A PUBLICATION OF THE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS accoladesFall 2006 Opening Doors to the Future FROM THE CHANCELLOR THE UAA accolades COMMUNITY Summer Engler receives first Dear Friends, Parasca Science Research Award Augie Heibert The Parasca Science Research Award, made possible by a leaves telecommunications Autumn finds UAA on the move. As I enter my third academic year as generous gift to UAA by Dorin and Argentina Parasca, supports a legacy to Alaska, UAA4 Chancellor, I am delighted to see a campus, a community, and nature’s whole significant undergraduate project in any area of science or social science. A Biological Sciences major and University Honors palette breaking out in green and gold energy. Program student, 21-year-old Engler received the award for her Major alumni gifts are on the rise. In recognition of this enthusiasm among project “Maintenance of copper homeostasis: Effects of Cup1p UAA alumni, the Rasmuson Foundation has awarded us $100,000 to match overexpression, Mac1p-dependent gene expression and survival first-time alumni donations of $1,000. Our brand new alumni relations of S. cerevisiae.” Summer is also a Muscular Dystrophy manager, Stacey Marsh, is working hard with the UAA Alumni Association to Association award recipient. build a vibrant program of activities and engagement. This issue of Accolades UAA grad Lyndsay Miles awarded Fulbright includes features on five UAA alumni who are out in the world making a Bartlett High School and University of Alaska Anchorage Degrees of Change difference–inspiring the next generation of students to continue the tradition Associate of Arts graduate Lyndsay Miles received a 2005-2006 UAA graduates8 bring passion and of excellence. Fulbright Full Student Grant for research in Economics. She dedication to thier chosen careers Our green and gold energy paid off in Juneau when the Alaska Legislature began her research in September 2005 at Vladivostok State approved the final funding for our new $87million Integrated Science University of Economics and Service. Her research topic was “Business and Economic Partnerships between the Russian Facility. In dollars, this building is double the scope of anything ever built at UAA. In impact, it's even bigger. Bringing together the major Far East and the Pacific Northwest: Prospects for Future PROGRESSIVE Cooperation.” Miles sought better understanding of the current strands of science instruction at UAA will enable Alaska students to see the level of American investment in the region and analysis of local PROGRAM interconnections of twenty-first century science. We are grateful for the business environments and investment potential. enthusiastic support of the community and the united efforts of legislators from all over the state to make this opportunity possible. Students and Miranda Lynn Zindel wins coveted Truman Scholarship Dollars & Sense faculty should be at work in the building by fall of 2009. Honors Student Miranda Lynn Zindel of Kenai, a UAA junior Nation’s “best” center for economic On a different scale, but equally important, a beautiful new building opens majoring in Business Administration, was named winner of a education teaches teachers14 to teach state’s this fall, on time and on budget, to house the Alaska Native Science and highly coveted Truman Scholarship. The annual award recognizes greatest resource, its young people Engineering Program (ANSEP). Architecturally, the ANSEP Building reflects college juniors with exceptional leadership potential who are the shape of the longboat common to many Alaska Native cultures. Funded committed to careers in government, the non-profit or advocacy sectors, education or elsewhere in public service. mostly with private contributions, the ANSEP building is a milestone reflecting the influence of Alaska Native culture on the university’s work. In June, Dr. Michael Driscoll became our new Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Coming to us from Portland State University, where he served as vice provost and executive dean of Engineering, Mike brings a Our Generous donors wealth of new experience and ideas to UAA. The public square came alive this past year. Pulitzer prize-winner Jared UAA Accolades -Thank16 You Diamond, human genome project leader Francis Collins, MacArthur 'Genius' Fall 2006 Volume 5, Number 2 award winner Bill Strickland, a definitive panel discussion about the natural gas pipeline, and the major Anchorage mayoral election debate all Published by the UAA University Advancement enlivened campus. We look forward this fall to hearing from civil rights Editors: Megan Olson, Scott Loll, Heather Resz SEAWOLF historian Taylor Branch, Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, and Alaska Graphic Design: David Freeman All photos by Clark James Mishler unless otherwise noted SPORTS gubernatorial candidates taking part in the last major debate of the 2006 election season. Anchorage is a great city partly because its university For more information about stories included offers great civic and intellectual