Core Training Program

Overview
Our training program builds on existing disciplinary graduate programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in ecology, resource management, economics, political science, and anthropology. In addition to UAF faculty, we draw on collaborators from other universities who are active in Alaskan interdisciplinary research involving economics, climate dynamics, conservation management, and cultural resilience. These collaborators come from the Stockholm Resilience Center of Sweden, the Arctic Centre of Finland, and the Universities of Massachusetts, and Manitoba, and others. We actively involve members of indigenous communities and managers in state and federal resource agencies.
Our interdisciplinary program emphasizes Global-Local Interactions in a Rapidly Changing North, examing the interactions among ecology, economics, and culture because these are three critical ingredients to understanding changes in the interactions between people and their biotic environment as part of a social-ecological system. In addition, we draw on skills in climate dynamics, because this is an important driver of current and future changes. Communication across disciplines and with local communities, managers, and policy makers requires a sensitivity to, and respect for, different world views. All of these disciplines must be integrated to understand the properties of a regional system. Philosophy plays a key role in our program, because the application of scientific understanding to management raises important ethical issues related to the involvement of "objective science" in solving ecological and social problems and the recognition of normative bias in addressing issues of resilience and adaptability.

Background Materials
During the summer before entering the program, we will send to each Resilience and Adaptation Program student a carefully selected packet of book chapters and papers that cover important disciplinary background in biology, economics, anthropology, and philosophy. This will provide a rapid non-technical access to the most relevant aspects of each core subject area, so students can familiarize themselves with key concepts and issues in those subject areas in which they have no previous background. This will enable ecology students, for example, to learn enough of the terminology and concepts in economics to participate in interdisciplinary discussions. In addition, we provide web access to videos that describe important applications of these issues in Alaska.

New Student Orientation and ALL RAP Retreat
Immediately before the fall semester, we will have a two-day orientation program for new students of the Resilience and Adaptation Program. The goals of this orientation program are (1) to convey to students the importance, opportunities, and potential pitfalls of interdisciplinary research; (2) to develop a sense of community and identity among the students and Resilience and Adaptation Program faculty; (3) to introduce students to the philosophical and ethical issues inherent to interdisciplinary and cross-cultural communication; and (4) to present and discuss key Alaskan issues related to Resilience and Adaptation Program in the context of the background materials that students have read during the summer. Early in the fall each year, students organize a retreat of faculty and students to discuss key topics, address goals of the year, and share ideas of sustainability science.

Coursework
The Resilience and Adaptation Program program begins with an intensive year of coursework that provides students with the background, tools, and perspective to address regional issues from ecological, cultural, and economic perspectives. Subsequent years emphasize the application of this understanding to teaching and research. The first-year program consists of (1) an orientation program on Alaskan Issues; (2) a program of two team taught interdisciplinary core courses, plus disciplinary courses in areas outside the student's area of disciplinary strength; and (3) a summer internship doing research in an area outside the student's area of disciplinary strength. These courses and internship are explicitly designed for students in the Resilience and Adaptation Program program.

The coursework provides graduate-level background in processes that govern ecological, economic, and cultural sustainability and acquaints students with the ethical and philosophical issues required to communicate among disciplines and across cultures. The courses are designed to train students to assess problems and find solutions to regional issues that have important ecological, economic, and cultural facets.

A representative graduate program for a PhD student in the Resilience and Adaptation Program.

Year 1 (Resilience and Adaptation Program fellowship support)

• Fall semester
  • Global-to-Local Sustainability (3 credits)
    
  • Resilience Seminar I (1 credit)
    
  • RAP short "module" courses (1 credit) on economics, anthropology, and ecology, depending on the background of the student.
  • 1-2 graduate courses in areas outside of disciplinary strength
• Spring semester
  • Integrated Assessment & Adaptive Management (3 credits)
    
  • Resilience Seminar II (1 credit)
    
  • Develop graduate research prospectus and design internship
• Summer
  • Internship in area outside of student's disciplinary strength
    PhD students do a 8 to 10 week international internship; Masters students do a 3 to 4 week internship.

