Alaska is one of my favorite places in the world, and definitely my favorite place in the United States. One of my closest friends from my doctoral program, Tonio Nguyen, lives there and has his own educational consulting firm. We collaborated to have Guttman students conduct research in Anchorage and have many Alaskan experiences over their spring break, 2016.
The trip was part of Global Guttman, our college’s initiative to have students travel, study, and research in states and countries outside of New York City. Study abroad is hard in community college as we only have students for two years of their college career. Global Guttman works smaller trips into courses so that students can have a guided, educational experience while accumulating credits towards graduation. Students must apply to programs, and ALL costs are covered by the college allowing ALL students equal access to participation.
These students were selected for my Liberal Arts Capstone course entitled Youth Culture, an interdisciplinary course in which we read YA (Young Adult) literature, studied the historical and cultural construction of adolescence, and each student carried out their own ethnographic research project with data collected both in New York City and in Anchorage, Alaska.
Students’ projects dealt with topics such as: the popularity of tattooing, the Black Lives Matter movement, mental health issues in young adults, youth homelessness, and how youth felt about climate change in both cities, each situated on different bodies of water 4, 363 miles apart.
The students’ research findings were profound in that many theories and concepts taught to them earlier in their degree programs were solidified through the experience of conducting research across geographic spaces. For example, the young woman studying Black Lives Matter was astounded to find that Black youth in Alaska (there are more than you think because Alaska has a strong military presence due to it’s proximity to Russia. Did you know that the only time invaders have occupied U.S. soil was during WWII in Alaska? Look it up!) reported they they did not experience racism in school, police hostility or fear of the police, or racism in their city. The student was flummoxed by this. But later in the week we learned the long history of systemic racism against Native Alaskan/indigenous peoples. We learned about a case similar to the Exonerated Five (formerly known as the Central Park Five), except they were Native Alaskan men. Her research conclusion: Race is a social/cultural construction, and this construction is different in Alaska than in New York City.
This is why travel, studying, and research are such important experiences for students. It allows them to directly apply what they have learned in new spaces. If I were a rich woman (which I will never be because I work in education), I would set up a fund to send all community college students on experiences like the Global Guttman trips. They change students.
Below are some of the experiences and collaborators Tonio and I built into our 12 day trip for the students’ learning:
Experiences Students Had:
Flat Top Hike @ Chugach State Park
Kenai Fjords Glacier and Wildlife Cruise
Exit Glacier Hike @ Kenai Fjords National Park
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center
Many thanks to those who collaborated with us for this amazing trip for student data collection:
East Anchorage High School (the most diverse high school in the United States, folks!)
Anchorage City Hall, Anchorage Youth Delegation
Alaska Native Medical Center
Covenant House, Anchorage (the only Covenant House in the United States that takes in homeless youth under the age of 18)
Indigenous artist and tattooer, Holly Nordlum
Alaska Native Youth Media Institute, Teen Media Program
Below are some photographs from our trip. If you have any questions, please reach out. I went back to Alaska in 2017 with my husband and kids, and all we can talk about is when/how we can get back. Is it magical place.
I really love musk oxen, so I had to make another whole gallery of our visit to the musk ox farm. They are incredible–a leftover from the Ice Age!
Lori Ungemah 