, I took a tour of another hospital with a friend's mom who was a nurse. She introduced me to some male nurses and after talking to them and hearing their perspectives, I decided I'd pursue nursing."

By December 1990 he had his associate's degree from San Antonio College and went right to work in critical care and obtained his Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN) certification the following year.

"Critical care is fast-paced and very rewarding," he says, adding that it can also be very taxing, which is why his graduate project was about secondary traumatic stress in critical care nurses.

Brian has worked in critical care for 20 years, specializing in open heart patients. "It humbles you because if you make a mistake, someone could die. On the other hand, it's exciting because you have people who come in who are so sick or injured, but you can help turn that around and see them survive."

Brian has always been one for finding the exciting side of things. Growing up in Central and South America, as well as the United States—moving every time his military intelligence officer father got a new assignment—Brian took up hobbies like martial arts, shooting and other athletics.

"My plan when I was younger was to be a Green Beret," he says. "After I started taking college classes, I got accepted to the Marine Corps platoon leader class to go in as a pilot, until I found out that I had some hearing loss in my left ear from not using ear protection when shooting. Since I couldn't enter the military as an officer which was my goal, I decided to go a different path, which was winding for a while." He took some time away from college to find his calling.

Bouncing around from motorcycle mechanic to construction to lifeguarding and supervising at a water park, Brian took a little longer to discover his passion for health care. But once he did, he was hooked.

After working as an RN in Texas, Montana and Idaho for 9 years, and knowing he always wanted to live in Alaska ("for the hiking and fly fishing"), Brian arrived in Anchorage in 1999 to follow a job opportunity with Providence. Six years later he enrolled at UAA to upgrade his associate degree to a bachelor's, quickly following up with a master's degree as well.

"I decided I really wanted to be a nurse practitioner," he says. "I'd been working in critical care for so long that I decided I really wanted to do something proactive and try and help prevent people from ending up in the ICU. I thought if I could see people more in primary care, I could maybe catch some problems before they got so sick."

Now Brian has transitioned from Providence's ICU to an independently owned health clinic in Anchorage to focus on primary care and has his sights set on a Doctor of Nursing Practice program to start in the fall. "I love teaching and yet still have so much to learn; I learn something new daily," he says. His ultimate goals: to be part owner of a small clinic and to be on faculty in UAA's nursing program. He also wants to help more men discover what a wonderful career nursing can be.

And don't worry. He's not expecting to be bored with primary care, either.

"I think it's actually more stressful here," Brian laughs. "In critical care, I had control of almost everything. Here you're seeing somebody for hypertension, you're taking their word that they're going to take the medicine you've prescribed, and they walk out the door. You have no control. And you have a much wider range of issues to deal with. In one week, I had a four-week-old patient and then a 102-year-old the next day. Family practice is hard; it can be really intimidating."

Luckily, he has a great network of support between his boss and clinic-owner Jyll Green (a UAA nursing alumna), colleague Cheryl Bays-Goodman and many other NPs throughout Anchorage who were fellow classmates or alums. He also appreciates the support of local physicians who are receptive to nurse practitioners providing primary care in the community. He loves the diversity he sees in the Anchorage population that comes through his doors for care, and he loves it when he gets to speak Spanish. For outlets from the stresses of his job, he turns to his passions of martial arts, his two Japanese mastiffs and enjoying the outdoors with his wife of six years, Casey.

"I started training in martial arts when I was in the 4th grade, just finding different schools and clubs as we moved around," he says. His highest ranking is 3rd degree in Hapkido, and it was his merging interests of martial arts and preventative health care that prompted him to pursue teaching self-defense classes in his spare time for the last seven years. "I believe being a nurse made me a better martial artist and being a martial artist made me a better nurse." He has also had the opportunity in the past to teach as an adjunct clinical professor for UAA, and remembers his time here as a student fondly.

"The nursing degree programs at UAA were so convenient in helping me advance my career in health care," Brian says. "My professors were very pro-education and really wanted to see me go on further, and I like that. And my preceptors during the M.S.N. program were wonderful mentors and are still available for collaboration."

Brian also mentions that he was really lucky to have never had to take out any student loans. Working while going to school, he stresses that more students should look into the tuition management services at UAA that allows them to set up a monthly payment plan rather than paying a full semester's tuition up front.

So his parting advice: Avoid loan debt with monthly tuition payments and wear your ear protection! He promises neither will take the excitement out of either higher education or the shooting range.

