What happened to the Alaska College of Education?

By Margaret Everson, Staff Writer In the June 2021 Board of Regents meeting, Interim President Pat Pitney announced that education programs within the University of Alaska system would focus on collaboration between Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. This decision reversed previous efforts to consolidate UA education programs to the Alaska College of Education, which was to be hosted at UAS. According to a 2016 UA press … Continue reading What happened to the Alaska College of Education?

Alaska Native Success Initiative

By Kenedy Williams, Staff Writer The Alaska Native Success Initiative committee recommends a multi-faceted approach to diversify and increase Alaska Native student, staff, and faculty recruitment, identify the key barriers to recruitment, establish coordination with tribal organizations, and eliminate institutional racism. The Initiative was put forth by the Board of Regents. The goal is to have the UA student, staff, and faculty population represent Alaska’s … Continue reading Alaska Native Success Initiative

The future of Alaska voting

By Lucas Stewart, Staff Writer What does ranked choice voting mean for the state? Alaskans who vote in the 2022 election will rank candidates in order of prefer- ence as the state moves to a new voting system. Alaska is the second state in the U.S. to adopt Ranked Choice Voting for state- wide elections, with Maine being the first. Ranked Choice Voting allows voters … Continue reading The future of Alaska voting

What do you mean Facebook is down?

What does this recent outage show us about news access?By Mike Flunker, Editor-in-Chief Recent Whalesong editorials have emphasized a balanced media diet, critical thinking, and news engagement. It is time to look at access to news. We live in a time when media saturates our everyday lives, beamed straightto our phones, computers, radios, and televisions. We may take that for granted. What happens when part … Continue reading What do you mean Facebook is down?

UA Newsroom: November 2021

By Whalesong Staff It’s sometimes difficult to keep up on the news. Emails get buried in your inbox and it can be a struggle to stay informed. The following is adapted from press releases and announcements by the UAS and the UA system. UAS reaccredited for AAS-Health Information Management program The UAS Associate of Applied Science – Health Information Management Program (AAS-HIM) was successfully reaccredited … Continue reading UA Newsroom: November 2021

The Facebook Files

By Mike Flunker, Editor-in-Chief When Facebook and its services went down for a day in October the world was left reeling. The cause of the outage was later deemed to be an update that took Facebook servers offline, a problem that was initially unsolvable because the ability to fix it was also offline. Facebook’s company-wide practice to keep everything internal caused its worst outage yet.   … Continue reading The Facebook Files

Picking a Permanent President

By Mike Flunker, Editor-in-Chief The University of Alaska Board of Regents unanimously voted to appoint Pat Pitney UA President on Feb. 25. The vote came at the end of a two-day meeting. Pitney is the first permanent female president of the UA system and has been interim president since former UA President Jim Johnsen resigned in June 2020.  “Pat Pitney is the epitome of cooperation, … Continue reading Picking a Permanent President

Building Safe Spaces

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month By Kenedy Williams, Staff Writer During the month of April, the University of Alaska Southeast participated in Sexual Assault Awareness Month, with the theme of “Building Safe Online Spaces Together.” Several events were hosted on campus that brought a focus to Sexual Assault Awareness.  Title IX  Title IX is a federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in educational institutions receiving … Continue reading Building Safe Spaces

Gold Medal madness

Annual Gold Medal basketball tournament celebrate it’s 72nd year helping the community BY PENELOPE LITZE, Staff Writer When March rolls around, many people’s attention is drawn to March Madness-but in Southeast Alaska, Gold Medal is the basketball tournament residents wait all year for. It offers “the best basketball ever, lots and lots of fun and cheering for their community and unbelievable visits with Southeast Alaska … Continue reading Gold Medal madness

Alaskans celebrate first official Indigenous People’s Day

Alaska takes a step toward acknowledging Alaska’s first people with bill authorizing holiday Oct. 9 By JOE NELSON for the UAS Whalesong On Oct. 9, Alaska celebrated the first official Indigenous People’s Day as authorized by the State Legislature when it approved House Bill 78 during the last legislative session. I believe that this law was a long time in coming. It is about time … Continue reading Alaskans celebrate first official Indigenous People’s Day