LUTHERAN QUILTERS – Members of the Quilts for Comfort Group stand between pews draped with some of the 205 quilts they made, in the Sitka Lutheran Church Tuesday. The group made the quilts for five local non-profits and one in Anchorage. The remaining quilts are sent to Lutheran World Relief which  distributes them to places around the world in need, such as Ukraine, as part of Personal Care Kits. Pictured are, from left, Helen Cunningham, Kathleen Brandt,Vicki Swanson, Paulla Hardy, Kim Hunter, Linda Swanson and Sue Fleming.  (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Daily Sitka Sentinel

‘Seminar’ to Be Trial Run for Sitka College

 

 

 

By ABIGAIL BLISS
& THAD POULSON
Sentinel Staff Writers
    The long and winding road toward re-establishing a private college in Sitka will reach a milestone this summer with the creation of a college-level seminar program partially located on the Sheldon Jackson campus.
    The Summer Seminar is a forerunner to an envisioned two-year Outer Coast College, the brainchild of Sitka’s Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
    Kreiss-Tomkins, who is serving his third term in the Alaska Legislature since dropping out of Yale to run for office, has already founded multiple programs in which motivated millennials, or “fellows,” come to Sitka and live on the SJ campus while they work on their own projects or for local schools or non-profits.
    Both the college and seminar program will be loosely modeled on the prestigious, but little known, Deep Springs College, which has been running a work-study program for a hand-selected few students on a remote California ranch since 1917.
    At the end of February, Kreiss-Tomkins and his Outer Coast team announced that applications are being accepted for a class of 10 to 16 high school students in a pilot program called the Summer Seminar.




From left, Cecelia Dumouchel, Erin Slomski-Prit, Johnny Elliott, Bryden Sweeney-Taylor and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. (Photo provided)

The Sheldon Jackson campus. (Sentinel Photo)


