For 20 years, the Drumbeats Alaska Consortium has advanced, informed, protected, and sustained place-based food and energy sovereignty on the traditional lands of the Alaska Native people. We serve UAF’s five community and rural campuses and support research, education, outreach, and scholarship that espouse the principles of meaningful collaboration, respect for sovereignty, and incorporation of tribal knowledge and leadership in all that we do.
Our consortium is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Education Competitive Grants Program.
Our mission is to advance place-based Alaska Native food and energy sovereignty through education by:
1) Advancing Alaska Native food and energy systems through place-based education.
2) Providing Alaska Native educational opportunities for youth in food and energy sovereignty; and
3) Developing the Indigenous Food and Energy Scholars Program.
Drumbeats Alaska Consortium is comprised of academic and community outreach programs from five Alaska Native-Serving Institution campuses within UAF College of Indigenous Studies. Each participating campus advances a component of the consortium’s focus:
- Ethnobotany (EBOT) | Kuskokwim Campus - Bethel
- High Latitude Range Management (HLRM) | Northwest Campus - Nome
- Sustainable Energy (SE) | Bristol Bay Campus - Dillingham
- Tribal Governance & Stewardship (TGS) | College of Indigenous Studies - Fairbanks
- Traditional Crafts and Native Language (TCNL) | Interior Alaska Campus - Fairbanks
Left: Bristol Bay Campus - Culture Camp teaching subsistence practices in Dillingham, AK.
Right: A Northwest Campus student studies the chemistry of tanning while examining salmon leather cured using the tannic acids extracted from willow and alder bark. The skills are applied to tanning reindeer hides.
Drumbeats strengthens educational capacity by supporting faculty in providing food, agricultural and natural resource systems, and science curricula. Faculty employ place-based Indigenous and Western knowledge to design and deliver curricula that increase relevance while improving student recruitment and retention.
Our multifaceted programming offers education through distance learning, experiential learning, and place-based instruction and supports community efforts to sustain traditional ways of life.
Photo: Alaska Native student (far right) building leadership skills testifying to
the Alaska Board of Game to protect traditional moose hunting practices during a Tribal
Stewardship course.
Our Story
Drumbeats began with awards from the USDA Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service to the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service, funded from 2003 to 2007.
Faculty with content area expertise and credentials were recruited for each program. Because curriculum review committees did not have faculty representatives with experience in these subject areas, they had difficulty evaluating the appropriateness of the proposed course content and materials.
In 2007, the first Drumbeats programs by academic designators were approved. In 2009, Drumbeats expanded its scope to include agricultural sciences and adopted a focus on Subsistence Sciences.
In 2013, Tribal Stewardship courses were developed under the Tribal Management program at the Interior Alaska Campus. For the past six years, Carrie Stevens, Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Tribal Governance, has served as the Principal Investigator, and campus directors with the Kuskokwim, Northwest, and Bristol Bay Campuses serve as Co-Principal Investigators.
We thank our many university and community partners who have contributed to and collaborated with us on programs, projects, and events over the years and around our campuses. This site will help you learn more about our ongoing work, current educational opportunities, and partnerships.
We also thank the students and supporters who honor self-determination and respect time-honed knowledge and Indigenous Ways of Being.
This work is supported by the Alaska Native-Serving and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions Education Competitive Grants Program, [project award no. 2024-38470-43416], from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.