Colleges and Campuses
UAF Community and Technical College is part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and offers more than 40 one-year certificate and two-year associate degree programs in a variety of exciting fields. In addition, we offer a two-year Associate of Arts degree. This flexible liberal arts program can be designed for personal or professional development, and meets the academic requirements necessary to transfer to a four-year degree.
The College of Indigenous Studies (CIS) geographically serves nearly two-thirds of the state, representing more than 160 primarily Alaska Native communities. The college is also the center for support and development of distance delivery of education throughout the university. The main office is located in the Brooks Building on the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) campus.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks Bristol Bay Campus (College of Indigenous Studies) is committed to knowledge-based education of rural Alaskans. We affect social and economic change of the communities we serve by enriching the quality of life for our students through learning.
In 1971 the University of Alaska established a “rural education center” in Kotzebue. By 1978, the University of Alaska, Board of Regents had established Chukchi Community College, which operated until 1987, when the newly named Chukchi Campus became a branch of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).
Based in the community of Kotzebue, Chukchi Campus serves eleven communities amid more than 36,000 square miles of spectacular mountain and tundra wilderness known as the Northwest Arctic Borough. No modern road system connects the villages to each other or to the outside world. The Northwest Arctic Borough population is 7,300, of which over 82 percent are I upiaq. The pursuit of a traditional way of life and subsisting off of the land are the driving forces behind most of the residents. At the same time, western higher education and the UAF are becoming increasingly crucial to the region’s future. Residents recognize the need of an appropriate balance between the increasing presence of western institutions and preserving I upiat traditions.
The Kuskokwim Campus is located in a regional transportation and service center for an extended community of more than 46 Alaska Native villages. They are primarily Yup'ik/Cup'ik Eskimo villages with 56 tribes in a 57,000 square mile roadless area comparable to the state of Illinois. The area has a regional population of nearly 25,000 people. Bethel is a community of about 6,000 people 80 miles inland on the Kuskokwim River. The Kuskokwim Campus offers academic, vocational and community interest courses, as well as courses leading to associate, baccalaureate and master's degrees.
Kuskokwim Campus is the largest rural campus in the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) system and is a branch campus of the College of Indigenous Studies (CIS). The campus is physically located in Bethel, a regional hub community situated in Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, about 400 miles west of Anchorage. The service area includes census districts with the highest rates of poverty, youthfulness, and lowest rates of full-time permanent employment in the state and nation (U.S. Census Bureau data). The region also holds one of the last indigenous cultures and societies resident in their homeland and still speaking a vital Native language - Central Yup'ik/Cup'ik Eskimo.
Northwest Campus provides excellent opportunities for academic, vocational, and community education to the Bering Strait Region.
VISION
Northwest Campus will provide programs to meet our students' personal and educational
goals and to contribute to the success of our communities.
The Interior Alaska Campus (IAC) is one of five campuses serving rural Alaskan students through the College of Indigenous Studies (CIS). We are a unique campus due to the area we serve, our teaching formats and the integration of cultural knowledge and practices into our curriculum.
The rural campuses are a critical link between the University of Alaska and rural residents, many in remote communities off the road system. IAC provides distance and place-based education to numerous communities in the Interior Region. This far reaching area is served through administrative and educational centers in Fairbanks, Fort Yukon and Tok.