Parking Services to donate citation revenue to Seawolf Food Pantry for two weeks
The yearly Parking Services fundraiser kicks off later this month, and aims to beat last year’s $1,800 donation.
By Kyle Ivacic news2@thenorthernlight.org
From Nov. 20 through Dec. 1, all money that Parking Services receives from parking citations will be donated to the Seawolf Food Pantry as a part of Parking Services’ annual “Parking for the Pantry” program.
According to the the pantry’s website, it provides food to the roughly 45% of Seawolves who are “experiencing some type of food insecurity and provides a three-day supply of shelf-stable food for individuals and households of up to four people.”
The pantry is located in Room 212 of the Professional Studies Buidling and can be accessed at the times listed on the website.
Parking Services used to do a peanut butter and jelly drive. However, allergy concerns and a lack of flexibility for the food pantry caused Parking Services to opt for a fundraiser instead.
In an interview with The Northern Light, Parking Services Associate Director Falon Harkins explained that the
fundraiser gives the Seawolf Food Pantry “flexibility” that a regular food drive cannot provide. By donating money, rather
The growth of AI in social media
As part of its investigative series on artificial intelligence, The Northern Light looked into the growing presence of AI on social media platforms
By Kyle Ivacic news2@thenorthernlight.org
The internet and social media have changed the world since the advent of websites like Facebook, Instagram and the long-gone Myspace. The era of social media has allowed for people to communicate across vast distances and maintain friendships in a way that was not possible just 20 years ago.
We are connected to the world – and the lives of our friends and acquaintances – like never before with algorithms that feed us status updates, friends’ vacation photos, ads and 24/7 news streams. Social media has become even more powerful with the recent additions of chatbots and algorithms that are powered by artificial intelligence.
According to a Forbes article published in March:
“AI tools help enhance features of social media platforms,” by way of “text and visual content creation, social media monitoring, ad management, influencer research, brand awareness campaigns and more.”
According to Forbes, AI models have “the potential to create engaging content across categories.” These categories include more than just chatbots. AI generated art and AI algorithms are used by companies to boost engagement.
AI tools are being quickly developed and released across social media platforms.
Snapchat released an AI chatbot called “My AI” earlier this year. According to Snapchat, My AI is a chatbot that runs on “OpenAI’s GPT technology,” the same technology that runs the popular AI chat-
bot ChatGPT. The company says that the GPT technology used in the chatbot has been customized specifically for Snapchat.
Users can give the bot its own name and can use it to perform a variety of textbased tasks such as conversing about the day or creating simple recipes.
In Snapchat’s press release regarding My AI, the company warned that “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything.”
In September, Facebook parent company Meta announced a slew of new AI tools for Instagram – which already uses an “automated AI recommendation engine,” according to The Verge.
According to Meta, these tools include AI-powered digital stickers, AI image editing that lets users restyle photos or change “the scene or background of your image,” a new Siri-like assistant called Meta AI and a set of 28 AI-powered celebrity chatbots with “unique backstories.”
According to Meta, they “partnered with cultural icons and influencers to play and embody” some of their AI chatbots, while others are fictional characters created by Meta. Each bot has its own profile on Instagram and Facebook – allowing users to get to know them and understand the communication style of each.
The likenesses of several celebrities have been digitally cast to act as the embodiment of several of these bots. Charli D’Amelio, Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, Paris Hilton and several others have contracted with Meta’s AI program.
AI is not only limited to the user experience, as many social media companies also use it in the marketing realm.
According to Reuters, social media giants have experienced a “rebound” in ad revenue that can be attributed to “the growing adoption of artificial intelligence.”
Algorithmic tactics are used when determining who should be the face of a marketing campaign.
than food, the pantry can use the funds however they see fit.
“The money is theirs. They can do whatever they want with it,” said Harkins.
Last year, the program raised $1,800 –an amount that Parking Services is aiming to surpass this year.
If a student wants to help with the fundraiser, all they have to do is pay their parking citations.
Harkins said that if students are “sitting on some tickets and some citations, [I] would love [for] them to come in and get those citations paid off during that time because I would like to beat that 1,800 number from last year.”
Even if Parking Services does not meet its fundraising goal, the food pantry can still expect some money. “If we don’t collect a minimum of 1,000, my executive director authorized us to go ahead, and we just pay 1,000,” said Harkins.
Students looking to pay parking citations can do so online through UAA’s Permit Store or by sending a check to the Parking Services office in Eugene Short Hall.
According to Forbes, “AI can drive indepth insights about influencers, predict how well an influencer will align with the brand’s goals … and help brands select the relevant media influencers by comparing data.” These AI can also be used to select “the most effective content for each campaign.”
Forbes reports that social media ad management is also largely AI-based. “AI-powered tools can help analyze hundreds or thousands of ad [targets] and budget variations, find and segment audiences, make [ads] creative, test ads and improve speed and performance.”
According to Forbes, AI can do a plethora of other tasks in the sphere of social media such as detecting logos and keywords or providing “insights about brand mentions” and helping creators know what types of content will gain the most attention.
The combination of artificial intelligence and social media does have risks and can propagate biases. According to the Pulitzer Center, there is evidence that “AI tags photos of women in everyday situations as sexually suggestive” much more often than it does it for men. This has helped in “amplifying societal disparities” on social media and the internet at large, according to the center.
A study by the Guardian concluded that “The problem seems to be that these AI-algorithms have built-in gender bias, rating women more racy than images containing men.” ”
Meta came under fire in 2021 when a leak revealed that the company was aware that its algorithms make “body image issues worse for teenage girls” according to The Guardian. Concerns like these and about children’s general safety online have only grown with the advancement of artificial intelligence.
Qualms aside, tech companies and media giants are going full steam ahead on AI development. With these advancements, artificial intelligence is becoming even more integrated with the internet and everyday life.
PHOTO BY KYLE IVACIC
A phone screen displaying several social media apps.
PHOTO BY TAYLOR HECKART.
Packed parking lots between the Consortium Library and the ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building.
University of Alaska graduate student workers vote overwhelmingly to unionize
In a vote of 314 to 11, graduate students formed the first graduate student employee union in Alaska – what happens next?
By Taylor Heckart news3@thenorthernlight.org
After a two week voting period, University of Alaska graduate student employees officially voted to form a union. With 314 votes in favor and 11 opposed, the vote to create the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association union was officially certified on Nov. 2.
This vote comes a little less than a year after the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association filed a petition for recognition with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency on Dec. 9. Afterward, there was significant back and forth between the University of Alaska and the Alaskan
Graduate Workers Association on who would be included in the union.
It wasn’t until August that a final agreement was reached, and an election was scheduled for Oct. 13 through Oct 26.