    Several pieces of the puzzle have yet to fall into place – residential teaching assistants to be hired and $80,000 to be raised for student housing, financial aid, and staff compensation – but the Outer Coast program is within reach, just around the corner.
    “We’re hugely excited!” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “It will be wonderful and gratifying to put on an educational program and it should be a huge learning experience for us, too. We can’t wait.”
    Project staffer Cecilia Dumouchel said the Summer Seminar is a precursor to the two-year college, whose planned opening in 2020 will benefit from insights learned this summer. Potentially, some of this summer’s seminar students will be in the inaugural class, she said.
    “The summer program will be the first concrete example of what we want to do,” Dumouchel said. It will have “internal benefits” for the Outer Coast team’s planning process, and also “get our name out there,” she said.
    The Summer Seminar will be a four-week immersive experience for motivated rising high school seniors and juniors featuring a college-level course, strains of self-governance, and service projects in the community, mirroring the same three pillars – academics, service and labor, and self-governance – to be featured in the college itself.
    It will begin on July 6 and run through August 4, said project lead Bryden Sweeney-Taylor. The first portion of the program will take place on the Mt. Edgecumbe High School campus, and on July 14 students will move to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp campus to finish out the seminar.
    One discussion-based course, “Perspectives on Freedom, Authority, and Polarization,” will span the entire term of the seminar.
    It will be co-taught by a pair of recently-hired professors, Sharon Schuman and Lance Twitchell. Schuman holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a doctorate in English from the University of Chicago. She writes frequently about Shakespearean literature, English poetry, American literature, and writing. Twitchell, who is from the Tlingit, Haida, and Yup’ik Native nations, is an assistant professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, and is a doctoral candidate at Ka Haka ‘Ula o Ke’elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai’i.
    Kreiss-Tomkins told the Sentinel he’d seen Twitchell in action in the classroom, and had received enthusiastic feedback from colleagues who had had the same experience.
    “I’ve been really impressed by how profoundly positive an influence he’s had on a lot of his students,” Kreiss-Tomkins said. “I, in a couple of different ways, have come to sort of know and appreciate his work as a professor, and as a friend.”
    “I think they bring a terrific combination to the course,” Sweeney-Taylor added.
    As the finishing touches of what the Summer Seminar will be emerge from the broad brushstrokes that marked the project’s earliest days, the question of whom it will serve is similarly in the process of being resolved.
    “Student recruitment for the program will focus on high-achieving students from under-served backgrounds, with an emphasis on Alaska Natives and rural Alaskans — as will also be the case with the college,” the Outer Coast prospectus says.
    While they would like “a predominantly Alaskan” class to start, “that will largely depend on the number of applicants we see from across the country,” Dumouchel said.
    Though the cost per student is estimated at $5,250, there is no fixed tuition, the online application explains. Students’ financial means will be taken into account, and additional funding may be available for travel costs.
    Kreiss-Tomkins said he recently visited Mt. Edgecumbe High School to speak with students about the program and hoped to do the same at Sitka High School in the near future.
    To get the word out about the program to high schoolers across Alaska, the Outer Coast team has set up a network of “nominators” in districts statewide and high schools with more than 100 students, “with emphasis on rural and Native communities,” Kreiss-Tomkins said.
    He said Outer Coast had been in touch with 241 nominators across the state.
    This year’s Summer Seminar is a “critical stepping stone” in laying the groundwork for the college to come, the organizers said.
    It is proposed that the recently revitalized Sheldon Jackson campus serve as the college’s home. Sheldon Jackson closed in 2007 due to mounting financial troubles and declining enrollment.
    The Outer Coast College prospectus calls the revival of the SJ campus by the Sitka Fine Arts Camp a “Frank Capra-like storyline” beginning with the decision of the SJ trustees in 2010 to give the 160-acre campus to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, a long-established and nationally-recognized summer arts camp with a $1 million budget.
    The OCC prospectus waxes poetic:
    “The windows were boarded up. The grass grew long and matted. The National Historic Landmark campus moldered in the cold Southeast Alaska rain.” And then, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, spearheaded by its director, Roger Schmidt, issued a “rallying cry” that resulted in “the largest single community-driven volunteer effort in Alaska history,” allowing the campus to open for the 2011 summer arts camp sessions.
    In 2014 Kreiss-Tomkins outlined to the Fine Arts Camp “a scenario in which a college would help anchor the Sheldon Jackson Campus during the academic year,” and began assembling a team to turn his vision for Outer Coast College into a reality.
    While agreeable to the concept, the Fine Arts Camp sees the prospective college as a separate and distinct operation, for which the FAC would simply make facilities available for rent.
    The endeavor to create a new academic institution is an ambitious one, but the Outer Coast proponents see it as a worthwhile counterpoint to the higher education offerings currently available in the U.S. The prospectus paints it as a remedy to the criticisms leveled at colleges where “personal and intellectual” growth have fallen by the wayside, and pledges to produce worldwide impact from a school with but 20 students in each graduating class.
