The Elmendorf UAA extension site is slated for repainting over the next week. Office services at Elemendorf location will be limited and at times unavailable during from Nov. 19-25. Office services will be available at Fort Richardson during normal business hours.

The Governor's Cup won’t be the only trophy that UAA and UAF will be battling to win this year. UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers and UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer agreed to compete in the first UAA/UAF Sustainability Cup Challenge, an environmentally-friendly version of the annual intrastate hockey rivalry.

What spurred the green competition between the two universities were the latest Sustainability Report Card results, published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Each year the Sustainable Endowments Institute assesses 300 public and private colleges and universities with the largest endowments and publishes the results on http://www.greenreportcard.org/. The 2010 grade for UAA was a B- and UAF received a grade of a C-.

While exact details are still being worked out, both schools will engage their art students in the creation of a trophy made from recycled materials. The school with the highest report card grade will house the trophy of the losing school during the 2010-11 academic year. The next set of scores will be released in October 2010.

The measures that each school will take to raise their Sustainability Report Card grade will be determined individually, and each university is currently plotting their secret green strategy for the year. What isn’t secret are the terms for the losing team:

• The chancellor of the losing school will deliver the trophy (Sustainability Cup) to the chancellor of the winning school.
• The chancellor of the losing school will prepare a “sustainable” meal for the chancellor of the winning school using locally grown products.

This exciting new competition between UAA and UAF will not only get the campus communities pumped up for a show down, but will help raise the awareness of sustainability on both campuses and reduce our environmental footprint in Alaska.

For additional information on the challenge, please call Scott McCrae at UAF (907) 474-7905, or Kristin DeSmith at UAA (907) 786-1263.

Congratulations to Mandy Kaempf! Her peers have selected her as the Administrative Services Division 'Outstanding Employee' of the 1st Quarter FY10. Mandy is an assistant ski coach/Mayor's Marathon coordinator at UAA Athletics. Please join us in celebrating her achievements.

You can visit the recognition page on the Administrative Services Web site to view pictures of past and present Employees of the Quarter. Please call Administrative Services at (907) 786-4620 for more information or e-mail questions to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Gov. Sean Parnell announced on Thursday, Nov. 12 that he's committed to creating construction jobs around the state by addressing the backlog of deferred maintenance projects for state-owned facilities. The state capital budget will include $100 million for deferred maintenance projects in each of the next five years. The budget will fund repair and renovation projects throughout Alaska for roads, ferries, airports, university buildings and public facilities.

The University of Alaska allocation of the $100 million is about $37 million. The university has about 400 buildings statewide with an estimated replacement value of $2.6 billion. Deferred maintenance is necessary to bring the university's facilities into conformance with appropriate building standards, codes and programmatic functions. Critical electrical repairs and other utility upgrades are necessary system-wide.

Read the press release issued by Gov. Parnell's office.

KTVA Channel 11 covered Gov. Parnell's press conference at UAA on Thursday morning. Watch the report here.

Since University of Alaska president Mark Hamilton announced his retirement earlier this year, university officials have been coordinating a national recruitment effort to fill his shoes. Last week, the university launched a series of advertisements in Alaska newspapers and national trade publications, in addition to a direct mailing campaign targeted to colleges and universities across the country.

Read an account in the Anchorage Daily News.

Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1
Gorsuch Commons

The Board of Regents will be meeting in the Gorsuch Commons on Monday, Nov. 30 and Tuesday, Dec. 1. This is our first opportunity to talk to the Regents in person since their meeting in Anchorage in September 2008. There is dedicated time on the agenda each morning for public comment at approximately 10 a.m. on Monday and 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The agenda for the meeting is available here.

A sign-up sheet will be available for public testimony each morning. Comments are limited to three minutes per individual. For more information about testifying during the public comment sessions, please contact your governance leader.

Those dates will be Monday, Nov. 23 and Tuesday, Nov. 24 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The bookstore will only be open on Wednesday, Nov. 25 from 8:30 a.m.- 1 p.m.

The bookstore will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 26 and Friday, Nov. 27 for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

The full-tourney packages -- good for all 13 games of the 32nd annual college basketball extravaganza -- cost between $120 and $170.

Single-session tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 16, at noon. Sessions 1-5 include two games with ticket prices ranging from $20 to $25. Saturday's championship session includes three games and is priced from $30 to $40.

The 2009 Shootout runs Nov. 24-28 at Anchorage's Sullivan Arena and features women's teams from UAA, Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina and Western Carolina, plus men's teams from UAA, Houston, Nicholls State, Oklahoma, San Diego and Washington State.

For more ticket information, call (907) 786-1293. Visit www.goseawolves.com for more information.

Ivy Spohnholz, Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), a senior development officer in UAA's Office of University Advancement, was recently honored as the 2009 Alaska Fundraising Professional of the Year. She was recognized at the Alaska Philanthropy Day luncheon on Friday, Nov. 13, 2009.

Alaska Philanthropy Day recognizes the great contributions of philanthropy -- and those people active in the philanthropic community -- to the enrichment of our world. The Alaska Philanthropy Day Conference and Luncheon was held in conjunction with National Philanthropy Day to celebrate the outstanding contributions of philanthropy in communities throughout Alaska.