The University of Alaska Anchorage recently announced it’s restructuring how its Native Student Services program functions and some Alaska Native students are protesting the change. They worry the program will become less responsive to their specific needs.
Last month, UAA officials announced that starting July 1, the Native Student Services program will be renamed the Indigenous and Rural Student Center and combined with the Pride Center and the Multicultural Student Services program under one umbrella in the university’s Community and Belonging department.
“This reorganization process began at the beginning of the fiscal year, and aims to promote fiscal health and address staff capacity,” UAA Student Services Vice Chancellor Deanne Woodard said in a video announcement to students.
The program changes come as the wider University of Alaska has begun to phase out language around “diversity, equity and inclusion” in response to federal pressure from the Trump administration. The university recently removed the term “Alaska Native” from its Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program website, where it’s now referred to simply by its acronym ANSEP.
In an email, UAA spokesman Austin Osborne said the Native Student Services program -- or NSS -- used to report directly to Woodard as its own program, rather than be grouped in with others. He said the changes were in the works before Trump took office.
“Student Affairs leadership has been working diligently to address budget concerns and identify all possible ways to ensure fiscal health for the entire division,” Osborne said.
The move has drawn concerns from students like Native Student Council president Rhea Larson, who is Yup’ik with family originally from the Yukon-Kuskokwim village of Nunapitchuk.
“This means that NSS is not going to have its own funding or budget,” Larson said. “Someone else outside of NSS gets the final say, which means there's no self determination for the Native staff or students here.”
Larson is one of over 1,000 people who’ve signed an online petition asking for NSS to remain independent. She said staff with the program are very responsive, reaching out directly to Alaska Native students to help get them signed up for classes and assist with other needs.
“The guidance is a lot better, because they understand where Native students are coming from, and how, because of our backgrounds, it's a little bit different for us coming into university than it is for other students,” Larson said.
She said the NSS program also facilitates traditional activities like beading and subsistence programs and brings in community tribal partners.
Larson said information has been scarce since the NSS restructuring announcement. A letter she and others have been circulating to NSS students asserts that the current head of the program, assistant director Valerie Svancara, has been put on administrative leave, leaving the program with one staff member right now. Larson said that comes at an inconvenient time, when students are registering for classes.
“They have back to back appointments every time registration comes along,” Larson said. “So I can't imagine, like, what it's going to be like now with just one staff member.”
The letter also claims that both staff members of the NSS program will be laid off in June.
Osborne with UAA declined to comment on the status of NSS staff, citing HR privacy policies. An automated email response from Svancara stated that she was out of the office, “from March 26th until further notice.”
Advocates of the NSS program are organizing a protest scheduled for Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in front of UAA’s Consortium library.