    “At too many schools… learning has lost out to training just as teaching has to scholarship. Personal and intellectual growth have given way to ‘employability,’ hard work and responsibility to ‘customer satisfaction,’” the prospectus proclaims.
    “Outer Coast graduates will work to make good on the American Dream’s promise of a better life for everyone, independent of income, Zip code, or background,” it promises.
    “At Outer Coast, success will be measured by our alumni’s impact on the world,” and “Outer Coast will be a national destination for both students and teachers who demand the best from higher education,” it predicts.
    Outer Coast’s three-pillared approach was inspired by Deep Springs, where the student experience is sorted into the three categories of academics, labor, and self-governance. Like Deep Springs students, those who matriculate at Outer Coast will have the choice of transferring to another college after two years or obtaining their associate’s degree. The Outer Coast team has strong ties to Deep Springs – Sweeney-Taylor is an alumnus, and Schuman has taught there in the past – and is now tasked with translating and adapting the school’s structure to Sitka.
    This past December the international weekly news magazine The Economist took note of the Outer Coast College venture in an article by a writer who made research trips to Sitka and to the desert valley in California to visit the institution that inspired it.
    “At first glance,” the writer said, “Deep Springs can seem like a chance for privileged young men to play cowboys before transferring to an Ivy League university.”
    Part of the organizer’s process will involve dissociating the Outer Coast endeavor from these negative aspects of Deep Springs’ reputation.
    “We’ve had a lot of internal conversations about this,” Dumouchel said. “We do not want that to be a reality for us, nor do we want it to be a linking factor between us and Deep Springs.”
    One main difference between the two colleges, Dumouchel said, is that Outer Coast will be co-ed from the start, whereas Deep Springs has been all-male since its inception in 1917 and will accept its first female students this year.
    Another distinction is that Outer Coast students will be integrated into the Sitka community; the school will not replicate the ethos of isolation integral to the Deep Springs image.
    “We are taking pieces from the Deep Springs model, and we are not taking other pieces,” Dumouchel said. “A good example of that is, the isolation policy that Deep Springs has, we will not have. Our service and labor pillar will be sort of an outward-facing service.”
    Like participants in the Winter Fellows program that Kreiss-Tomkins has helmed and grown since 2014, students at Outer Coast will be embedded in local organizations during their stay in Sitka. This pillar “piggybacks” on the Winter Fellows “successful, existing model,” the prospectus explains.
    Winter Fellows have worked for Sitkans Against Family Violence, the Sitka School District, the University of Alaska Southeast, and other local organizations. The organizations that benefit from the program make financial contributions to the program, which provides fellows with a modest stipend and housing.
    There were 11 Winter Fellows at the start of this year, and there are currently nine, all from outside Alaska, said Meredith Reddick, site coordinator. Facing severe budget challenges, the Sitka School District plans to eliminate its Winter Fellows positions in the coming school year.
    The initial Summer Seminar will afford the college’s planners the opportunity to see their model in action and to introduce Alaskan high schoolers to the Deep Springs three-pillared model. Also, Sitkans unaffiliated with Outer Coast will have the chance to learn more about its programs than can be picked up from a prospectus or press release.
    Already, some Sitkans are looking forward to the Summer Seminar and college, anticipating opportunities they may afford students and the boost the programs may bring to the town.
    Sitka Mayor Matt Hunter, who teaches math and science at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, expressed optimism that some of his students might enroll at the college when it opens.
    “I am very excited to see the college return to the S.J. campus, and I think the Outer Coast model will be particularly beneficial to rural Alaska students and the students I teach at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, and for local Sitkans,” he said.
    He said he appreciates the benefits of the fellows program, and views Outer Coast College in the same light.
    “It certainly is bringing people to town and helping our local community and our economy because the fellows have served in a ton of organizations, and are top-notch individuals,” he said. “This is just another way to bring brilliant young people to town…A lot of volunteers decided to stay here because they fall in love with Sitka.”
    Janelle Vanasse, MEHS superintendent, said she has been helping the Outer Coast team understand who might benefit from their college – “I’m there to occasionally support (them),” she said. -- and is optimistic that the school will provide advantages to both the students and the community as a whole.
    She said “eager learners who are less interested in jumping into a larger system that is more compartmentalize, that honestly requires more skills to navigate” might be well-served by the school’s model.
    Other observers have doubts about the Outer Coast College venture.
    Nancy Douglas, Sitka School District and Sitka Native Education co-director, said she struggled to square the college’s statements about the importance of diversity with the voices included in the planning process so far.
    Douglas, who noted that she is not Kiks.adi herself, said the SJ campus, like much of Sitka, is located on Kiks.adi land. She said that it had been “given” to Sheldon Jackson for “educational purposes.” Those who use the campus should, and often fail to, “honor the people whose land you’re walking on,” she said.