In a previous article, The Northern Light covered messaging by the University of Alaska that warned that a union might be “one-size-fits-all” and may not be in students’ best interests. Union organizers disagreed, saying that the university’s claims were “blatantly false” or “partial truths.”
A more in-depth list of University of Alaska and Alaskan Graduate Workers Association claims can be found in the article.
Both the University of Alaska and the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association encouraged eligible students to vote.
According to a statement from the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association, 434 graduate student employees were eligible to vote. With 314 voting in favor, 72% of eligible employees made clear that they want a union.
Following the vote, Chief Human Resources Officer Memry Dahl wrote in a UA-wide email sent on Oct. 27 that “After certification, university leadership looks forward to bargaining with the new unit in the future.”
According to a press release by the Alaskan
Graduate Workers Association and the United Auto Workers union – which the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association and many other graduate employee unions have affiliated with – “AGWA/UAW is the largest new bargaining unit in the state of Alaska in ten years.”
In that same press release, UAF Graduate Research Assistant in Biology and Wildlife Caitlyn Oliver Brown was quoted as saying: “We formed our union one conversation and one worker at a time, and made sure people had accurate information about what it means to form a union. Now, we’re looking forward to channeling this
support and energy into creating a stronger UA together at the bargaining table — one which allows us to focus on the research we love and the contributions we make.”
In an interview with the Northern Light, UAAbased union organizer Sofia Sytniak said that the next step is bargaining with the university.
“We are sending out bargaining surveys to all graduate student workers who are a part of the union to get an idea of things that everyone wants to be addressed … by our first contract negotiations,” said Sytniak.
Sytniak said that the largest issues that the union hopes to address are increased healthcare benefits and higher pay. She said that – through surveys – they’ve also learned about other issues that are important to graduate student employees.
There are 15 positions listed on the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association website, 12 of which are for UAF students. There are two positions for UAA students and one position for a student at any college.
According to the site, they have selected the number of positions based on the numbers of graduate student employees at each campus.
If more than one person runs for the same position, an election will be held from Nov. 14th to Nov. 16th.
More information on bargaining updates and future bargaining schedules can be found on the Alaskan Graduate Workers Association website.
The Alaskan Graduate Workers Association is also working on creating a bargaining committee – an elected group of members who would bargain with the University of Alaska Administration for graduate student contracts.
The Wellness Wagon and other initiatives are bringing basic needs to students on campus For students in need, there are multiple locations to find necessary items across campus.
By Taylor Heckart news3@thenorthernlight.org
“Is this all free?”
That tends to be the first question many students ask when the camo-colored Wellness Wagon rolls through the spine of UAA. Laden with an abundance of snacks, instant meals, drinks, toothbrushes, Covid tests and more – the answer is always “yes.”
For first time students, hesitation turns into surprise and gratitude. By then, students who know the Wellness Wagon are already running over from study spots or vaulting over furniture to see what is available today.
I spent some time with the Wellness Wagon as it made its rounds, observing its impact on students.
The Wellness Wagon is an initiative run by UAA’s Peer Health Educator team, built with the goal of providing easy access to free basic needs on campus.
According to the Seawolf Food Pantry page, nearly 45% of UAA students experience some kind of food insecurity. The Peer Health Education team ran their own survey, and found similar results.
They also found that 12% of students reported experiencing homelessness, and 10% of students reported having insufficient access to basic needs in the past 30 days. Of the students who had insufficient access, 70% reported
having access to no basic needs items.
“These results prove our need for better accessibility and free options, meeting students where they are and equity. Lack of food and basic needs is detrimental to student success both academically and socially,” wrote Summer Sweet, the Health Promotion Specialist with the Peer Health Educators, in a follow-up email.
According to Sweet, the Wellness Wagon was started in spring of last year. It now rolls across campus once a week –though the date and time often varies.
Everything provided is free, and students can take as little or as much as they need.
Sweet said that the
Wellness Wagon was fully paid for by Student Activities last semester, and they are currently looking for grants, donations, and other sources of funding for the next year.
The most common things students say after taking items is either “Thank you!” or “I really needed this!”
Sweet said that – when the Peer Health Educator team ran a survey earlier in the year – they received a lot of positive feedback from students. Many students used the survey to thank the team for the service.
“They’re lifesavers!” said UAA student Deko Harbi after looking through the Wellness Wagon’s offerings. Harbi said that sometimes she’s
out late studying and forgets to eat. The Wellness Wagon is able to provide food when she needs it.
The Wellness Wagon also receives support from other groups on campus. Kaladi Brothers sometimes gives food for the Wellness Wagon to hand out after closing, and the Consortium Library will put out Wellness Wagon materials during the library’s after hours.
The only problem the Wellness Wagon faces during its rounds? Their free tampons look too much like chocolate –much to the surprise of some students. The Peer Health Education team now gives out a warning well in advance.
By the time the Wellness Wagon has finished
its route through campus, it has already run out of many items.
Sweet said that they’re currently looking for donations to keep the Wellness Wagon going. Their highest priority items are monetary donations, dental products, menstrual products, hygiene products and cold weather gear. They also have an Amazon wishlist.
The Wellness Wagon is currently one of multiple basic needs initiatives across campus.
Other Locations for Free Basic Needs Items on Campus:
The Seawolf Food Pantry can be found at the Professional Studies Building, Room 212. According to their website, the Seawolf Food Pantry provides a 3 day supply of shelf stable food for up to four people.
The Seawolf Food Pantry Fall 2023 hours are Monday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Tuesday from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Students may use the food pantry twice a month.
There is also the Emergency Food Cache, available at the Student Health and Counseling Center at Rasmuson Hall. According to their website, the Emergency Food Cache provides a 3 day supply of easy to prepare packaged foods.
The Northern Light has previously done stories on the Food Pantry and the Emergency Food Cache, which can be found online.
The Peer Health Educator team also stocks a wellness station at the entrance of The Hub, located
on the first floor of the Student Union. The Wellness Station provides condoms, hand sanitizer, Covid tests, razors, Emergen-C, menstrual products and fliers and posters for various other resources.
Free condom dispensers can be found in the Student Union second floor bathrooms, Health Sciences Building first floor bathrooms and in Multicultural Student Services in Rasmuson Hall. Condom dispensers can also be found in various locations across Residential Campus.
Multicultural Student Services has a mutual aid station with free Covid tests, razors, condoms and menstrual products. They also provide free food and snacks for students.
The Pride Center also has a mutual aid station with condoms, menstrual products, Covid tests, flyers and other resources.
