KOTZEBUE — In the late 1980s, a precocious high school student in a small rural village, who was enrolled in distance-delivered courses through Chukchi College in Kotzebue, posed an especially thought-provoking question during class.
The professor had just cautioned that writers should avoid overusing intensifiers. For example, it was explained, avoid using the intensifier "very" whenever possible. Instead of placing "very" in front of an adjective, such as "very tired," choose a single, more descriptive adjective, such as exhausted, or shattered.
That explanation did not sit (ahem) very well with the young Verné Seum (pronounced Vern-EH) in upriver Kiana.
"What about this sentence?" asked the teenager, her audio-conferenced voice crackling across the frozen Arctic. "'That was the very thing I was going to say.' I can't use 'very' like that when I write?"
"Um, ah, yes, you can, Verné," the professor replied. "I wasn't thinking of using 'very' in that way. Good thinking. Oh, and touché, Verné."
READ MORE: Chukchi College Honors Program student voices
Teachers always remember students who think like that.
To this day, Verné Seum, whose married name is Boerner, remains one of our more memorable and gifted students after nearly three decades of teaching inside the Arctic Circle in Kotzebue for the University of Alaska. From the Iñupiaq Eskimo village of Kiana on the Kobuk River in Northwest Alaska, this extraordinary teen was applying dynamic thinking to explore a world far beyond her venue and tender age. An indication of things to come.
To be educated is to be secure
Verné Qaanaaq Seum graduated from Kiana High School in 1989. She was one of the first students to participate in what would eventually be known as the Chukchi College Honors Program, a dual-credit project that helps prepare college-bound rural and Alaska Native students in partnership with the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, which serves 11 Iñupiat Eskimo communities in a region the size of the state of Indiana in Northwest Alaska.
Since the late 1980s, we have taught in the humanities at Chukchi College, a branch campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in mostly treeless, windswept, coastal Kotzebue, the Northwest Arctic's trade and transportation hub, which sits precariously on a narrow gravel spit that stabs the treacherous Chukchi Sea about 175 miles east of the tip of Russia. In Kotzebue, we teach traditional brick-and-mortar classes, but primarily reach students in outlying villages and throughout all of Alaska through computer-assisted distance education.
The University of Alaska's partnership with the Northwest Arctic Borough School District awards simultaneous college and high school credit to honors students completing college-level classes while still in high school.
While Verné excelled as a writer, as fast as river ice slides away at breakup, she also grasped the concept of critical thinking, or learning to draw conclusions based on empirical evidence. The best students ultimately master critical thinking and problem-solving, the essence of higher education, often through writing all those essays and research papers (but in other ways, too).
Verné applied her budding critical thinking skills by reflecting on her rapidly changing village life, including one essay comparing and contrasting her grandfather, then an imposing 62-year-old elder, to her proud, petite mom, then 42.
"Here are two people I love dearly, but what a contrast!" she wrote. "My grandfather lives in a time past, a time when tradition was the only way to survive, when education could only be taught through informal means ... To him, this life is secure. He fails to understand why our generation can't live the life he has led."
Her mom, on the other hand, "remembers the past, lives for today, and prepares for tomorrow."
"She doesn't ignore tradition, but insists that we be able to adjust to new conditions," Verné wrote. "To her, to be educated is to be secure.
Verné had polished her essay up to publication quality through several drafts with her professor, who then worked with editors at the local Arctic Sounder newspaper and Tundra Times, Alaska's now-defunct, but legendary, Native newspaper. Both papers readily published the piece as part of the Chukchi News & Information Service cultural journalism project, which still operates today and has published hundreds of rural, urban, and Native students of the University of Alaska.
In fall 1989 Verné began a two-year stint on the Fairbanks campus of UAF then entered a business administration degree program at Portland State University in Oregon, then earned a master's degree in public health at Oregon Health and Sciences University. While in Oregon she met and married a German national, had three children, and worked 13 years for the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board. Then the family moved to Germany for five years, until 2013.
In September 2013, Verné e-mailed us, saying she and her family had just returned to Alaska and were living in Anchorage, where she is now president and CEO of the Alaska Native Health Board, a statewide voice on Alaska Native health issues.
Verné told us her daughter, then a high-achieving junior at an Anchorage high school, had enrolled in Advanced Placement classes and was about Verné's age when she was enrolled in Chukchi honors classes as a village distance student a quarter-century earlier in Kiana.
"At the parent open house I shared my experience in your class and its lasting impact on my life," Verné wrote. "I shared my experience of being published and receiving correspondence from readers to my articles. I asked if there were any opportunities like that for my daughter's class. The teacher said no, but she loved the idea. I offered to help because it was such a singularly important experience for me."
Verné also mentioned that before taking college classes in high school, "I had never heard the term 'critical thinking' before."
"I had not necessarily considered it a skill," she said. "It is still one of the best lessons I have ever learned. I'd like to pass on what you have done for me to the next generation."
