Resource planning professor Susan Todd to retire

Susan Todd poses with her graduate student, Sam
Adams, and his son, Orin, during a retirement party.

Susan Todd, an associate professor of resource planning, will retire at the end of the year.

Todd has been with the University of Alaska Fairbanks almost 30 years. Her research with the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station has focused on conflict resolution, mediation and public land use planning. She researched methods to involve the public in environmental decisions and facilitated public discussions on resource issues, such as caribou and wolf management and trails development.

Todd coordinated a Peace Corps program at UAF from 2005-2016. Through the program, graduate students studied natural resource management at UAF and served in the Peace Corps. Their master’s projects reflected resource issues in the countries they served. She also coordinated the Coverdell Fellows Program, which provided educational support for returning Peace Corps volunteers who studied natural resources management at UAF.

Todd's interest in international environmental issues led to a Fulbright sabbatical in Namibia during the 2011-2012 year, studying wildlife conservation.

As part of the UAF Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Todd taught natural resource conservation and policy, resource management planning and management, and environmental literature. She recently published two journal articles with her graduate students, one on deforestation in Togo and another on training women to maintain village water supplies in Ghana. She also worked with a student on a book chapter about what variables predict whether a city will be successful implementing sustainability measures.

Before coming to the university, Todd worked for several state and federal agencies, including the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service. While working for the DNR as a planner in the early 1980s, she realized that conflicts over resource management were frequently not about the data but about different values. For example, agricultural interests might want land cleared to plant, she said, while forestry representatives might want the forest left as it is.

“We argued about values,” she said. The desire to resolve such environmental conflicts inspired her to return to school at the University of Michigan to earn a doctorate in environmental mediation.

Todd doesn’t have any immediate retirement plans, except for a couple months soaking up sun in Tucson and Baja, Mexico. She wants to spend more time reading and dancing, two things she likes to do, but she expects to stay involved in Alaska resource discussions, particularly because of the impacts of climate change.

She also plans to stay connected to the university, remaining as the committee chair for her current graduate students and will serve as the major advisor for a new doctoral student from Mongolia.

Women in Agriculture Conference scheduled for Jan. 25

The Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center and UAF will once again host the Women in Agriculture Conference, on Saturday, Jan. 25. Homer Soil and Water Conservation District will also host at the Kachemak Bay Campus.

The one-day gathering takes place simultaneously at video sites in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana and Washington. Organizers describe the annual event as “an engaging, interactive day full of inspiration, learning and networking with other women farmers.” Men are welcome, too.

The theme for 2020 is “Healthy Farms.” Topics will include developing personal resiliency and mindfulness, and the program will include a panel of local women farmers in each location.

The event starts at 7 a.m. in Alaska. Online registration is available now; the fee is $35 but if you register by Jan. 17, the early bird price is $30. Student registration or registration for 4-H and FFA members is $20. Registration includes a light breakfast, lunch and conference materials.

More details will be available as the conference draws closer. Check back for more agenda and speaker information at this site. Washington State University coordinates the conference.

Holidays at the Farm event set for Dec. 13 in Palmer

A young participant at the 2018 Holidays at
the Farm event shows off the card he wrote
to an overseas soldier. Jessica Bird photo

The Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center in Palmer will host a Holidays at the Farm open house from 4-6 p.m. on Dec. 13.

Caroling begins at 5:15 p.m. and a tree lighting at 5:30 p.m. Games and activities for kids will include pin the nose on Olaf, a candy cane hunt, coloring pages, cookie decorating, tractor pictures, a photo booth, ornament making and even a visit by Rudolph, weather permitting. Cooperative Extension agents and farm staff will be on hand to answer questions.

Christmas cookies and hot chocolate will be served. The farm is located at 1509 S. Georgeson Drive. See more about the event. For more information, call the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service at 907-745-3360.

OneTree Alaska selling holiday birch treats and luminaria

OneTree is selling syrups of different sizes, caramels and decorated birch
sticks. Photo by Homyna Curiel

OneTree Alaska is once again selling birch syrup, caramels, birch syrup sticks and ice luminaria to help support its forest education outreach and research program.

Volunteers and staff will sell the birch sweets and luminaria from 5-7 p.m. weekdays and from 11 a.m. -4 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 22. A 4-ounce bag of 30-plus caramels sells for $16, syrup ranges from $12 to $48 and ice luminaria made in 3-gallon buckets are $10 each. Three decorated birch sticks sell for $7.50. The sticks can serve as edible ornaments.

OneTree is in the Lola Tilly Commons, on the side facing the Patty Center. The office can be reached through the west and east entrances.

The birch products are made from sap collected this spring by 55 households and classrooms as part of the birch sap cooperative coordinated by OneTree. Participants get birch syrup or other products, based on the amount of sap they provide.

Proceeds support the OneTree program, which is affiliated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. The program provides forest education to students, and conducts research on birch sap processing methods and on the conditions that lead to when sap flow begins and peaks. It also works with individuals interested in small-scale production of birch syrup or birch sap products.

OneTree coordinator Jan Dawe is inspired by maple research facilities at Cornell University and in Vermont that support their research through sales of maple syrup products.

Dawe is seeking community volunteers who wish to work from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14 and Dec. 21, to wrap and bag caramels and decorate birch syrup sticks. For more information or to volunteer, contact Dawe at 474-5907.

OneTree has also been recently accepted as a nonprofit for the Fred Meyer Community Rewards program.