The Consortium Library provides free Covid tests at the front desk and free menstrual products. Though the menstrual products are found in the library’s vending machine, they are vended at no cost.
Career Services operates the Seawolf Career Closet. According to the Career Services Instagram account, the Career Closet offers students free access to new and gently used professional clothing. In addition to free professional clothing, the Career Closet also offers complimentary hygiene products such as toothbrushes, tooth paste and deodorant. Appointments for the Career Closet can be made on Handshake.
Sweet said that she is currently working with facilities to get free menstrual products available in bathrooms. She said that they will hopefully be available soon.
PHOTO BY TAYLOR HECKART
A member of the Peer Health Educator team helps distribute items throughout the spine.
FEATURES 03
AI at work: How some UAA staff are using AI
How are professionals using AI in the workplace? Two UAA administrators weigh in and share tips.
Disclaimer: Zac Clark, interviewed for this story, is The Northern Light’s administrative advisor.
By Matthew Schmitz editor@thenorthernlight.org
If you’ve been following the news about AI, you might have come across claims that AI is going to radically change the way we work.
CNN quoted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as saying, “We believe this next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth: powerful copilots designed to remove the drudgery from our daily tasks and jobs, freeing us to rediscover the joy of creation.”
But what does this look like in practice? Are people really using these tools at work?
Two UAA administrators spoke with The Northern Light about their day-to-day use of AI.
Zac Clark is the associate director of Student Life and Leadership. The department organizes student activities and provides support for various student organizations such as USUAA.
He said that he uses ChatGPT 4.0 — the paid version of OpenAI’s chat bot — at least once a day. Clark said that he uses it to research information. He said that it’s good at summarizing general information that would normally require a visit to multiple webpages.
He said that ChatGPT “knows” information about UAA, such as the mascot and other details about the university. But, Clark said, you should still double check its information.
“Anything you do with AI, you should also verify … If it
seems like it makes sense, maybe glance around at a couple other things before you declare it as the overall number one answer.”
Clark also said that he uses it as a document creation tool.
He said that the old way was to search for a document template online – like a resume template – and fill in the details.
He said that ChatGPT can be prompted to generate a template and you can enter details – such as job experience and certifications – to jumpstart the process.
Clark emphasized that users cannot just copy and paste whatever it creates to use as a final draft.
“It’s a starting point, not a finished product … think of it as draft version 1.0. And you really need to get to draft version 4.0 before you’re done with something.”
Clark said that you can use it to help with the tone and voice in a piece of writing too.
Clark said that promotional writing is not one of his strong suits, but he uses ChatGPT to help write engaging social media posts for student events.
Clark said that one drawback to ChatGPT is that it can be “verbose” at times. He said you need to be clear in what you want it to produce and give it strict parameters: summarize information, use a particular writing style, etc.
Clark gave a presentation to the department of Student Engagement and Inclusion about using AI. Director of Career Services Holly Johanknect helped Clark with the presentation.
She also spoke to The North-
ern Light about her use of AI. Career Services helps students prepare for entering the workforce. Part of that includes teaching students tips on writing resumes and preparing for interviews.
Johanknect said that she uses the free version of ChatGPT. She said that she keeps it open on one of her two computer monitors so it’s always close at hand.
She said that it’s helped her get tasks done that she would normally avoid doing because she enjoys using it.
“If something sounds boring in advance to me, I would really struggle to do it … It’s not boring to use ChatGPT, so it’s kind of like a hack to my own brain to get me to do things I put off.”
She said that she sees what projects she has on her to-do list at the end of the week and tries to find a way for ChatGPT to help get them done.
Johanknect said that she had a project where she needed to hang a number of hooks evenly spaced along a wall in her office and that she had been procrastinating.
She said that she gave ChatGPT the details to figure it out.
Even though ChatGPT is not good at math, it still figured out a solution, she said.
“It just did it for me in like a second and I had been literally thinking about not doing it for like a whole week.”
She said that another use she has found is to check the tone of her emails.
“I honed my professional writing skills as an attorney, so if I’m not in the best mood, my emails sound like I’m trying to
sue you ... I’m not trying to sue anyone anymore. And so I’ll occasionally have it … revise my emails with a friendlier tone.”
Johanknect said that she prefers editing a piece of existing work and that she likes to revise and tweak the responses created by ChatGPT.
“I really like editing … editing it is fun. Whereas just looking at a blank screen to write something from scratch is not always fun to me.”
One problem Johanknect flagged was the tendency of ChatGPT to confidently make up information, a phenomenon known as “hallucinating.”
On a personal project, she said that she asked for information about some cities in Ireland. She said it seemed like it was mixing information together and that she couldn’t confirm some of the facts it was telling her.
Johanknect also described a story about a lawyer who used ChatGPT to help write a legal brief that ended up containing false information.
According to an article from CNBC, ChatGPT cited nonexistent court cases in the legal brief, and the lawyers involved were sanctioned and fined $5,000 by a judge.
Johanknect said that’s why it’s important to review anything that ChatGPT creates. She said that she notices the problem is more likely to occur when asking it to come up with a response without giving it any additional information.
She said that the more information you can give ChatGPT, the better its responses will be.
“People … don’t give it half as much information as they need to … It does take longer to write a really comprehensive prompt, but the end result is so much better that it takes less time to revise it to get to what you want.”
She also said that she sees errors when she asks to revise something over and over.
The version she uses does not have access to up-to-date information, so she needs to supply it with details about her department and the university.
Johanknect talked about one way it could be used to help write a resume.
“The [top] resume writing tip is using the position description to guide the language in your resume … So you can copy paste in the position description and say, ‘Pull out the top required or preferred skills. What are the major key words in this that I can use in my resume?’”
She said that the way ChatGPT can pull that info is similar to if you were to do it yourself by finding the information in a printed copy.
It can also offer suggestions, she said, and write up and edit documentation – acting like an administrative assistant.
Johanknect said that Career Services will be hosting an event on Nov. 15 that teaches students how to use ChatGPT to prepare for interviews.
Johanknect said that she used ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas about how to host the workshop.
This article is part of a series The Northern Light is doing on AI. Visit our website to read more articles about AI!
UAA’s AI lab features student accessible augmented reality
glasses, a chess robot and other AI
devices
Rasmuson Hall room 313 has multiple AI related devices. Students are encouraged to participate in the opportunity to learn about AI while utilizing the lab.
By Hannah Dillon opinion2@thenorthernlight.org
This story is a part of The Northern Light’s investigative series into AI in education, which follows different groups at UAA and their experience with AI.
The Alaska Data Science Artificial Intelligence Lab, or ADSAIL, is a relatively new room dedicated to various AI equipment testing in Rasmuson Hall room 313.
