September 2020: University of Alaska Fairbanks

September, 2020

Rob Rember and Mette Kaufman, both with UAFs International Arctic Research Center, train graduate student Rachel Lekanoff how to sample sea ice during a training trip to Utqiaġvik, Alaska prior to the MOSAiC expedition
Rob Rember and Mette Kaufman, both with UAFs International Arctic Research Center, train graduate student Rachel Lekanoff how to sample sea ice during a training trip to Utqiaġvik, Alaska, prior to the MOSAiC expedition. Photo by JR Ancheta.

University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) has been an NCSE member for four years. UAF is a small university making large contributions to sustainability. Research and teaching at UAF informs decisions on environmental issues spanning geographies, cultures, and generations. The school takes advantage of its small size to knit together disciplines and ways of knowing in powerful ways. Like any university, UAF has diverse departments and programs, but the boundaries are porous and internal and external collaborations contribute to informing environmental policies. 

The geographical breadth of issues such as climate change requires international collaboration as manifested, for example, by UAF’s International Arctic Research Center. The cultural implications of environmental changes and decisions, of course, must be understood across disciplines and diverse knowledge systems, and UAF brings together academic and Indigenous scholars through its College of Rural and Community Development and the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center’s Tribal outreach efforts and other programs.

UAF’s Office of Sustainability was founded by students and today is entirely student-funded, driven by a student-led board, and programs are run by students. Using this model UAF students run a campus recycling program with over 100 bins, a bike rental program with a fleet of around 120 bikes, a FreeStore, a campus repair cafe, a student gardener training program, a campus food bank, and an Office of Sustainability that provides resources, education, and programming for the campus and greater Fairbanks community. Close collaboration across these and other University of Alaska programs helps to ensure that today’s decisions meet society’s needs without compromising the needs of future generations, the very definition of sustainability.

Did You Know? The student sustainability board has selected over 90 (mostly student) projects for funding, coordinated the development of a campus sustainability plan, and established a Green Revolving Fund.