Jan. 16, 2024

Welcome, welcome, welcome: A huge welcome to our new students and an equally enormous welcome back to those returning! 

I hope and trust that you had a wonderful break and are starting the journey of this term from a place of rested wellness. If your break had its challenges with the holidays, with work, with family, and with travel, you are not alone. For many, this loosely structured time of year can be very challenging. It is dark. It is cold. And we place a lot of expectations on ourselves and others to have an especially amazing time. I hope it was all that and more for you, but whether your break was perfect or flawed, peaceful or exhausting, today we embark together on our 16-week journey of new experiences. It is going to be amazing. You will learn so many new things through your travels. You will make new friends. You will learn new perspectives. You will learn about others and about yourself. You will never be the same again. This is the wonder of learning. Accompanying this fantastic journey, each day will bring more and more daylight; it will be a 16-week passage into the light and warmth of spring. Buckle up; here we go! 

As you join your clean slate of courses for the first time this week, now is a good time to set a workable plan and lock in good habits. Grab a sheet of paper or your online calendar and map out your weekly schedule. Build in the study time you know you’ll need to reach your goals. Be honest with yourself. Commit to investing time in your courses. There are no shortcuts. Get your books, meet your faculty, and open yourself to new friendships, new information, ideas, and perspectives that you have signed up for. 

If you do these things, you are in for a great term. If you journeyed with us for the fall term, reflect on what worked for you and what didn’t. Be your own best coach. You know it takes resilience and persistence to stick to your plan for success. You also know how quickly the semester can fly by. The spring term will slide by even faster.

If you are here in Fairbanks, at any of our rural or community campuses, or anywhere in Alaska, you’ll be riding the coming weeks up and out of darkness to our summer world of near-constant daylight. It is a remarkable ride. Today, we are at about five hours and 12 minutes of daylight and gaining rapidly. By the end of the month, two fast weeks from now, we’ll gain another hour and a half and be at six hours and 50 minutes! I love this time of year. Anticipating and tracking this change is one of my favorite things to do. If you want to see and learn more, I like this site. The return of our daylight is a literal ray of sunshine and hope in our daily world. 

Things to do: 

Pay your bill before Jan. 26. If you aren’t 100 percent certain everything is paid and complete, make sure to check in with Financial Aid or the Bursar’s Office. If your bill isn’t paid by Jan. 26, you can be dropped from classes and housing, so it is worth making sure this step is complete. 

Check out the Nanook Engage site for all kinds of things happening within our community. 

Welcome to the spring 2024 term. I am so proud of you. More importantly, be proud of yourself. You are on the path to a brighter future. The light is coming!

As always, don’t hesitate to send me your comments and suggestions. I am at obguthrie@alaska.edu. 

— Owen Guthrie, vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management