"Hey" from the Student Ambassadors

After their by-weekly meeting yesterday, UAF's Student Ambassadors wanted to show off one of their favorite places on campus- the Raven's Nest. The Raven's Nest is located in the Student Union (aka Wood Center). It is the unfinished "4th Floor" of the building. As it turns out, permafrost is pretty tough to build on and the foundation of the Wood Center just couldn't support the final floor. Unfortunately, workers had already constructed the stairway. Thus, it has become UAF's very own "stairway to nowhere."

BTW, you can contact any of UAF's Student Ambassadors and ask them about more interesting stuff here on campus by visiting http://www.uaf.edu/ambassadors/.

The North Pole!

Did you know that the North Pole is just a short 30 minute drive from UAF? Well, not the real North Pole, but there is a city just south of Fairbanks called North Pole. The city of North Pole is decorated for Christmas year round and you can even visit Santa and his reindeer at his house any time during the year. I visited there on Friday while on my way out to North Pole High School actually.

What is a Nanook??

The Nanook is our mascot here at UAF but a lot of people have no idea what a Nanook is. Nanook is a derivation of the Inupiaq Eskimo word for polar bear "nanuq." Pictured here is a Nanook on display in the Patty Center, our student employee Joe, and that is me in the mascot suit.

Hitting the trails

What with all the nice new snow, Rachel and I had to get out on our cross country skis. It was great! The moon was beautiful and we got to listen to the swooshing of a raven flying overhead as he checked us out. We went skiing on some trails near our house. Fairbanks is criss-crossed by a lot of skiing, snowmachining (snowmobiling for you Lower-Forty-Eighters), and dog mushing trails. Plus right on campus we have 25+ miles of groomed ski trails, many of them lighted. On the other side of town is Birch Hill Ski Area, a superbly maintained cross-country ski area. (By the way, that ridiculous looking thing to my right and behind me is my dog Ahpun (Inupiaq Eskimo for "white" or "snow"). She's a goon. To my left is our friends' dog Jack that we are dogsitting for the week.

Let it snow!

Wow, Thursday morning we all woke up to a very unusual thing for Fairbanks: a thick blanket of fresh snow about 6+ inches deep! In Fairbanks, snow usually comes in a lot of little dustings, maybe an inch or two at a time at the most, unlike my native West Michigan, where Lake Michigan would periodically bury us a big sloppy pile of wet snow! This Thursday's big snowfall still had Fairbanks' characteristic light, fluffy, and dry feel to it. Dry snow? Yes, if you've never experienced it, you need to! It's great to ski in, and so easy to shovel too. :) Here I am shoveling my driveway with what in Michigan we called a Yooper Scooper (as in U.P.'ers--Upper Peninsula-ers--Check out www.dayoopers.com/whatwher.html if you dare to learn more!).

Nice to meet you!

Hi! My name is Jessica Bennett, and I recruit students to UAF from the Mountain and Central Time Zones of the Lower 48, as well as UA Scholars. I'm originally from Anchorage. I graduated from Service High School and came to UAF in the Fall of 2001. In Spring 2005 I graduated, with honors, from UAF with my BA in Foreign Languages, German and Japanese. My husband and I currently live very close to campus with our 2 kitties Nanook and Denali. I am excited to share my experiences with all of you so keep checking for cool photos and exciting Alaskan stories! (This is a picture of sunset from campus at 1:30 PM!)

Check out the Reindeer!

Sometimes at UAF we have opportunities to hang out with unique Alaskan wildlife. This is one of UAF's reindeer that made an appearance at the Chancellor's Holiday Gathering this year. In this photo Charlie's in the back, then Jessica, then me, then Alice. Alice is our Outreach Coordinator who lives in Anchorage.

Hello from Charlie

Hi! My name is Charlie Armstrong, and I recruit students to UAF from the Eastern Time Zone of the Lower 48 (including all of Kentucky and Tennessee), as well as from Southeast Alaska and communities along the Richardson, Tok Cutoff, Edgerton and Alaska Highways. A little bit about me? Thanks for asking! I'm originally from Michigan, whence I came to Fairbanks as a timid freshman in the Fall of 1998. While in Alaska, I have learned how to white water canoe, cross country ski, and approach a poem from a reader-response perspective. I succeeding in graduating with a BA in English, with honors, from UAF in 2002, and even got to create a small-scale thesis patterned off a graduate thesis. My wife (I met her in my first English class at UAF!) and I have a home outside Fairbanks that we share with a cat, a retired sled dog, and soon a baby boy. I can't wait to talk to students in my recruiting areas and share my excitement about UAF, about Fairbanks, and about Alaska. Feel free to drop me a line any time.

Let us introduce ourselves!

Welcome to the UAF Admissions Outreach Coordinator blog! This is a photo that we took this morning outside our office building, Signers' Hall. Charlie is on the left, Jessica in the middle, and that's me on the end. This is one of many ice sculptures on campus. It is, of course, a Nanook (polar bear) our mascot.

We thought that we would start this blog to showcase some of the cool things we see and do here on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Enjoy!