M.F.A. '05; Associate Professor,
Community & Technical College and University Honors College
Hometown: Bethel, AK
Fun Fact: Believes procrastination, under the right circumstances, can be motivational

Generations of writers have been told to "write what you know" and fortunately those same writers have been revising (or flat-out ignoring) that advice to bring readers fantastically imagined worlds and characters. For instance, novelist Don Rearden has little first-hand knowledge of post-apocalyptic survival, something that's explored in his debut novel, The Raven's Gift (Penguin Canada, 2011). But the book is set in Southwest Alaska, a place Don still considers home, though he now lives and teaches in Anchorage. Blending the unknown-but-vividly-imagined with the familiar led to praise from other prominent writers, including Ron Carlson who called the book "…gritty and engaging, an absolutely good read, all in a world, that Alaska world—which I could believe." Don is looking forward to introducing his newest family member—son Atticus who he welcomed with his wife, UAA nursing professor Annette Rearden, this past summer—to all that he loves about that Southwest Alaska world firsthand on their next trip back home.

When coupled with Don's talent and creativity, his strong ties to rural Alaska help him to achieve success not just as a writer and but as a full-time professor for UAA's College Preparatory & Developmental Studies (CPDS) program where he helps students from all over learn to recognize their own creativity in his introductory writing courses. He makes a point of finding out where each student is from and shares his own stories about adaptation to life and school in Anchorage. As a young kid, he moved to Southwest Alaska with his law enforcement dad and teacher mom. "I was really lucky to grow up where I did, the way that I did," he says. But it didn't make things easy moving to Anchorage to attend the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at UAA. "Coming from a culture where there are moments of silence and pauses, I didn't get a word in as a grad student initially," he says. Though he'd spent four years as a high school teacher in Bethel before heading to graduate school, "I couldn't cut somebody off. I still have problems doing that. So I just didn't speak until the professors figured out that I'd read the material and would be able to say something intelligent." It got easier, but his own experiences have made him sensitive to students transitioning from rural areas, particularly Alaska Native students. Don just completed his seventh year teaching for CPDS in the UAA Community and Technical College where he's worked since graduating with his M.F.A.

As an M.F.A. graduate student, Don connected with other students who have become his writing and editing colleagues and relies on them to read drafts of his work at varying stages of completion. On writing while working full-time as a professor for UAA, he says, "It's really nice to be in a place that encourages you to work on your own professional development." Don has two more books in process right now. He'll spend some time this summer researching for an upcoming novel about whaling. He was awarded INNOVATE grant money to complete his research and hopes it's inspiring to his students that a guy with degrees in English and creative writing can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with scientists to accept a research grant. For more details about that project, visit the INNOVATE blog. He is also finishing some edits on Moving Salmon Bay, a novel about an Alaska village getting ready to move because of climate change, much like Shishmaref or Newtok. It's a timely book. "People are becoming climate refugees. And the people in Alaska are becoming the first real climate refugees," he says. Driven more by story than any political or environmental agenda, Don hopes his books resonate with people around the world who, in response to today's economy, are facing both physical moves from one place to another and moves within society and class structures. "Through teaching and writing, that's how I know how to help. Because I don't necessarily want to become a politician. Showing what's happening [in rural Alaska] is part of who I am. And it's also my way to go home, since I live here." He's hoping to see Moving Salmon Bay published before the coastal villages in Alaska complete their moves, he says, "or I'll have a lot of revising to do."

To revise another old adage, Don is proof that you can indeed go home again. You just need to make sure you bring enough books. Writing about your hometown, even in a work of fiction like The Raven's Gift, is a tricky business. Don says, "I thought I would be in trouble actually. I was really, really concerned." But the response has been overwhelmingly positive. He's sold every book he's taken back home. His book became such a hot commodity at last year's Cama-i festival when his stash of 100 was exhausted, folks ended up bartering with the early shoppers, trading goods for a copy of the book. A friend even made him a beautiful kuspuk in exchange for her copy.

You can also add "screenwriter" to Don's list of accomplishments. "My dream is to eventually write something that will be filmed here in Alaska," he says. With Alaska's film subsidy program, that might be another timely project and one that would undoubtedly be inspiring to his students, his fellow alums and his loyal hometown fans, not to mention son Atticus, who, in just a few years, might be the first kid ever to sit attentively while the credits roll looking for his dad's name on the big (or small!) screen.

