Commencement
2022

Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters: David Kiffer

David Kiffer is a community leader in Ketchikan and an important figure in the arts and letters of Southeast Alaska. He has worn many hats in his lifetime including journalist, regional historian, teacher, poet, musician, and mayor.

He is currently the education coordinator at the Ketchikan Correctional Center and previously was the long-time executive director of Historic Ketchikan, a non-profit organization dedicated to historic preservation and sustainable historic tourism in Southeast Alaska.

Rod Landis

Now retired from the UAS family, Rod began teaching at UAS Ketchikan in 1992, became visiting faculty in 1995 and was hired as Asst. Professor of English in 1996. He was the sole English faculty at that time. Rod became the head a local Humanities department of three full-time and half a dozen adjunct faculty. In addition, Rod was senior faculty for the regional English department and served three years as Director of Composition and Assessment for all of UAS. Rod taught an upper-division literature course online every semester, and also taught composition, humanities and theatre courses, both online and locally.