The lab is easy to pass, as it is tucked behind the left side corner on the third floor of Rasmuson Hall. The perimeter of the lab is filled with AI related equipment surrounding sectioned off areas of the room. A large conference table acts as the centerpiece of the lab with an overhanging TV.
The lab was opened in 2019, and incorporates AI elements into multiple augmented reality devices such as holo-lens, eye trackers, a VR headset and a
chess playing robot.
In an interview with The Northern Light, Business and Public Policy and ADSAIL codirector Dr. Helena Wisnieski and ADSAIL Manager Maksim Chepurko demonstrated the lab and equipment.
The most popular piece of equipment in the lab is the augmented reality holo-lens, and for good reason. The augmented reality headset is similar to regular see-through glasses when applied.
The holo-lens had a small but powerful selection of apps. Students can play the piano, explore the solar system and examine the human body through an anatomy app.
Various in-game mechanics appear as part of your actual world. Buttons show up on your skin and planets can take up the area in front of you.
The augmented reality glasses have graphics that are similar to VR headsets, but take it a step further into virtual realism. Users can click buttons on their
wrist as if it were a touch screen, choosing what to do with the tip of a finger instead of a controller.
An immediate eye-catcher in the lab is the chess playing robot. The robot has a server on a connected computer that uses AI to see the chess board and play the game. A singular “arm” extends to pick up a white or gold chess piece in response to its human
competitors.
Chepurko did not create the chess playing robot, but he did spend many months in the lab installing all of the software, preparing the calibration process and adjusting the angles of the arm for the robot to be functional in the lab. Wisnieski mentioned no one has beat the robot in a game yet.
ADSAIL has multiple eye trackers – two are currently working, and one is on display.
The displayed eye tracker is one of the first ever versions made and UAA is attempting to revive the device, according to Chepurko.
The eye trackers are able to calibrate to each user’s eyes, offering accurate tracking. The two available eye trackers also have a game installed to test out accuracy.
Wisnieski explained that eye trackers are used in retail marketing, so they know what catches the customer’s eye through examining what the customer looks at when shown an ad.
A large corner of the room is sectioned off with black and yellow tape for a wide area to use the VR headset. Right now, anyone can explore Google Earth in VR, but more games may be added in the future.
There is also a large screen on which students can connect their personal computers and work on group projects together.
Along the walls are posters for past webinars that have taken place at UAA. One of these webinars included the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer David Johnson, who was a part of using AI to help create the Covid-19 vaccine.
Any UAA student is allowed to use the lab, and can email Chepurko at mchepurko@alaska.edu or Wisniewski at hswisniewski@alaska.edu for access to the equipment room.
Chepurko can assist in demonstrating how to use the equipment if someone is not familiar.
After their first visit, students can request to have Wolfcard access to the lab.
PHOTO BY HANNAH DILLON Chess robot in ADSAIL.
Astronaut Horse revisited: One artist’s human and AI art journey
Tom Betthauser — head of a popular Kimura Gallery Exhibit — believes AI art and artist consent can coexist and empower artists as a result
By Mark Zimmerman news4@thenorthernlight.org
Astronaut Horse — an AI art exhibit with a Stable Diffusion AI that was trained on work contributed to this project by fellow artists — was held from Aug. 28 to Nov. 3 in UAA’s Kimura Gallery. TNL sat down with the head of the exhibit over videoconference in late October to discuss his professional journey and outlook on AI art.
Tom Betthauser’s life has revolved around art from the very beginning.
Born in San Francisco in 1987 to a designer father and an illustrator mother, Betthauser was immersed from an early age in the rich artistic heritage of the Bay Area. While he was coming of age, another wave of enthusiasm — this time in tech — would sweep through his community.
“I remember my Dad was working in San Jose,” he said of joining his father on work-trips to the under-construction Tech Museum, “I remember feeling like there was a very positive, democratic general energy to that community.”
However, balancing the wildly differing cultures of artists and Bay Area tech entrepreneurs became difficult later on. As a result — from 2007-2012 — his studies focused sharply on art, extending from undergrad studies at the San Francisco Art Institute to a Master of Arts at Yale.
As the decade progressed, financial struggles led him to reconnect with the tech sphere he’d left behind in his hometown.
His old friends – many who are now software engineers –
made him feel “re-inspired by this very small subset, or subsets, of that community.” The art classes he taught in San Jose slowly became more digital and web-focused, and by 2019 he was attending courses in fullstack software development.
Betthauser had some ideas for developing digital artists’ tools and he was admitted to a four-month software development residency at the Recurse Center in New York City in September 2022. Here, the story of Astronaut Horse would truly begin.
“There were a lot of people at the Residency. Talking about GPT-2 transitioning into GPT-3. In the process of our meetings, Chat GPT had become a thing. Prior to that stable diffusion.”
Stable Diffusion is an opensource — meaning code is accessible and viewable by the public — text-to-image generator. Compared to the closedsource DALL-E or Midjourney, it was far easier to peer into the models and training data the app used. It could be picked apart and reconfigured in innumerable ways.
Betthauser says the process of diffusion — the concept behind the tool he used for the art exhibit — “Takes a completely randomized static image and asks each pixel, in a very complicated calculus-related way: Hey, if you got darker, layer, more red, more green, more blue –would this whole image look more or less like this crazy math thing that I know is a fish?”
Betthauser felt this approach fit his needs more than DALLE or Midjourney’s models — where two training AIs trick each other into properly understanding an image — because it required less image data over-
all. This meant he could use smaller bodies of work to create large collections of high-quality works.
He had concerns after his first attempt at using Stable Diffusion. Without his knowledge, it used his own artwork as training data, identifying the results as “Art that [Betthauser and his partner] had on our websites in the early 2000s.”
“I don’t know if we were offended, but it felt like there was a strange intrusiveness to that. ”
After this experiment, Betthauser and a group of visual artists, students and software engineers began using artwork explicitly contributed by the artists for a new research project. This collaboration was dubbed ‘Astronaut Horse’ after a famous image generation benchmark for text-to-image tools: asking an
AI has found a home in the curriculum of UAA’s College of Engineering
UAA Engineering students are tackling invasive plant species, car crashes and coffee robots using AI algorithms.
By Hannah Dillon opinion2@thenorthernlight.org
This story is a part of The Northern Light’s investigative series into AI in education, which follows different groups at UAA and their experience with AI.
In an interview with The Northern Light, UAA Dean of Engineering Kenrick Mock described the variety of uses for AI in education and how UAA is already implementing AI related courses and activities on campus.
Mock said that in the computer science and engineering department, there are several faculty who incorporate AI in their class, along with three elective courses related to AI.