Many people living in Alaska are members of a frequent flyer program for one airline or another (raise your hand if its Alaska Airlines!*). So when you find yourself sitting at the computer trying to book an award ticket, do you ever wonder how your airline can afford to give you a seat for free?

Recent accounting graduate Brian Franklin took on this topic as his senior undergraduate research thesis for the University Honors College. Specifically, he examined the two existing methods of frequent flyer program accounting under which "the obligation to provide free or reduced-fare travel to passengers who redeem their accrued frequent flyer program benefits" is added to airlines' liabilities on the balance sheet, and then eventually to their bottom line when passengers redeem miles.

The Deferred Revenue Method recognizes redeemed frequent flyer miles at their fair value, or "the amount for which the award credits could be sold separately."

The Incremental Cost Method only applies the marginal cost of redeemed miles to airlines' liabilities line, costs that include taxes, fuel, and food to fly a reward passenger on a seat that would have otherwise flown empty.

Fairly technical for the average traveler, these two accounting methods each have their own pros and cons for those actually managing frequent flyer programs. As Franklin notes in his final paper, "Specific management incentives are associated with the adoption and use of each account method, and the…method chosen by a given airline can potentially drive the way management operates its frequent flyer program."

For airlines, one method over the other can manifest itself as increased liabilities on the books (airlines using the Deferred Revenue Method report a frequent flyer liability that is sometimes twice that of their Incremental Cost Method counterparts). But what's at stake for the traveler?

• Carefully controlled programs that try to ensure passengers redeeming awards are filling only seats that otherwise would have been empty
• Thresholds of mileage credits an airline might require for an award to be issued
• Expiration of earned credits
• Ratio of award seats to full-price seats available on a given flight
• Passenger loyalty

Believe it or not, how an airline is able to absorb the liability that is mileage credit can affect all of these things, which in turn trickle down to you, the passenger wanting to cash in on what you've earned.

Franklin reports that five of the seven major U.S. airlines in existence as of April 2012 use the Incremental Cost Method (Alaska, American, JetBlue, Southwest and U.S. Airways), while the remaining two, United and Delta, use the Deferred Revenue Method. (It is interesting to note, too, that United and Delta switched to the Deferred Revenue Method from the Incremental Cost Method after Chapter 11 reorganization. And Franklin does a great job of explaining why.)

Even though Franklin's report is more about how comparable airlines are to investors given that their accounting methods vary, it is still an interesting read from the perspective of having unused miles sitting in your frequent flyer account. To get into the nitty gritty, download his final report here (PDF). And read a full profile on Brian Franklin here.

*Fun fact: Alaska Airlines is the only U.S. legacy carrier never to have entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Franklin defines a legacy carrier as "an airline that was in existence and had established an interstate route network prior to industry deregulation in 1978 (as compared to a so-called low-cost carrier); of the seven major U.S. airlines as of April 2012, five were legacy airlines (Alaska, American, Delta Air Lines, United, and US Airways) and two were low-cost carriers (JetBlue Airways and Southwest)."

Since 1981, UAA and the Anchorage Daily News have sponsored an annual creative writing contest in partnership with Alaska Center for the Book that draws participants of every age in every part of Alaska. This year's winners have been selected and are available—along with all past winners—on LitSite.org.

UAA will share event details and campus information via a new blog, called "Hometown U," on the Anchorage Daily News website. (You can also find a link to it at the bottom right of the UAA homepage.)  The blog is maintained through the UAA Office of Advancement and it represents one more opportunity to share information about student life, research, creative arts, performance arts and much more with our good neighbors in Anchorage and Alaska. Check it out: the first post is replete details on our 2011–2012 honorary doctorates, meritorious service awards and professor emeriti.

Chad Carpenter selected winners in the Spring 2012 Juried Student Art Exhibit. As a part of his role, he also delivered a Juror's Lecture, open to the public and held April 18, 2012 in Arts 150. If you missed it, you can listen to his remarks, paired with his slideshow, in this podcast posted on UAA's You Tube channel. As a working cartoonist, Carpenter offered insights on how to get started in his field, how he finds ideas, what his creative process is, some of his favorite work, and the inevitable hate mail that comes along with producing work in the public arena.

Carpenter spoke to a full Arts 150, and entertained about half dozen questions after his remarks, also included in the podcast.