Students honor Cathy Donaldson as outstanding staff

Cathy Donaldson

The UAF student government organization chose Cathy Donaldson for its Staff of the Year Award.

Donaldson is the academic and research staff member for the School of Natural Resources and Extension. She helps students resolve issues, such as finding someone to sign paperwork, proctoring tests, connecting them with an advisor or working through many other issues. She has also filled in as a recruiter at various events and works with UAF recruiters on answering questions about the natural resources and environment programs.

Sierra von Hafften nominated Donaldson for the award from the Associated Students of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. A student senator, von Hafften said she thought of Donaldson because the award is for someone who makes a difference in students’ lives.

“She is extremely helpful and willing to work with students,” she said. Von Hafften said she has learning disabilities and Donaldson has worked with her on exams and has proctored exams for other students who miss exams because of illness.

Von Hafften is from Anchorage and expects to graduate a year from now. She said she switched from geological engineering to the natural resources and the environment major, in part, because of the helpfulness of faculty and of Donaldson.

“She is really nice and very welcoming,” she said. “It’s a very welcoming department.”

Sara Church, who is finishing up her junior year, said Donaldson did a great job communicating with students and helping them get paperwork together for the NRM 290 field trip she took last year. Donaldson regularly forwards job and internship opportunities to students, and Church applied for one of those internships and received it. The ongoing internship is with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. Donaldson also proctored exams for two distance-delivered natural resources management classes she took that were taught from Palmer by former Professor Norm Harris.

Donaldson said she is humbled by the award because she knows other great staff at UAF. She enjoys helping students and working with the school’s faculty. “Everybody cares about what’s best for the students,” she said.

Donaldson has been with the school since January of 2016. She has a master’s degree in water resources from University of California Davis and worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for several years as a wildlife biologist in the endangered species area.

She was recognized at the student awards breakfast on April 27.

Vegetable variety trials research highlight published

Find out what’s happening with the UAF vegetable variety trials in the newest Agroborealis Research Highlight.

Project director Heidi Rader coordinated limited trials at the Georgeson Botanical Garden in 2017, but the trials expanded in 2018 with 30 varieties of beets, carrots and celery. Varieties of beans, Brussels sprouts, corn and watermelon were also evaluated for further testing.

The trials will expand to the Matanuska Experiment Farm in Palmer this year. Read about what the trials evaluated and where to find detailed results.

Agroborealis Research Highlights are published online twice yearly by the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and School of Natural Resources and Extension at www.uaf.edu/snre/agroborealis. The two-page highlights are downloadable.

If you want to like to get an email when future research highlights are published, please subscribe here.

Community agriculture celebrated May 5 at Georgeson

The public is invited to celebrate Alaska agriculture May 5 at the Georgeson Botanical Garden.

The Interior Alaska Food Network and the botanical garden will host Alaska Agriculture Day 2019 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with free family activities and educational booths representing more than 25 community groups and organizations.

Activities will include painting a plant pot, barley toss, face painting, garden tours, planting a seed starter for sunflowers or marigolds, and several games, such as ladybug tic-tac-toe. The Alaska OneTree Program will demonstrate how to make birch syrup, and participants may learn about beekeeping, conservation, sustainability and growing herbs. There will also be swallow nests from the Alaska Songbird Institute and farm equipment.

A new plaza will be dedicated at 1 p.m. to James Drew, former dean of the UAF School of Agriculture and Land Resources Management, a predecessor to the UAF School of Natural Resources and Extension.

One of the event organizers, Britanny Balthaser, said the Interior Alaska Food Network is a coalition of individuals from the Interior who work to improve the local food system. Hosting the event brings attention to the importance of local agriculture and the agriculture we have, she said. The network is a regional affiliate of the Alaska Food Policy Council.

The garden is located at 117 W. Tanana Drive, at the university’s Fairbanks Experiment Farm. For more information, contact Balthaser at 907-474-6754 or interioralaskafoodnetwork@gmail.com.

First reindeer calves born at Fairbanks Experiment Farm

The third reindeer calf hangs close to its mother, Lola, at the Fairbanks
Experiment Farm on Monday. UAF photo by J.R. Ancheta

See the YouTube video.

The first reindeer calves of 2019 arrived at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm over the weekend.

Male and female calves were born late Friday night and the third reindeer calf, a female, arrived Saturday morning at 5 a.m.

“We found it Saturday morning when we came in to feed,” said reindeer caretaker Erin Carr.

Workers discovered two additional calves this morning. On Monday afternoon, the newest calf and her mother, Lola, rested in the pen closest to the barn, on the uphill side of West Tanana Drive. Visitors snapped photos of the gangly calf through the fence as it sniffed around the grassy field, nursed and stayed close to its mother.

The calf, who will be named this fall, weighed 13.5 pounds. Carr said the calves usually stand for the first time within an hour of being born.

Altogether, a dozen calves are expected this spring the farm. The Reindeer Research Program herd now includes 33 adults and five calves. The program conducts research on nutrition, animal health, meat quality and range management in support of the reindeer industry.

As is tradition, schoolchildren are encouraged to submit possible names for the calves, which are named in July or August, after they are weaned. Children may submit names on the Reindeer Research Program website at http://reindeer.salrm.uaf.edu/index.php. Names chosen last year, included Zac Effron, Tater Tot, Pretzel and Hope. Reindeer have also been born this spring at the university’s Large Animal Research Station.

UAF graduate students to provide research sampler

Graduate students in biology, fisheries and natural resource management invite the public to the UAF Murie Auditorium April 13 to learn about their ongoing research.

Enjoying Life at the Extremes: Wildfires, Frigid Water and Outdoor Recreation is described as a sampler of research from UAF graduate students. Scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon, the event will feature 10-minute presentations by four students and a panel discussion on their research on a variety of topics, from molecular biology to land use decisions.

The presenters include Kimberly Diamond, who graduated from the School of Natural Resources and Extension in 2018 and is pursuing a master’s in natural resources and environment. The other students are doctoral students Elizabeth Hinkle of the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and Anna Rox of the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and master’s student Donald Arthur of the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

The students are enrolled in a course focused on effectively communicating science to the public and Diamond said the event will offer students a unique opportunity to apply skills from the course and to engage with the public about their research topics. The class is taught by Associate Professor Anne Beaudreau.

Diamond’s presentation is called “Feng Shui: Can it be used for outdoor recreation management?" She said she is using feng shui as an analogy to help explain an outdoor recreation management framework that is relatively new to the Bureau of Land Management. She encountered the Chinese concept of “feng shui” in an interior design context. According to feng shui, the energy, or chi, of the environment can be balanced and cultivated through the placement of items in that space. She said she is working with Professor Pete Fix to research how the recreational setting affects the long-term outcomes of recreation.

All are welcome to attend and ask questions. Refreshments will be available in the lobby after the event.