These classes are an AI class, a machine learning class and a machine vision class.
Beyond UAA classes, a lot of the AI work the Engineering department does is through faculty and student research. Mock said
that one UAA graduate student is using AI recognition software in an attempt to detect Elodea – a fast growing invasive plant species – on float planes.
Elodea moves from lake to lake, growing so fast that it suffocates plant life in the affected lakes. Attempts to get rid of Elodea often kill off everything already in the lake.
As a part of the research proj-
ect, an AI-programmed GoPro is attached to a floatplane. The goal is for the AI to detect invasive Elodea versus other native plant species.
Mock also mentioned an undergraduate student who used AI in their capstone project.
The project utilizes AI to help determine what caused a car crash. This will help people avoid specific road conditions in
AI-composed music and represented several distinct styles as the images morphed into one another.
Astronaut Horse, according to Betthauser, acts as an exploration of “human relationships.” Betthauser said that AI art facilitates these relationships. “Even though those relationships are very different in terms of structure and scale than, I think, anything else.”
The physical exhibitions included training workshops for artists to interact with Stable Diffusion and discuss how they could use it as a tool for self-critique or workflow acceleration.
Betthauser expressed enthusiasm at this project and the future of others like it, but he emphasized a core belief that — despite the fact that tools can make it easier for artists – humans will always be the driving force of visual art.
AI to generate a picture of an astronaut riding a horse.
Betthauser expected that creating this project would take at least a year, but – with only a few weeks notice – his show was put on the calendar in Sacramento, and in Anchorage soon after.
When viewed in-person, the exhibition was a stark clash of simple composition and grandiose scale. Dozens of photoprinted images floated frameless along the wall, spanning the gamut of various artists’ work. Different genres and mediums were represented, with multiple pieces serialized to reflect Stable Diffusion’s ability to make many iterative changes on one image. Accompanying the still images was a video of self-transforming AI artworks in the back of the Kimura gallery. All were set to
the future.
“The state has a big database of accident crashes – at what intersection, what time of day – so the students went through and used some AI techniques to try to figure out what conditions lead to traffic accidents. Things like the time of day and the angle of the sun makes a difference,” said Mock.
When it comes to engineering clubs, Mock said the robotics club has a student group that is currently working on a coffee vending robot which uses AI speech recognition for coffee orders.
In an education setting, Mock believes there is a place for AI in assisting students with difficult problems or in programming.
“In the computing and programming disciplines, AI is also really good at writing computer programs. To the point where [on] a lot of the assignments we give [AI] … it can get 100 percent or close to it. For programming, it’s a helpful tool to learn how to write programs, it’s basically like your own personal tutor,” said Mock.
While there is a myriad of useful educational techniques that students can utilize through AI, Mock addressed concerns about students using AI.
“For education, I am a little concerned if some students use
“I have been consistently, positively surprised by all this. Art like this makes me wanna make art. It makes me more interested in exploring my own art. And it feels like it’s hitting those notes without taking anything away from the human artists that I know.”
At the Strange Loop conference in St. Louis, Betthauser was asked at the end whether he thought AI art was indeed real art. In response, he recalled saying, “Oh, it is.”
While he believes there are still unanswered questions in the road ahead for AI art — particularly around intellectual property — he’s reconciled his conflicts between art and technological innovation.
Betthauser, now with his three-year-old at his desk, continues his work, illustrating and painting in analog formats while staking a claim in the digital world.
it too much as a crutch and not really learn on their own. Although I suppose it’s always been a problem, someone could be cheating anyway and it’s hard to detect. So, at some point, you have to trust the student to actually learn and that they are doing their best,” said Mock.
Mock explained that faculty use of AI has also become more common with the advancement of AI in recent years.
Mock said he is “definitely in the pro-AI camp” and believes AI can be a very useful tool in assisting humans with work efficiency in various tasks.
“Think ahead to a couple hundred years or a thousand years from now – if AI continues at the same pace – think how much more amazing it will be ... I’m not too worried about [it] taking over the world, but – once again – in a thousand years or so, you never know,” said Mock.
There is equipment that students are free to use in the Alaska Data Science and AI Lab in Rasmuson Hall. “Some of it is fun stuff like VR, augmented reality and eye trackers. We have some servers in there, but the point of that lab is to try and promote AI. If anyone is interested in AI or would like to talk about it … we would be happy to talk to you. Reach out,” said Mock.
PHOTO BY TAYLOR HECKART Engineering and Industry Building.
PHOTOS BY MARK ZIMMERMAN (LEFT), TOM BETTHAUSER (RIGHT)
A portion of the Astronaut Horse Exhibit showcases some AI artwork.
UAA’s dance program is returning to the spotlight
Funding from the Atwood Foundation brought the program back to UAA, but professors and administrators are rebuilding a program almost entirely from scratch.
By Taylor Heckart news3@thenorthernlight.org
The UAA Dance In Concert Retrospective on April 7 was supposed to be the final performance celebrating UAA’s dance community after the University of Alaska Board of Regents eliminated dozens of degree programs across the University of Alaska System, including the Theatre and Dance Program.
Both the Bachelor’s of Theatre and minor in dance were slated to end after spring 2023.
Now, the dance program has returned to UAA with dance classes planned for the spring, and it’s all thanks to that final performance last April.
The retrospective performance had so many attendees that it broke Anchorage Museum First Friday records, said Chair of the Theater and Dance Department Dan Anteau. Among those attendees was Ira Perman, the Executive Director of the Atwood Foundation.
“[Ira’s] been a long supporter of our program, [and] a large supporter of the arts,” said Anteau, “And we weren’t even done with the concert, and Ira had come over and was like, ‘I can’t believe this is the last performance … What can we do? We have to do something to keep this going.’”
Over the summer, the Atwood Foundation worked with UAA to find ways to provide funding for the program. Anteau said that the Atwood Foundation was able to provide grant funding equivalent to about half of a professor’s salary, and the College of Arts and Sciences was able to provide the rest.
Anteau said that the funding from the Atwood Foundation will continue for three years.
“The hope is that after three years, if we can show that we’re building the program back and if we can kind of get it up on its feet, that additional funding might be available for us,” said Anteau.
The dance program, however, is being built back almost entirely from scratch.
The program’s first hurdle is that it no longer has the dance space that it used to. Anteau said that the dance studio in the Professional Science Building has been converted into a human performance lab. That’s made finding a new space for dance classes challenging.
“It was a safe place for dance to happen and thrive. And it was large. And we had one of the most sought after dance studios in town,” said Anteau, “But right now, I cannot even get our dance classes on the schedule because I don’t have a dedicated space for dance. So we’re trying to figure out what that’s going to look like.”
