When it comes to analyzing candidates, is it better to look at favorability or preferability? Our political mavens, Alexander Hirsch, political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Nate Bauer, director of the University of Alaska Press tackle that question.

As the country and state lurch towards reopening amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a segment of our society that is particularly hard hit, but often overlooked. Although roughly two hundred million dollars of CARES funds were directed to museums and arts groups, the bill largely ignored individual artists. Discussing the implications is painter, art historian, and former museum curator Kesler Woodward. He currently serves as Vice-President of the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation.  

Nate Bauer, Director of the University of Alaska Press, was in last week reviewing a recent poll on the race for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat.

Welcome to the third Memory Lane discussion. This week we visit with Charley Basham, Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, though as you will hear, Charley’s work lies between linguistics and anthropology. She is especially keen about the restoration of indigenous languages.

These Memory Lane conversations are part of University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Summer Sessions programs.

In the second Memory Lane discussion, I speak with Glenn Patrick Juday, Professor Emeritus of Forest Ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. To say Glenn is an ecologist understates the breadth of his interests. He is also something of a citizen scientist.

 

In another fraught week politically, with the Trump campaign demanding CNN retract its poll showing Biden ahead of Trump by 14 points, our political mavens Alexander Hirsch, political scientist at UAF and Nate Bauer, director of the UA Press, are in with analysis. 

It would seem obvious, if we want profound words on plagues, pestilences, or pandemics, turn to the person many consider the finest poet in the English language, William Shakespeare. But Shakespeare scholar Janis Lull says it isn’t as clear cut as all that.

Here is Janis Lull’s paper: ShaxReticence

In with their weekly analysis of developments leading up to the November election are Nate Bauer, director of the University of Alaska Press and University of Alaska Fairbanks political scientist Alexander Hirsch: This week the Black Lives Matter movement.

Down Memory Lane

Every summer for the past several years I’ve had the pleasure of hosting a live event Monday evenings at the University of Alaska Fairbanks called “Down Memory Lane.” The series is hosted by UAF Summer Sessions and it features retired UAF professors and leaders discussing their experiences and time at the school. 

It won’t surprise you to learn the pandemic has shaken up this summer’s schedule a wee bit. The conversations won’t be live. The campus is closed for the season. Instead, I’m exercising some creativity, along with social distancing, to record my discussions with this year’s guests. I will be posting them here this summer.

This week I speak with former Engineering professor, Dean, Vice-Chancellor for Administrative Services and Director of the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, Frank Williams. Frank enjoyed a long career at the University of New Mexico Albuquerque before coming to Fairbanks. And, following retirement, he has played an active role in the community including serving and leading the board of directors at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. 

 

As the roiling markets and sky-high unemployment jostle for attention in popular media, the positions of the two presumptive party presidential candidates are shifting as well. In with analysis are our political mavens, UA Press Director Nate Bauer and UAF political scientist Alexander Hirsch.