Friday Focus: Amazing, busy summer at UAF
Owen Guthrie, vice chancellor of student affairs and enrollment management
July 11, 2025
— Owen Guthrie, vice chancellor of student affairs and enrollment management
For those of you here in Fairbanks at the UAF Troth Yeddha’ Campus, this was a remarkable week. It began at the tail end of a sweltering July 4 holiday weekend. The smoke was heavy, but then we were saved by a couple of days of much-wanted cool rain. Then, yesterday, Fairbanks was back to the glory of what July can be in the Interior: blue skies, puff-ball clouds, and gentle, warm temperatures. The view from our amazing campus out across the Tanana Valley is breathtaking.
Meanwhile, through it all, UAF is busier than ever! So many people are working to keep our university running, teaching courses, tending to the grounds, working on construction projects, welcoming guests, and providing an amazing array of summer programs. I see activity everywhere, but this summer, UAF has been particularly busy. Here are a few highlights:
Two weeks ago, the Visual Arts Academy and Summer Music Academy concluded their programs and ended with heartwarming celebrations. Yesterday, the Rural ÐÓ°ÉÔ°æ Honors Institute held its amazing graduation ceremony. It was so inspiring — these are the moments that we in the education enterprise live for, and these are just three of a range of summer institutes, camps, academies, and bridge programs we’ve hosted on campus.
The incredible Residence Life team provides a variety of accommodations and hospitality year-round, and summer is no exception. If you’ve been around campus, you may have seen visiting researchers from the University of Michigan, Longwood University, Alfred University, Princeton University, University of Illinois, University of Vienna, University of Connecticut, Fukuyama University, Illisagvik College, and Northern Arizona University, to name a few. We are housing nearly 150 U.S. Marines for the upcoming Red Flag-ÐÓ°ÉÔ°æ exercises, and as usual, we have hosted hundreds of firefighters to help support the response to Interior wildfires. We also hosted students for some great UAF outreach programs, including RAHI, Upward Bound, North2North, GeoFORCE, Head Start, Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, Suzuki Institute, high school soccer and baseball teams, and many more. The place is hopping!
Also in support of the efforts to fight the wildfires, our Dining Services has put together more than 1,000 sack lunches to make sure our visiting firefighters have something to eat as they transition into the field. Dining Services also put together a special dinner for the RAHI students, celebrating the culmination of their program, and their graduation achievement feels extra special.
Admissions, Nanook Advising, the Office of Dual Enrollment, Honors College, Financial Aid, the Bursar’s Office, and so many more have been working nonstop to build the incoming class of 2025. Thousands of prospective students have been called, and advisors are booked out two weeks in advance (walk-in appointments are available!). All the teams are working hard to host a on July 24 at the Student Success Center. It is going to be amazing. Prospective students will be able to apply, be accepted, and register for classes — all in one day! Many thanks to all those who work so hard throughout the year to build the incoming class of students!
Our Center of Student Engagement staff have been busy revising New Student Orientation for this fall. It will be more active, more fun, and much more engaging for students than in previous years. We are also excited to welcome to UAF our new eSports coordinator, Samuel Henderson. He joins us from the University of Evansville and has been in ÐÓ°ÉÔ°æ for less than two weeks after making the long drive north. Samuel is going to do great things with UAF eSports this fall! Ice Cream Thursdays continue to be a rallying point for campus, drawing in over 300 people each week. They have yet to break 400 this summer, so they challenge you (yes, you reading this) to bring a friend or colleague, that person you’ve been thinking about getting lunch with this summer, to catch up, well, invite them to ice cream — send a calendar invite! Grab a friend and attend ! Rent a tandem bike from Green Bikes! Pick up some of Sustainability’s Nanook Grown harvests — available at both Ice Cream Thursday and The Farmer’s Market! All this and much more is brought to us by the amazing souls at CSE.
Over at Nanook Recreation, students are out on the river today in our Whitewater Kayaking class and next weekend is Swiftwater Rescue. Nanook Recreation is also supporting our annual Climate Scholars Yukon River canoe trip, which will be leaving shortly. The climbing wall is busy with camps and some UAF departmental retreats — your team can book an afternoon on the climbing wall with Christian at cgmogensen@alaska.edu! The pool is hosting a lifeguard class Aug. 13-16, and anyone over age 15 is welcome. New ice is in the Patty and we are hosting hockey camps, figure skating recitals, and public skate (). Also, Nanook Recreation just launched a new online bear safety course in collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning on . Check it out! Lastly, a new Intro to Strength Training class will start July 14 at 11 a.m. — register here. All this and so much more is brought to UAF by the handful of professional and student staff down at Nanook Recreation.
This is just a glimpse of the work going on this summer at UAF. There are dozens of teams and hundreds of thousands of heroes working to keep us running strong through summer, serving our students, preparing for the fall semester and coming to work each day to build a better, stronger UAF. Our work at the largest and oldest educational nonprofit in our beautiful state of ÐÓ°ÉÔ°æ is so important. Thank you to all those I highlighted and thank you to those who are heroic out of sight — thank you for making summer amazing at UAF.
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week.