Though dance doesn’t yet have a space, it does have a new professor: Katie O’Loughlin. O’Loughlin has gone through UAA in many different capacities: first as student receiving a B.A. in theater along with a minor in dance, then she taught as an adjunct faculty and has now returned to UAA as a professor after receiving her Master’s of Dance from Ohio State.
When O’Loughlin talked to The Northern Light at the end of October, she was beginning her third week on the job.
With dance classes not offered until the spring, the majority of her job is currently focused on outreach and letting people know the program even exists. She’s also teaching dance workshops across Anchorage to get the word out.
“The harder part of this job is like, ‘Oh my gosh, we don’t have students,’” said O’Loughlin. With all of UAA’s previous dance majors graduated out of the program, she said that she doesn’t have
the base of students that a program would normally have to work with.
Though it is a lot of work to rebuild the program, O’Loughlin also sees the restart as an opportunity.
“Because we are starting from scratch, you can turn it kind of into whatever you want it to be,” said O’Loughiln.
“The program was so solid and so amazing throughout these years, I went through it, I loved it, but there’s always updates … The world has changed and we can change too, and we can start to serve and support our students of this generation in a way that the programs maybe couldn’t have from past generations.”
Both O’Loughlin and Anteau underlined the importance of community partnership when restarting this program. Anteau said that he wouldn’t have been able to originally finish off the program without the support of local dance collectives.
Further connection with the local dance community will be a large focus of the program moving forward.
“I think that we were heavily engaged with the community, but it wasn’t the focus, and I think it’s a little bit more of a focus now,” said O’Loughlin.
Looking forward, O’Loughlin said she wants students in the program to be able to know what dance options exist for them in the broader community. She said that she wanted students to be able to know who they can contact to continue to do dance once they’ve gone through UAA’s program.
Two technical dance classes will be offered in the spring: one in musical theater, and another in contemporary modern dance. The dance program will also be offering a repertory option– which means that students who are a part of that option will be signing up to perform in spring shows.
In an interview with The Northern Light, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Jenny McNulty said that – while she is celebrating the return of dance to UAA – she also wants to focus on the larger picture.
“I think sometimes in the community we think ‘oh, the arts was cut at UAA. That’s the end of the story.’ We want to change that narrative,” said McNulty, “We are building strong arts at UAA. We
need student support, to be interested in taking … classes in the arts, and we also need community support.”
In addition to the return of the dance minor, UAA is also offering an occupational endorsement certificate for event production, which according to a UAA
catalog, “prepares students for a fulltime or part-time career in the performing arts, specifically technical theatre or working backstage.”
This comes after UAA’s Bachelor’s of Theatre also officially ended in the spring.
PHOTO BY JUSTIN COX
Members of the Momentum Dance Collective performing Gratitude at the the UAA Dance in Concert Retrospective 2023.
How UAA administrators tackle academic misconduct in the age of AI
A UAA academic misconduct administrator talked about acts of cheating regarding AI policies and the evolution of AI on college campuses.
By Hannah Dillon opinion2@thenorthernlight.org
This story is a part of The Northern Light’s investigative series into AI in education, which follows different groups at UAA and their experience with AI.
The use of AI in education is at an all-time high, but how is AI evolving the way we interact with its programs? The Northern Light spoke with UAA conduct administrator Trevor Gillespie who addresses instances of AI sourced cheating and the evolution of AI.
Gillespie examines academic misconduct reports sent in from faculty. If a case is confirmed to exhibit some sort of academic integrity issue, Gillespie and other faculty will meet with the student to discuss the allegation and give the student an opportunity to defend their case.
Gillespie explained that he has seen a rise in suspected cases of AI-related academic dishonesty.
Not only is there a rise in AI use on campus, but Gillespie said that students’ cheating methods have evolved. “I’m not seeing reports of people copying from a third party source, which I would normally see. I’m seeing AI instead,” said Gillespie
Gillespie noted that UAA does not currently have any campus-wide policies regarding AI but believes that “at some point we’ll have to have more specific policies around artificial intelligence, particularly when it comes to academic misconduct.”
The only policies at UAA addressing AI use are created by individual educators that explain approved AI tools and how to use them in a syllabus – if AI
is even allowed at all.
College campuses throughout the nation have had instances of students being wrongfully accused of allowing AI to write papers for them.
Gillespie explained the largest difficulty in misconduct evaluations is determining if a student wrote something versus if an AI wrote it. “If there’s doubt, I can’t move forward. AI keeps evolving and tools keep evolv-
ing. I found a new tool yesterday using AI that will likely cause more problems for academic misconduct.”
Gillespie has a tedious regimen to follow when attempting to discover if a student is using AI for misconduct, with most cases involving writing projects.
“I have to re-create their solution in the AI and see if I could figure out how they got the solution similarly. It’s kind of a puzzle for me.”
The reasoning for this process is that Gillespie doesn’t
want student information to be sent through an online AI checker, because he does not have control over where the information is spread.
Writing-related conduct cases are often an obstacle for Gillespie. When the suspected writing is short, it is harder for him to confirm academic misconduct.
Most integrity cases at UAA involve writing assignments, but Gillespie noted that could be a confirmation bias. There is difficulty in proving AI was used in generating math answers and programming codes.
With the progression of AI, Gillespie said that concerns with AI use in an academic setting often go under the majority’s radar. Gillespie explained that certain components of Grammarly – a program commonly used by students – now utilizes AI without the user even knowing.
These changes in AI use can certainly cause concern but there may be a solution to consider; adapting to AI as a community as it becomes ingrained into everyday technological uses.
“I think there’s still a lot of adaptation going on and figuring out how to do it. I think it’s going to be the future of how we use AI; some sort of corporation teaching students how to use AI as a tool to help shape their work versus telling it to write their work,” said Gillespie.
UAA Robotics Open House shows off robots and a 3D printer
The UAA community was invited to “meet” last year’s robots and see the new ones being built.
By Kaycee Davis features2@thenorthernlight.org
UAA’s robotics team – Iceberg Robotics – hosted an open house on Oct. 3 for the community to meet members and learn more about their robots. Iceberg Robotics demonstrated last year’s robots “Sid” and “Granny” – named for the movie “Ice Age” – and the models of this year’s robots. They also operated a 3D printer throughout the evening.
Iceberg Robotics competes in the VEX-U competition. It is a competition involving the creation of a robot to certain speci-
fications that is put on by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation.
The VEX-U competitions offer elementary through university divisions, and give participants an opportunity to engage in their mission statement; “science, technology, engineering, math, and computer science.”
Every year, VEX-U offers a new game for robots to participate in – this year the game is called “Over Under.”
