Faculty/Staff Directory

Other

Steve Florian comes to Ketchikan from sunny southern California, where he taught composition, business writing, and academic first year experience classes at California State University Northridge for five years; he also received his MA in Rhetoric and Composition from CSUN. He has also taught composition and critical thinking at Los Angeles Valley College and New York Film Academy. At one time a returning student himself, Steve’s main area of research interest is in retention and persistence among college students. He is currently working on a dissertation in that field through the Composition and Applied Linguistics PhD program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has presented papers at academic conferences across the United States and in Australia, on such diverse topics as protest rhetoric, the rhetoric of surfing, and the commerce of virtue in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews.

Steve was an actor in Los Angeles for many years before joining the ranks of academia. He still enjoys watching movies, as well as fishing, hiking, reading, traveling, and playing tee ball with his wife and young daughter.

Education

B.S. in Wildlife Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks; M.S. in Statistics, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Other

Colleen began working at the UAS Ketchikan Campus in 2006. She teaches Math 105, Math 107, Math 108, Math 200 and Stat 273.

Outside of academics, Colleen enjoys hiking, cross-country skiing and skiijoring with her dog.

Education

Education

M. Litt., Middlebury College, Bread Loaf School of English; M.A., University of Georgia. Rod specializes in Victorian and American nineteenth-century literature. His research focuses on the way Gothic themes and figurations transform texts from the Victorian century.

Biography

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; today Rod heads a local Humanities department of three full-time and half a dozen adjunct faculty. In addition, Rod is senior faculty for the regional English department and is in his third year of serving as Director of Composition and Assessment for all of UAS. Rod teaches an upper-division literature course online every semester, and also teaches composition, humanities and theatre courses, both online and locally.

Education

1996: Master of Arts, Naval War College, Newport RI
1983: Bachelor of Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

USCG Licenses:
Master of Motor Vessels, Any Gross Tons Upon Oceans
Master Any Towing Vessel Upon Oceans
Able Seaman, Unlimited

Courses Taught

Master 100T/OUPV
Master 200T Upgrade
Basic Safety Training
Able Seaman
Crowd Management
Crisis Management
RFPNW
Proficiency in Survival Craft
Radar Operator - Original & Upgrade
Apprentice Mate - Steersman

Biography

Captain Nickerson is our Juneau based Maritime Professor.  He brings a wealth of experience and expertise to our program and through his efforts has expanded the UAS Maritime presence in Juneau immensely.

Captain Nickerson is a retired USCG officer and has many years of command experience aboard a variety of USCG Cutters.  Upon his retirement from the USCG, he worked as a Mate aboard towing vessels with Crowley Maritime in Valdez and as a relief Mate/Chief Mate for the Alaska Marine Highway System.  Captain Nickerson also was the owner/operator of Alaska Sailing Charters, commanding a 49 ft ketch on expedition, sightseeing and dinner charters.  In his spare time, Captain Nickerson enjoys surfing, kayaking and travel - especially to destinations with big waves!

Education

A.A.S., Oregon Institute of Technology Calhoon MEBA Engineer School USCG Licensed Marine Engineer

Education

Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Minnesota

M.A. in Latin American Studies, Stanford University

B.A. in Journalism, San Francisco State University

Biography

Kasia has worked at UAS Ketchikan as an Adjunct Instructor of Government and Sociology since 2007. She has also taught sociology and political science at the University of Minnesota, MN; Sacred Heart University, CT; and American Public University System, WV. Her past professional experience includes working for 7 years within the United Nations human rights treaty system as a Research Director of a non-governmental human rights organization.

Her teaching and research interests are wide-ranging and include general and political sociology, institutions, social problems, social psychology, race and ethnicity, ethnic conflict, human rights, Europe, Latin America

Education

Ph.D., 1999, Arizona State University, specializing in Modern U.S. History, Russia/Eastern Europe, and Public History.

Certificate in Scholarly Publishing, 1994, Arizona State University.

BA, 1989, History, Southwest Minnesota State University.

Biography

Hello! Welcome to my faculty homepage!

I have taught history, art history and geography at UAS on the Ketchikan campus since 2007. Prior to moving to Alaska, I taught history courses at University of St. Thomas, Hamline University, and Anoka-Ramsey College in Minnesota. I also served as assistant project director at Center for Nations in Transition, at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota where I helped design and administer USAID and State Department-sponsored training programs for business, economics, and political science faculty and NGO leaders in Ukraine and east central Europe.

My research and teaching interests are wide-ranging and diverse: immigration and ethnicity, military history, war and genocide, the impact of technology on the history and geography of the Great Plains and Midwest, local and regional studies, and the history of Poland, Russia, Ukraine and central and eastern Europe.

