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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And now Capital Chat on KINY, where we connect you with Juneau and Southeast Alaska's community organizations only on KINY.
Speaker 2:Hey. Good morning, Juneau. Welcome to another Capital Chat. This morning, I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with chancellor Aparna Palmer. I gotta tell you, I'm a former New Yorker.
Speaker 2:It's hard to have all those r's in a row, so I'm sorry, chancellor.
Speaker 3:Oh, you did a great job.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So now you've been at uas for a number of years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm starting my fourth year at uas. It's really wonderful to be there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's wonderful to see all the things that are happening with the university. And I thought hoping we have time to cover three of them. And let's start with the new floating dock in Sitka for the Mira program. Sure.
Speaker 3:This is so exciting. So, you know, this is a project that started even before I became chancellor where we wanted to develop a facility and a training program to help people learn how to do mariculture. So it's really focused on training mariculture technicians. They can get a credential and they get to do all sorts of really cool things in the water, around the water. And now we have this floating barge where they can do work in the lab and, grow the seed that actually will be used out in the water.
Speaker 2:So the lab is part of the floating dock?
Speaker 3:Yes. So we built a
Speaker 2:floating I mean the floating barge.
Speaker 3:Yes. So the lab, which is the floating barge, will be attached to our new dock, which is right next to the Sitka campus. And so once it's functional, students and faculty and even visitors will be able to walk on the dock, enter the facility and just learn how do people grow all of these beautiful shellfish and algae that we harvest here in Alaska.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. So it's also a volk tic kind of
Speaker 3:partnership. It's definitely part of our career and technical education. And so, you know, one of the wonderful things that uas is able to do is offer hands on training in a variety of different disciplines where, you know, you and your hands are the focus of the training. So whether you're doing welding or whether you're doing construction technology or in this case, really learning how to work with seaweeds and shellfish from the microscopic level all the way out to the level where you can see them, you can harvest them and then gather them. So this is the goal of this training facility.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I know we have just a short amount of time and I'm gonna hustle you along, chancellor, because I wanna talk about two other things. The first is the updated MPA program. Take it away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is anniversary of our new redesigned Master of Public Administration program. It's been redesigned to be very student centered and with a lot of advice from local people who are on our advisory board. And so students now, even more so than before, can connect to their coursework to exactly what they want to do in the public sector.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's brilliant. I'm excited. I always wanted one of those, but It's life goes Hell yeah. Yeah, let me just do that. But you know what else I wanna know about before we run out of time is about a potential partnership with University in Norway.
Speaker 3:Yes, so, you know, we have developed a relationship over time with Sami University of Applied Sciences, which is in Norway. This is a great little university. It's very similar to our university here. We're working to develop a relationship with them because they too are really interested in revitalizing their indigenous language. So one of our deans, our dean of the School of Education is going to travel up there in October, give a lecture, talk about how to really engage young children in their indigenous language.
Speaker 3:For those of you who don't know much about the Sami people, these are the people who are in Northern Norway, Finland, Russia, they are herders and they have their own wonderful language and traditions that they're working really hard to revitalize.
Speaker 2:And that's something many circumpolar areas are trying to do throughout the world. Will they... Will this partnership include anything else or?
Speaker 3:You know, I am really hoping that we can build a partnership where we can have student exchange and faculty and staff exchange. I really hope that we can build kind of a sister relationship with the Sami University of Applied Sciences, but we're just taking small steps, but I have to really congratulate our Dean Angie Lunda, because she is at the forefront of developing this relationship.
Speaker 2:And that's who gets to take the trip?
Speaker 3:She and a couple of other faculty members will be taking the trip and they'll be talking about wonderful things like what does a child experience when they are learning a new language at
Speaker 1:the
Speaker 3:same time as just being children?
Speaker 2:You know, we have maybe a minute or two. I'd love for you to tell me what should people be looking for at the university from now, you know, till the end of the year, say?
Speaker 3:Sure. You know, a couple of different things. So first of all, we have some short courses that are yet to begin. So you could still take rock climbing, Alaska Native Studies. You could take courses in carpentry, wiring, welding, refrigeration, air conditioning over at our tech center.
Speaker 3:And even a course that starts in November on backcountry navigation.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sign me up.
Speaker 3:Well, we all need to know how to navigate.
Speaker 2:Well, and we all need to know that there's a real university here in Juneau. Nothing like great town and gown relations. The university's always been supportive of Juneau and Southeast. And now we have you at the helm, although it has been four years, chancellor.
Speaker 3:Well, just starting my fourth year.
Speaker 2:But... Yeah. Anyway, I wanna thank you for coming. I'd love to see you again. And thank you so much for stopping by this Thank
Speaker 3:you. I I really couldn't do what I do without the help of a lot of people, including you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, thank you. And thank you for listening. Be sure to drive safely. Keep your lights
Speaker 1:organizations making a difference in Juneau and Southeast Alaska. Subscribe to the Capital Chat podcast everywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts and at kinyradio.com.