Jet Lastimoso – a UAA mechanical engineering sophomore and mechanical lead on the 2023/24 robots – said that the game is played with triballs – often called “acorns” – and
the point is to create a robot that scores the balls into goals and then can lift itself up a pole at the end.
Lastimoso said that this year’s robots do not yet have names, but they are considering “Scrat” and “Scratte” because the game involves acorns and Scrat and Scratte are sabertoothed flying squirrels in the movie “Ice Age.”
Robotics team members at the open house answered questions and worked with the 3D printer to make name tags for attendees.
Many families with children attended the open house to see the robots and the 3D printer. “I think it was a good event and the kids got some exposure to some of the toys that many engineers play with,” mechanical engineering student Robert Thorson wrote in an email.
Robotics club teaches practical skills beyond the classroom. Members say they gain valuable experience through building these robots.
Robotics team president Mya Schroder – a senior majoring in computer science and computer systems engineering – wrote in an email, “I think the Robotics Team provides a ton of jobrelevant skills that I can’t really acquire as much of in the classroom. That includes leadership skills, self-initiative, team work, fundraising, and on and on.”
She wrote that she has put her experience with Iceberg Robotics on her resume and she thinks that everyone else has done the same.
UAA Robotics Club meets on Fridays in the Engineering and Industry Building at 5 p.m.
PHOTO BY KAYCEE DAVIS
Jet Lastimoso, a UAA sophomore in mechanical engineering and mechanical lead on the UAA Iceberg Robotics Team, describes how this year’s VEX robots will be designed.
CROSSWORD BY KYLE IVACIC
PHOTO BY TAYLOR HECKART
AE
& Music review: Candlelight Concerts
49th State Brewing hosted Candlelight Concerts’ four string quartet Halloween themed performance.
By Hannah Dillon opinion2@thenorthernlight.org
Candle Concerts performed their four string quartet Halloween themed ensemble at 49th State Brewing in the last week of October.
The “Candlelight Concert” is played completely by candlelight, with hundreds of illusory candles flickering with a metallic flame emitting a mechanical orange light.
Candlelight Concerts travels the world playing many songs in a variety of themes ranging from jazz and classical music to movie soundtracks and seasonal themes.
The Candlelight Concerts’ Halloween themed performance was enjoyed by a packed room indulging in deliciously strong drinks.
theme from the “Addams Family” gained the attention of the audience. With the familiarity of the beloved theme, the entire audience snapped their fingers in synchronicity.
The opening of the performance was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which began enthusiastically with a crescendo of strings and the buzzing excitement of the audience.
After “Thriller,” the quartet led the night into the theme song from “Stranger Things,” followed by the “Psycho” theme song.
After the performance of three familiar songs to break the night’s metaphorical ice, the performers paused to explain the story behind the “Funeral March of a Marionette,” an emotional and lively song about marionettes who fought a duel. The marionette who lost was carried to his grave by friends.
Halfway through the performance, the lively and familiar
The concert featured a string quartet – four individuals sitting with three violins and one viola – creating a robust and full sound for a spooky miniature orchestra.
CORRECTIONS
Toward the end of the night, the theme from “Nightmare Before Christmas” was played. The recognition of the famous movie line, “What’s this?” through the tone of the elegant viola excited the audience.
Throughout the performance, sharply dressed couples would lean over with a smile when a song they recognized began to play. Families moved their heads and tapped their feet to “Beetlejuice” and “Nightmare Before Christmas.” Kids smiled while snapping to the beat of “The Addams Family.”
Throughout the night, the Candlelight Concert entranced and hypnotized the audience with beloved childhood songs that were played alongside the beautiful, flickering orange lights – bringing everyone in the building together through music.
In the October 24 edition of The Northern Light, a photo caption alongside the story “UAA’s Atwood Chair John Sharify talks journalism, filmmaking to UAA students and community” had a misspelling of Sharify’s first name, Shahab.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF CANDLELIGHT CONCERT
Candlelight Concert String Quartet.
Seawolf hockey splits series against Penn State in a tight battle
Back-to-back goals by Adam Tisdale carried the Seawolves to victory over the Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions after falling short the first night.
By Avery Williamson sports2@thenorthernlight.org
There were many small victories for the Seawolves this weekend: Ben Almquist and Max Helgeson extended their point streaks to six games, Greg Orosz made 39 saves in his first career start and Adam Tisdale scored back-toback goals.
The major victory, though, was defeating the No. 15 nationally ranked Penn State Nittany Lions.
The Seawolves headed
to University Park, Pennsylvania to face off against the Nittany Lions Oct. 26 and 27. After losing 2-1 the first night, UAA rallied behind Tisdale’s backto-back goals to secure a 6-5 victory.
The Nittany Lions kicked off the two-game series with a power-play goal one minute into the game. Neither team scored for the rest of the first period.
Penn State extended their lead to 2-0 with another quick goal. The Seawolves responded nine
minutes later with a goal by Almquist. The goal was assisted by Carson Kosobud and Helgeson.
The third period was scoreless and the Nittany Lions won the first game of the series 2-1.
The Seawolves returned to the ice the next night to deliver a close performance.
Similar to the night before, Penn State took an early lead only one minute into the game.
It looked like the Nittany Lions might score again as UAA’s Davis Goukler
headed to the penalty box for hooking. Tight defense by the Seawolves prevented a goal though.
Less than a minute after Goukler returned to the ice, Helgeson found the net to tie the game 1-1. The goal was assisted by Porter Schachle and Almquist.
Helgeson’s goal and Almquist’s assist extended the player’s point streak to six games.
Penn State responded with a goal four minutes later to regain the lead, but Tisdale proved to be
unstoppable with back-toback goals. This allowed UAA to gain a 4-2 lead.
Early in the second period, the Nittany Lions tied the game 4-4 with their own back-to-back goals.
Connor Marritt helped the Seawolves take back the lead with his first goal of the night 10 minutes later.
The third period featured one goal by UAA and one goal by Penn State. Aiden Westin concluded scoring for the Seawolves with a goal one minute into the final period.
Down two points with
just over three minutes left in the game, Penn State pulled the goalie out of the game to have another attacker on the ice. Their strategy paid off as they scored with 12 seconds left, but it wasn’t enough to defeat the Seawolves. UAA won the game 6-5. The Seawolves head to Fairbanks next week to take on the University of Alaska Nanooks on Nov. 3 and 4 in the first Governor’s Cup games of the season. Head to GoSeawolves. com to check out who else UAA will be facing off against this year.
Seawolf hockey sends Colonials home empty-handed
Brett Bamber’s performance against the Robert Morris University Colonials on Nov. 11 and 12 helped the Seawolves secure a win and tie.