    “I think what we’re missing the key point on, of anything that happens on that campus, is to have a diverse group of voices at the table so that we start showing respect to the peoples of this land. I think that’s where they’re missing the boat,” she said. “I think the one thing that having a community conversation or a diverse group of people would bring to the table is partially healing. I don’t think that’s ever been even a thought of anything that’s happened on that campus.”
    Louise Brady, Kiks.adi culture bearer, echoed Douglas’ emphasis of importance of including a diverse and representative set of voices in conversations about the use and future of SJ campus to honor its history.
    “I’m not quite sure what the Fine Arts Camp does at this point to make sure that at least Southeast Alaska Natives are included in their program, and frankly, was really kind of disappointed in the, I guess, lack of collaboration with the tribal community,” she said.
    Sam Skaggs, president of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp board of directors, clarified that Outer Coast is separate from the Fine Arts Camp.
    “It’s not going to be our program,” he said. “It just happens to utilizing our campus facilities.”
    He added that he supports the Outer Coast’s mission, which he sees as aligning with that of the Fine Arts Camp.
    “Our missions are aligned,” he said. “In other words, we look at Outer Coast as not just an opportunity for renting part of the campus when we’re not using it .... The way they’re structuring it is that, unlike Deep Springs, where it’s very isolated, this program is a two-year college program that will be aimed at contributing to the community ... I see some overlap. I see them involved in productions, musical productions.”
    He expressed concern, however, with the finances behind the school.
    “The biggest hurdle for them is, can they raise the money to do this?... They’ve got fantastic curriculum and enthusiasm, but what hasn’t been negotiated or fully fleshed out is the economics.”
    Brady said she had not heard or seen much information about Outer Coast herself.
    “I don’t know who has been involved, if anyone, from the tribal community,” she added. “I think it would go a long way for people to reach out to the tribal community…I would definitely like to see a sign of good, that there be concerted effort to include indigenous people.”
    Douglas has been integrally involved in the Sitka School District’s “co-creation initiative,” which aims to craft a culturally-responsive set of schools built upon input from a diverse set of stakeholders, beginning with Native Alaskans in Sitka. She said the key to that process was the inclusion of varied voices in core conversations throughout its progression.
    “Many times, whether it’s a grant or creating programs, many times the Native community is an afterthought ... And, that’s why I really like the model of co-creation because you’re doing all that outreach, and you’re developing relationships with people as you’re working on the project,” she said. “It’s tough to move things forward, especially as minority groups, if you’re viewed like you’re the token or the afterthought.”
    Douglas worried that Outer Coast programs would follow in the footsteps of Kreiss-Tomkins’ Winter Fellows program.
    “(In) my experience with the Fellows program, it’s not very diverse,” she said, acknowledging that she had made good friends who had been Fellows. “What I’ve seen and read about the model that they’re modeling this Outer Coast college from, it seems like its just a one fun thing for an upper class person to come to Sitka and hang out before we move on to bigger and better things.”
    Local leaders in education and employees at Sitka schools also reported having little involvement with Outer Coast’s endeavors or robust recruiting networks.
    Sitka School Superintendent Mary Wegner said she had been “interested in the conversation, but not active.”
    “I have not been part of any of the planning sessions, but am part of an email group that the planners use to communicate development of the program milestones and projects,” she said, predicting “mutual benefit between our educational organizations specifically when the Outer Coast students do their service projects.”
    Makenzie DeVries, Mt. Edgecumbe’s college and career guide, said she had heard little about the Summer Seminar and even less about Outer Coast. She said most of her knowledge came from a flyer she had seen on the summer program.
    “I really don’t know much about the model,” she said.
    Did she think there would be students from Mt. Edgecumbe interested in attending the Outer Coast College down the line?
    “I don’t know,” she said. “I think there are certainly some students who would be interested in that, whether it’s a particularly large number or enough students to develop a community college, I don’t know … I don’t know a ton about it.”
    In the Sentinel’s exchanges with people across the community, no one said the Outer Coast’s Summer Seminar of college would not be successful; some simply stated that its organizers would have to take some clear and major steps in order for it to be so.
    Kreiss-Tomkins, too, acknowledged that much work remains in order to get both programs – the Summer Seminar and Outer Coast College – off the ground, including the hiring of an academic director and gaining accreditation for the college academic program.
    “The college is still a couple of years away, and we have an immense amount of work between now and then to undertake,” he said.




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20 YEARS AGO

March 2004

Advertisement: Tea-Licious Tea House & Bakery 315 Lincoln Street Grand Opening! Freshly Baked Scones, Cakes & Pastries Innovative Salads, Soups & Sandwiches Harney & Sons Tea. Lunch * Afternoon Tea * Supper.

50 YEARS AGO

March 1974

Photo caption: National Republican Chairman George Bush takes a drink of water offered by Jan Craddick, Sitka delegate, during the Republican convention held here. Mrs. Craddick explained to Bush that the water was from Indian River, which means, according to local legend, that he will return.

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