Media to academia
When we joined the UA faculty in Kotzebue in the late 1980s after careers in full-time journalism, we noticed our students mostly wrote about everyday life. They also didn't seem to think their lives were any big deal, including those who described an exotic life following the fish and game, and the seasons, pursuing a traditional subsistence lifestyle in one of planet's most frigidly unforgiving climates. Others would write about more "ordinary" experiences but through a world view unique to rural Alaska.
We thought a media audience outside the classroom might enjoy stories from these unassuming voices. Not news, most of it, and not always opinion writing, either. Rather, "ordinary" life. Some call it "cultural journalism."
Verné Seum's piece about her mom and grandfather was one of the earliest publications of Chukchi News & Information Service, a cultural journalism project co-founded in 1988 that would not only would go on to publish numerous UA students in newspapers and magazines in Alaska but also in two anthologies. Verné's essay, for example, appeared in the first of two UAF Chukchi College student anthologies ("Authentic Alaska: Voices of Its Native Writers" is a bestselling title for the University of Nebraska Press); Epicenter Press published "Purely Alaska: Authentic Voices from the Far North," winner of three national awards, in 2010).
One April morning in 1991, Ethel Kennedy, widow of the late Robert F. Kennedy (assassinated in 1968 while running for President), called us at home in Kotzebue. She told us that Chukchi News & Information Service had won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Problems of the Disadvantaged (also called "the poor people's Pulitzer Prize").
"This is exactly the kind of work that Bobby stood for," Mrs. Kennedy told us.
A month later, along with Iñupiaq students Hannah Loon and Blanche Jones Criss, we found ourselves in sweltering heat in Virginia at an awards ceremony whose honorees also included ABC News, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, NPR, and CBS's "60 Minutes." This student writing project and the two anthologies also have been recognized in the state and elsewhere nationally over the years. We could not be more proud of our students, who have shown they can write well enough to be honored far and wide for their work.
Hard work rewarded
No student is required to participate in this project. Whether writing for publication or not, however, our students' writing assignments often receive intensive, line-by-line editing from their professors. Students must rewrite. And rewrite again. And sometimes re-write again and again, all with the goal of a polished product suitable for public consumption.
We want students to understand that no matter what the writing task, all writers, not just professional writers, must pay close attention to detail, especially if students want to excel -- or even just survive -- in college. It's a labor-intensive approach, but it seems to work.
We try to inspire students to become better thinkers through writing. Students understand the power of writing so much better when they see their name in print above something they've written. We trust they will carry their well-honed writing skills out into the real world as dynamic citizens who can make a difference.
Telling students about the importance of writing and rewriting doesn't work nearly as well as showing them through publication, which most of our students experience for the first time through this project. From reaching thousands of readers, but more importantly after receiving compliments and encouragement from friends, relatives, and community members, our students seem to understand the connection great writing has to excellence and success. As for our high school students, typically they go on to enter two- and four-year degree programs. Some remain in the region for college. Some attend a UA urban campus or head Outside, including Ivy League schools. Some also have completed law school (including UCLA law school), are in medical school or are headed there, and have earned other advanced degrees.
Many former Chukchi Honors Program students return to the region after completing degrees, including Kelson Phillips, who today advises students where he himself was first exposed to higher education, at Kotzebue's Chukchi College.
Hands-on, reality-check education remains the project's primary goal. For example, published students do realize they cannot submit writing assignments any old way in college, that they must scrutinize every word and rewrite and rewrite to polish their ideas.
Family, community, school support crucial
Any success our students might have realized through Chukchi College could never have happened in isolation. Educational success emanates from elders, community members, and families who ensure their children attend school every day, well-fed and well-rested and ready to learn.
Unfortunately, we feel these kinds of educational accomplishments remain largely an untold success story in Alaska. Stereotypes unfortunately persist, too often fueled by prejudice against, say, displaced Natives trying to survive on the streets of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. In our region, with one the highest suicide rates not just in Alaska but also in the nation, the effects of widespread social problems are obvious and distressing. At the same time, we believe investment in public education at all levels does transform lives and communities in rural Alaska. We have witnessed the progress in our students and their families and communities over the decades. After teaching three generations in some families, we see higher education becoming a healthy and positive cultural tradition as well as an investment in a stronger economy.
In recent decades, ever more rural and Alaska Native students are not just attending college, but actually completing certificate and degree programs. Rural students too often used to wilt on urban UA campuses, then high-tail it back home, the culture shock shattering their confidence after growing up in a remote community. Fleeing from college does not happen to the same degree these days. More rural and Native students are succeeding in postsecondary education both in Alaska and the Lower 48.
Over the years UAF has created an effective network of student services to retain rural and Alaska Native students, says UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers, who himself attended UAF in his 20s before becoming a state legislator, UA statewide vice president, UA regent, and an entrepreneur often working with Native organizations.
"I am pleased that rural students are pursuing postsecondary education in greater numbers," Rogers said. "I am particularly pleased that UAF's service to Alaska Native students, a group that historically has been underserved, is on the upswing."
Just 15 years ago, according to Rogers, Alaska Natives made up only 13 percent of UAF's graduates. Now, he said, one in five UAF graduates is Alaska Native, which is actually higher than the percentage of Natives in Alaska's overall population.