Year 2 (Teaching assistantship support plus research funding)

• Serve as teaching assistant
• Classes at the discretion of the graduate committees
• ALL RAP Graduate Seminars (every other Wednesday - 3:30 to 5. Guest lectures and presentations of RAP students on their research.
• Refine research plan and initiate thesis research

Year 3 (Resilience and Adaptation Program fellowship support plus research funding)

• Integrative Modeling of Social and Natural Systems (elective)
  
• ALL RAP Graduate Seminars (every other Wednesday - 3:30 to 5. Guest lectures and presentations of RAP students on their research.
• Conduct thesis research

Year 4 (and 5, if appropriate) (Fellowship support from research grants or teaching)

• ALL RAP Graduate Seminars (every other Wednesday - 3:30 to 5. Guest lectures and presentations of RAP students on their research.
• Conduct research and complete thesis

A representative graduate program for a Master's student in the Resilience and Adaptation Program.

Year 1 (Resilience and Adaptation Program fellowship support)

• Fall semester
  • Global-to-Local Sustainability (3 credits)
    
  • Resilience Seminar I (1 credit)
    
  • RAP short "module" courses (1 credit) on economics, anthropology, and ecology, depending on the background of the student.
  • 1-2 graduate courses in areas outside of disciplinary strength
• Spring semester
  • Integrated Assessment & Adaptive Management (3 credits)
    
  • Resilience Seminar II (1 credit)
    
  • Develop graduate research prospectus and design internship
• Summer
  • Internship in area outside of student's disciplinary strength
    PhD students do a 8 to 10 week international internship; Masters students do a 3 to 4 week internship.

Year 2 (and 3, if appropriate)

• Classes at the discretion of the graduate committees
• ALL RAP Graduate Seminars (every other Wednesday - 3:30 to 5. Guest lectures and presentations of RAP students on their research.
• Conduct research or further internships and complete thesis

Visiting Scholar Program
Two to Three times each semester we invite a visiting scholar for 3-5 days to present a seminar on her/his research and to participate in the core graduate courses and the weekly graduate seminar. Scholars are chosen based on their accomplishments in interdisciplinary research and their relevance to the theme of the semester. The visiting-scholar program draws on the nationally dispersed expertise in interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability. These visiting scholars include our off-campus program faculty and representatives of Alaskan indigenous communities.

Seminar Series in Resilience Research
There will be a bi-weekly faculty seminar series on sustainability research. Every other week an Resilience and Adaptation Program participant or visiting scholar will present a research seminar based on their research, management, or problem-solving of some sustainability issue. These seminars will be built into existing departmental seminar series so students have opportunities to meet and interact with faculty and students from a wide range of disciplines.

Community, Agency, and Business Involvement
One of the unique features of graduate training at the University of Alaska is the Dept. of Alaska Native and Rural Development (DANRD) program that focuses on students from Alaskan indigenous communities. These students include many community leaders who return to school for advanced education. They are mature students (average age about 40) who understand the functioning of their communities and participate in the DANRD program to acquire additional skills to function more effectively as leaders in their communities. These students live in their communities and receive most of their education by distance delivery and by occasional meetings at the University of Alaska campus. The DANRD program also draws on Native Elders as part of the educational program. We work in partnership with the DANRD program (which is focused at the master's level) as part of our regular seminar program to educate Resilience and Adaptation Program students in (a) the cultural, economic, and ecological issues of Alaskan indigenous communities and (b) issues of cultural sensitivity and ethics in dealing with a group with a different cultural background.
We involve in our seminar series managers from state and federal agencies that are responsible for management of fish, game, forests, and fire. We also engage businesses (e.g., oil, timber, tourism industries, based on existing collaborations with the School of Management) and conservation groups (based on existing collaborations of LTER with the Alaska Boreal Forest Council). The three purposes of community involvement are (1) to educate graduate students in the issues perceived by each community, (2) to train students how to communicate effectively with each of these communities, based on attitudes of respect and interest, and (3) to establish ties that lead to research internships.