opportunities. in UAA Accolades, to make a gift to UAA Enrollment is rising, financial resources are growing, facilities are or to order additional copies, please contact: 2005 Sports Highlights improving, and alumni are getting involved. It's a great time to be a University Advancement Seawolf, and the indicators are all around us. University of Alaska Anchorage 23 3211 Providence Drive . Anchorage, AK 99508 Phone: (907) 786-4847 e-mail: [email protected] Elaine P. Maimon, PhD To learn more about UAA, Cover photo by Michael Dinneen Chancellor visit www.uaa.alaska.edu Photos by Michael Dinneen Photos by Accolades 3 Augie Hiebert and his dog and fellow KFAR on-air personality, Sparky, log the hourly transmitter reading, as required by law, when this photo was taken in about 1946. Sparky had just one vocal responsibility - on cue from the studio announcer six miles away at the downtown KFAR Studio, the dog would bark a "happy birthday” greeting to a child having a birthday that day. The KFAR announcer had to call Sparky for the“birthday bark” between 7:15 and 8:30 a.m. to catch kids before they left for school. Some actually resisted going to school until they’d heard Sparky’s birthday greeting, Hiebert said. hough he never enrolled in a class at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Augie Hiebert has an honorary doctorate from T the university, a Meritorious Service Award and honorary membership in the Alumni Association. All are honors bestowed on him over the years by the university for his contributions of time and talent. Hiebert also donated $50,000 several years ago to purchase television cameras for the video department. He received an honorary doctorate for Public Service from UAA in May 1973 “for his pioneering achievements in bringing modern radio and television services to Alaska, and for his outstanding contributions to the development of the state and its university.” Over the years since the university was created, Hiebert has lent a hand in many ways. He was part of the Citizens Advisory Committee for Anchorage Community College, which became UAA; he’s served as chairman of the Advisory Council for the Department of Journalism and Public Communications; and he helped students get an FCC license and equipment for KRUA 88.1 FM. “My role with UAA has been one of admiration for an organization I was very privileged to be part of,” Hiebert said. “You have an obligation to give it back.” He said he feels a responsibility to repay what was gifted him as a young man by folks like Austin (Cap) Lathrop. Surviving a series of child- hood accidents also convinced him he owed others a It’s in the air helping hand in recompense for his good fortune. UAA journalism students designed an award for Augie Hiebert leaves him by the same name, “Helping Hand,” in 1994. A long list of firsts telecommunications legacy Hiebert owns a personal place in Alaska history for a long list of telecommunications “firsts.” He helped to start the first AM radio stations in to Alaska, UAA Fairbanks and the second AM station in Anchorage; started the first TV stations in Anchorage and Fairbanks; licensed the first permanent TV translator in Alaska; he helped establish Alaska's first satellite earth station, and the list goes on. “I don’t like to copy. I like to innovate,” he said. Hiebert also has received civic honors ranging from “Augie Hiebert Day” in Anchorage Nov. 28, 1992, to the Alaska Legion of Merit Award in 2000 for his work with the State Emergency Coordination Center and the statewide mini radio service. His real accomplishment, according to Hiebert, is linking even the remotest villages in Alaska to the rest of the state, nation and world by satellite. 4 Accolades Accolades 5 Left to right: Mirror Lake Middle School Video Team members Kelsey Johnson and Savannah Cluff work on the final morning newscast of the school year. Jon Butler and Austin Kinney offer a weekly Healthy Living Tip during the five-minute close-circuit television news broadcast. Kelsey Johnson shows Alaska communica- tions legend Augie Hiebert and former Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer how various digital images are edited together to produce the daily show. Jeff Waldron, Philip Scott, Trenton Schneiders and Savannah Cluff work on the June 2 program. “If I hadn’t done it someone else would have sooner or later,” The land of ice and snow and Eskimos Focused on the future Hiebert said. “What I have so-called ‘contributed to Alaskan telecom- It took two days on a bus to traverse the one-lane Richardson Highway from Hiebert started Northern Television in 1952 and sold his interest in the company in 1997. Since Augie Hiebert has received munications’ is not unusual or noble. (It was a) simple case of observ- Valdez to Fairbanks in 1939. He came to help build Alaska’s first radio then, he’s turned his focus to growing broadcasters and broadcast engineers through programs like seemingly every honor one ing what needed to be done to benefit this distant, little known or station, which was financed by Lathrop, owner of the Healy Coal Corp.