The University of Alaska has created successful bridge programs to support rural and Native students, such as UAF's Rural Alaska Honors Institute, a summer program operating since 1983 on the Fairbanks campus that simulates the college experience for rural and Native students. Also in Fairbanks, the internationally renowned Alaska Native Language Center has been documenting and cultivating the state's 20 Native languages since state lawmakers created it in 1972.
The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, offered statewide at UAF, UA-Anchorage, and UA-Southeast, prepares professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM programs. UAA has worked wonders with Alaska Native students through its debating program, setting them up to problem-solve life's challenges for the rest of their lives. UAA's Alaska Native Oratory Society helps Native and non-Native students develop communication skills they can apply to traditional and professional life alike.
At UAS Sitka, students at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a state-run boarding school, can enroll in dual-enrollment academic and/or tech-prep courses. Some Edgecumbe students earn nearly two years of college credits before high school graduation. Similar dual-credit programs exist throughout rural Alaska at other rural campuses. In addition, Chukchi professors also deliver dual-credit classes to high school students in other rural areas including the Nome, Bethel, Dillingham, Aleutians, and Tok regions.
Urban UA students also can take classes from rural UA faculty through distance education. In addition to developmental writing, composition classes, and core humanities requirements, we also distance deliver two journalism courses, including memoir writing, each spring term.
On the urban UAF campus, Rural Student Services, a subdivision of UAF's College of Rural and Community Development, supports rural and Native students with tutoring, mentoring, advising, and just plain old providing a place for rural students to hang out on the Fairbanks campus. UAA and UAS provide similar services. In Kotzebue, Chukchi's dozen or so employees ensure all its programs serve students first as we coordinate with sister UAF campuses in Nome, Bethel, Dillingham, and the Interior and Aleutians. In every region, it truly does take a village.
Chukchi College and its sister rural campuses in UAF's College of Rural and Community Development also feed students to the urban UA campuses in Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau, where most of our continuing students typically go on to attend. But our Chukchi Honors high school students also have attended public universities in Washington state, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, and others.
Many of our college-bound students also might end up pursuing technical training as a better fit. One former Chukchi Honors student, Andrew West, tried college for a year or two before realizing he loved working with his hands. Today he's back in the village, apprenticing for local electrical contractor Denny McConnell -- and loving it. "Maybe someday he'll return to college, but for now, he could not be happier," said Andrew's dad, Dave West. "He loves going to work every day."
Chukchi Honors students also have attended or attend the Ivy League, considered among the best universities in the world. Chukchi Honors students have attended or are attending Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania. They have completed degrees at Stanford, Syracuse and Northeastern. Graduated from UCLA Law School. Accepted to medical school or are studying pre-med. Have interned in the White House. Become nationally ranked high school and collegiate wrestlers. Work as an attorney for a Native corporation in the nation's capital. Vice president and attorney for the Alaska Federation of Natives.
One former Chukchi Honors student, John Lincoln from Kotzebue, turned down Harvard to attend Stanford; after graduation Lincoln returned to Kotzebue to live and work professionally. We also teach students in the 10 outlying villages surrounding Kotzebue, and many of those students, in addition to Verné (Seum) Boerner, have made the giant leap from village life to an urban college campus.
We are proud of them all.
These students are succeeding because they come from strong, loving communities and families that support education. Numerous mentors -- including elders, teachers, administrators, teacher aides, Iñupiaq instructors, coaches and community volunteers -- have contributed to their success along the way. Again, it takes a village.
Familiar teen life, with a rural twist
Starting today, Alaska Dispatch News will be publishing a series of stories composed by our dual-credit high school students who are currently or were recently enrolled at UAF's Chukchi College. While these pieces were written only by high school honors students, this writing project has published mostly adult college students over the past 25 years, from traditional college-age to middle-age to esteemed and accomplished elders.
While our high school students write about familiar teenage pursuits with a rural twist, their youthful voices in many ways could come from about anywhere. Like in many small towns elsewhere, many of the best academic students in rural Alaska typically play school sports, and they love to write about their athletic exploits. Like typical American kids, young rural Alaskans also use cyberspace prolifically, which can trigger frightening encounters, as one student reveals in a distressing and revealing story.
Like so many Alaskans, young rural students often hunt and fish to help feed their family. And one student writes about procrastination. Kids … you gotta love 'em!
These students are not professional writers or journalists, nor do we offer them in this series as such. We do believe, however, that their unpretentious voices offer insights into rural Alaska not readily available elsewhere.
To be educated is to be secure. We hope you enjoy the series.
Correction: The preceding commentary originally had some details of Verné Boerner's life incorrect. She has three children, not two, and she spent two years at UAF's Fairbanks campus before transferring to Portland State.
Susan B. Andrews and John Creed are professors of journalism and Arts and Letters at UAF's Chukchi College in Kotzebue. In addition to developmental English and composition classes, they also teach classes in memoir and magazine writing. Contact them at sbandrews@alaska.edu and jcreed@alaska.edu, respectively.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.