Team meetings
An essential feature of the training program is to develop a commitment to the importance and value of collaboration among individuals from diverse disciplines. This will be fostered by encouraging Resilience and Adaptation Program students to draw on one another for expertise and perspectives from other disciplines and to work collaboratively in their thesis research. The Resilience and Adaptation Program students will be housed in a single location and will have a regularly scheduled monthly meeting organized by the program coordinator. At this meeting students will discuss issues that have come up in courses, seminars, and internships and work as a team to make progress on these issues.

Sustainability workshop
At the end of each semester we hold a one day workshop of all Resilience and Adaptation Program students and participating faculty. We invite representatives of management agencies, indigenous communities, and business. The primary purpose of this workshop is to contribute to a sense of community among Resilience and Adaptation Program participants and to give an opportunity to present ideas and results about regional sustainability to a larger community of stakeholders. At this workshop, each Resilience and Adaptation Program student (together with her/his internship mentor) presents the results of her/his research/internship. The first-year Resilience and Adaptation Program students present the results of their systems model. Representatives from each semester's graduate seminar present a summary of the conclusions and unresolved questions related to the topic of that semester. We also invite presentations from indigenous, management-agency, and business communities on results of projects or experiences related to Alaskan sustainability.

Research tools
All Resilience and Adaptation Program students are required to demonstrate proficiency in the use of three interdisciplinary tools: (1) a thorough understanding and demonstrated application of ethics of cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural communication, (2) interdisciplinary systems modeling, i.e., the development and use of systems models that include biophysical and socioeconomic variables (Starfield and Bleloch 1991, Naylor and Drew 1998), (3) the ability to access cross-disciplinary information obtained from the internet and from disciplinary experts. These tools are emphasized in our courses and are used regularly by students throughout their Resilience and Adaptation Program training.
In addition students will have access to a wide variety of research tools in courses and in research internships. We expect each student to demonstrate the application of at least one of these research tools in the development of their PhD research. Resilience and Adaptation Program faculty have the expertise and the commitment to train Resilience and Adaptation Program students in a variety of additional "cutting-edge" research tools. Examples of these tools are given in the following table:

Research Internship
Each graduate student in the Resilience and Adaptation Program graduate program must spend one semester or summer doing research or serving as an intern in an area different from their own discipline (e.g., social scientists doing natural science research/internship or vice versa). This internship is typically in the first summer or second academic year of the Resilience and Adaptation Program program. The purpose of this internship program is to give students hands-on experience in cross-disciplinary research. Wherever possible, this extra-disciplinary research will be an integral component of the student's graduate research program. Groups with whom we can provide internships include Alaska Native and Tribal organizations, state and federal management agencies, local businesses and conservation groups, and disciplinary research programs (ecology, climatology, economics, anthropology). Agencies that participate in this internship program include the Alaska Fire Service (BLM), the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, and the Alaska Division of Forestry. Students can also serve as interns with Alaska Native and Rural Development (DANRD) students in their communities, for example conducting surveys on community perceptions of factors controlling populations of a game species. Each intern will have an individual within the agency/community assigned to mentor and advise them. For example, a community intern would be mentored by a DANRD student. This provides (1) an entrance for students into the community, (2) an opportunity for one-on-one frank discussions with someone in the community about community issues, and (3) enough contact with the community to familiarize the student with issues perceived by that community. Similarly, in agency internships, the student intern is mentored by a professional within the agency, who provides technical advice on how to make measurements and provides contacts with other agency personnel so the intern can learn about the day-to-day issues that agencies confront in developing and implementing policies. Internships in research programs are mentored by the principal investigator of the research project.