RAHI Sets Record Pace in Third Decade

Submitted by Kasey Gillam
Phone: (907) 474-7581
04/29/03

The Rural Alaska Honors Institute, the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Rural Alaska’s premiere summer college preparatory program, heads into its third decade of service to Alaskan high school students with a record number of participants and a strong record of results. With additional support this year from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, 60 students have been selected from a pool of nearly 100 applicants to participate in the six-week campus residence program emphasizing the building of both academic skills and a supportive learning community.

Organized in 1983 at the request of the Alaska Federation of Natives, RAHI was charged with helping to increase college success for rural Alaska Native high school graduates. To date almost 150 RAHI alumni have earned baccalaureate degrees, including five juris doctorates, and about 50 have earned associate degrees.

"Several have entered graduate school and one is a practicing medical doctor," said Jim Kowalsky, RAHI program director. "Program participants are entering Alaska’s professional workforce as engineers, teachers, registered nurses, attorneys, artists, land use planners, Native corporation officers, social workers and tribal administrators, and many more are in the educational pipeline closing in on the baccalaureate finish line. RAHI is definitely making an intended impact."

Students who apply must be juniors or seniors in high school with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. RAHI students receive a university transcript with 8 -10 credits for successfully completed course work that will count toward academic degree requirements. Courses include writing for college, study skills, geoscience, biomedical research, pre-calculus, Alaska Native psychology, Alaska Native dance, computer web design and swimming.

Students travel to the UAF campus May 31. A public cap and gown ceremony and evening awards banquet mark the end of this twenty-first RAHI on July 11.

CONTACT: Jim Kowalsky, RAHI program director or Denise Wartes, program assistant at (907) 474-6886, toll free in Alaska at (800) 478-6886, e-mail: fyrahi@uaf.edu or visit www.uaf.edu/rahi/.