This spring UAA will lose one of its oldest and most beloved faculty members. Professor of Physics and Astronomy Greg Parrish has decided to retire after 42 years of teaching. Originally hired in 1970, Parrish joined UAA’s faculty a full six years before the university would even become a four-year college.

Parrish says that the staff hired during that time period were initially called the “September Bunch” due to the large hiring that took place during that time. According to Parrish, the faculty at the time looked upon the new hires with skepticism due to their youth.

On the night of Commencement, a lone individual will stand in front of 2,323 of his fellow graduates and give a speech. This speech has been prepared well in advance, and the young man — a sociology major, Leadership Honors award-winner and Canadian citizen — will commemorate the class of 2012 on a night of celebration as they accept their diplomas and walk across a stage to the next chapter of their lives.

Kent Spiers has spent the last four years at UAA, and in that time he has plumbed the school to its fullest potential.

This is going to be a goodbye column. But not really.

It’s Commencement. The end of the 2011-2012 school year has finally rolled around, and for a certain group of upcoming graduates, it’s time to jump ship and run like hell. The culmination of — what, let’s be honest — five or six years has now led up to this one definitive moment of leaving college life behind and moving back in with your parents. I’m leaving too. It’s an extremely hard thing to do, but I’m off for orange-er pastures — not graduating, sadly (there’s realistically another three or four years before that), but onto a new college, a new institute of higher learning, a new phase of life.

“Change” has been a word circulating around UAA’s campus frequently the past couple of years. A new Conoco Phillips Science Building, new Health Sciences Building, new science and chemistry labs, and a new sports complex have been added or are in the works, among other projects. But the majority of these constructions affect only a small fraction of students at UAA. However, the newest spark of change coming to UAA in the near future is one that will have reverberating effects on a much larger scale for students: the construction of a new engineering building.

he University of Alaska housing community is home to almost 1,000 students. Part of UAA Housing’s mission is to make these students feel safe and secure.

On April 6, 2012, the University Police Department was called to the Edward Lee Gorsuch Commons mailroom to investigate reports of possible mail theft.  The Commons is thought of as the heart of the UAA housing community, where residents eat, hang out, check their mail and feel a sense of connection with fellow students. Over the past couple of weeks, UPD has initiated an investigation, conducted interviews and seized evidence.