By Avery Williamson sports2@thenorthernlight.org
The weekend of Nov. 11 and 12 was a good weekend to be a Seawolf.
Facing off against Robert Morris University, UAA secured a last-second win on the 11th and an overtime tie on the 12th.
In the first game of the series, Brett Bamber scored with a last-second goal to help the Seawolves grab a 3-2 win over the Colonials.
Maximilion Helgeson kicked off the scoring with an unlikely goal.
With two minutes left in the first period, Ben Almquist’s pass was blocked by the Colonials. Helgeson dove for the deflected puck andhit it into the goal with the tip of his stick.
Helgson’s lone goal of the first period was his seventh goal of the season
and gave the Seawolves a 1-0 lead over the visitors.
Eight minutes into the second period, Matt Allen secured a loose puck in front of the goal and found the net for a powerplay goal.
The Seawolves held the Colonials to only six shots in the next ten minutes.
Entering a power play with impenetrable defense, it looked like UAA might extend their lead.
However, Robert Morris was able to score a shorthanded goal to decrease their deficit to one point.
After the Colonials scored with nine minutes left until the final buzzer – tying the game 2-2 – the third period featured a high-intensity end.
With one minute left in the game, the Seawolves set up their offense and fired a shot. However, Robert Morris’ goalie saved the puck.
Winning the faceoff, the Seawolves set up again. Matt Kinash and Riley Thompson got the puck to Bamber, who hammered the puck right past the goalie and into the back of the net with only four seconds until the final buzzer.
Bamber’s game-winning goal demanded a celebration, as the team jumped into the glass in front of the student sec-
tion. The students responded by slamming their hands against the glass in congratulations.
“The first 20 minutes was our focus tonight,” head coach Matt Shasby told GoSeawolves.com.
“After getting a 2-0 lead we should have closed out the game but a penalty late in the second period allowed them back in. I am happy we played right to the end, a full 60 min-
utes, and am just happy to get the win.”
The Seawolves returned to the ice the next night hungry for another victory.
Bamber scored again to help the Seawolves tie 2-2 against the Colonials.
The first period was eventful, with three total goals.
The Colonials started the scoring with a goal a little over a minute into the game. Seven minutes later, they scored again to expand their lead to 2-0.
With five minutes left in the first period, the Seawolves entered a power play.
Bamber exploited the Colonials’ 5-4 disadvantage by scoring his second goal less than a minute after the power play began.
The Seawolves entered the second period trailing 2-1.
Though each team took
several shots in the second period, it was scoreless the next 20 minutes.
Two minutes into the final period, Adam Tisdale connected with the goal to tie the game 2-2.
The Seawolves took 17 more shots before the final buzzer, but they were unable to find the goal. Thus, the teams headed to overtime.
Almquist, Helgeson and William Gilson started the five-minute period for the Seawolves. Though they took multiple shots, the visitor’s goal remained puckless.
UAA goalie Jared Whale made three saves for the Seawolves to keep the Colonials from scoring.
The teams tied the game, giving the Seawolves their first tie of the season.
UAA heads to Arizona State University to face off against the Sun Devils on Nov. 17 and 19.
Head to GoSeawolves. com to watch live stats.
UAA athletics addresses hazing with student athletes
In an interview with TNL, Ryan Swartwood and Dede Allen stress hazing has no part in UAA’s culture.
By Avery Williamson
In the last week of October, Assistant Director of Student Council and Ethical Development Nicholas Kramer met with UAA’s sports teams to discuss UAA’s haze-free policy.
This meeting came after UAA recieved reporters earlier this year from student athletes that hazing was occurring.
According to the UAA handbook, hazing refers to any acts that “cause physical or psychological harm or social ostracism to any person within the university community.”
This includes forcing someone to do things that are humiliating or may lead to social ostracism, such as public nudity and
streaking.
In an interview with Director of Athletics Ryan Swartwood and Senior Associate Director of Athletics Dede Allen, they emphasized the importance of keeping UAA haze-free.
“It’s not how you build family, and it’s not how you build trust,” said Allen.
“It’s not how you build a team. It’s not a part of our culture. It will not be tolerated.”
Swartwood said, “Respect is one of our core values, so hazing is, to me, the opposite of respect.”
Hazing isn’t only an issue in athletics.
Hazing “can be present any time there’s a club or an organization that has membership,” said Allen.
Since athletics de -
mands team commitment, hazing is often prevalent in sports. But UAA has been largely free of hazing, said Allen.
“I’ve been here since 1994, and hazing has never really taken hold as a part of our culture.”
UAA has been quick to shut potential hazing incidents.
“Many, many years ago, the hockey freshman dressed up in women’s lingerie and would come to volleyball games and cheer,” said Allen.
The university recognized the potential harm in this situation and worked to shut it down.
“The hardest part about stopping that was that the crowd loved it,” said Allen.
“And so it’s like, ‘oh, why are you stopping that?
This is fun. They don’t mind and the women’s volleyball team loves it.’ Boosters loved it. The fans loved it. That was a hard one to go against.”
And now freshmen come to games in their hockey uniforms.
“They still come and they cheer,” said Allen.
UAA also recognized an issue like this with the gymnastics team 15 years ago.
“Again, it’s like the innocent things that people don’t think much of. It’s like, ‘well, why do you have concern?’” said Allen.
“We were at Sullivan Arena and the freshmen [gymnasts] were there in diapers.”
As with the hockey team, UAA saw the potential harm in this situa-
tion and put a stop to the behavior.
“But again, nothing that rose to the level of something that was … harmful,” said Allen.
UAA didn’t want the traditions to evolve into hazing, said Allen, “which is the reason why we were always really proactive.”
To help keep hazing out of UAA, athletes are sent end-of-season surveys where they can report hazing incidents.
Last year, four athletes responded that they were aware of hazing. However, the athletes didn’t give specifics.
Without details, the university can’t take action. This led to another survey sent out in the summer.
The summer survey had two prompts: “Are
you aware of hazing? And please give specific details of your knowledge of hazing.”
Out of UAA’s nearly 200 athletes, the survey received 30 - 40 responses.
“They all said no, that nobody was aware of anything,” said Allen.
“There was one [person who reported hazing], but not specifics. If there’s not detail, then there’s … nothing actionable in terms of how we’re able to move forward.”
If you are aware of hazing, it’s important to report with as many details as you can provide, said Allen.
You can report hazing incidents at uaa.alaska. edu. Reports can be anonymous or on behalf of someone else.
PHOTO BY JUSTIN COX. The Seawolves celebrate a 3-2 victory over Robert Morris University.