Curriculum Vitae

Other

Links to my work:

Radio program on Global Jamestown
Traveler’s History of Poland
Various books
 

Education

Ph.D., University of New Mexico. Dr. Schulte specializes in multicultural education, Alaska Native cultures, sociocultural change, and archaeology of southeast Alaska.

Biography

Priscilla Schulte has been teaching on the Ketchikan campus since 1980 and has been teaching distance classes for over ten years. Most of her students are in southeast Alaska, but some are from as far away as Connecticut. Priscilla has taught summer classes on the Juneau campus as well as distance delivery classes by video and audio conference to the Juneau campus. She teaches primarily lower division anthropology and sociology classes, as well as multicultural education classes.

Priscilla started her teaching career by teaching anthropology at Dine College (formerly Navajo Community College) now located in Tsaile, Arizona. Her anthropological fieldwork in Arizona and Chicago sparked her interest in completing an M.A. in anthropology at the University of Connecticut. During her years of living and teaching on the Navajo Nation, she began her doctoral work at the University of New Mexico which she completed after her move to Alaska in 1980.

Priscilla’s research and teaching interests are in multicultural education, Alaska Native cultures (primarily of southeast Alaska), and Native American culture change. She produced the video, “The Bear Stands Up,” which has aired on public television. Her most recent research has focused on the totem pole carvers of the CCC era. She is an adopted member of the Tongass Brown Bear clan of the Tlingit people. She is the mother of two daughters who have inspired and encouraged her in her research and teaching.

One of the most exciting events of Priscilla’s teaching year is the annual fieldtrip coordinated with the Forest Service to do archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork with local Native elders, cultural teachers, and UAS students. The field trips focus on the survey and inventory of important cultural sites located in southern southeast Alaska.

Education

Ph.D., MA, Tulane University
B.S., Oregon State University

William Urquhart’s recent doctoral dissertation on school violence and bullying includes ethnographic and statistical studies at a remote Western Alaska village and at an inner-city high school in pre-Katrina New Orleans.  This work emphasizes the importance of social account conversations in defining peer group norms for retaliation in disadvantaged areas, and will soon be published in book form as a monograph.  His other research interests include Alaskan social problems such as alcoholism and domestic violence, and organizational behavior perspectives on workplace violence.  Currently, he is investigating the effect of climatic temperature variation on seasonal domestic violence rate cycles in northern states.  He enjoys teaching distance education classes, and some of his course offerings include Theory and Research in Criminology, Social Psychology, and Alaska Social Problems; Deviant Behavior, Organizational Behavior, and Environmental Sociology.

Biography

Bill was born and raised in Ketchikan, following four generations of Alaska commercial fishermen, prospectors, and pioneer women.  His interest in sociology was piqued through his early experiences commercial fishing with his family, where he observed social change affecting the organizational structure of the industry.  Since returning to Alaska from New Orleans in 2002 for dissertation research, Bill has lived in several areas of the state, including time working as an educator and wrestling coach in Western Alaska and in Fairbanks. 

In addition to serving as an instructor at UAS, Bill is an independent consultant to several Alaska school districts, working with student information systems and federal and state data reporting.  Bill also plays the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipes; he is the Lead Bagpiper with Ketchikan’s Misty Thistle Pipes & Drums, and also performs at select solo engagements.  Bill enjoys spending his spare time with his wife Frankie, a science teacher in Ketchikan, and their small children, Liam, Neila, and Torran.

Other

Advising contact for all distance-based students in the Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.

Education

M.F.A., Northern Michigan University; B.A., University of Michigan. Teague Whalen specializes in creative writing, composition, communication, and literature.

Biography

Raised by two passionate educators and two feisty younger sisters, Teague quickly learned that summers meant time to travel America's blue highways and to romp through small towns and national forests by bicycle, canoe, skis, and foot, followed by nights spent sleeping in a tent and usually with close friends in tow. Teague's college teaching ventures have transformed the classroom into kitchens, lakes, mountain tops, and tents when he was a Lecturer I for the University of Michigan's New England Literature Program for two spring terms in rural Maine. While a teaching fellow for Northern Michigan University, he pioneered an outdoor ecocomposition course in the wild Upper Peninsula (U.P.). When he could no longer "Say yeah to the U.P., eh?" he wondered how Alaska compared to the great-lake state. Used to two-tracks and lakes, pine-riddled hills, and weather that could change any minute, he found his mother was right (as a good mother tends to be) when she said that Alaska was like the U.P. on steroids. He has not been disappointed yet, and when he finds Ketchikan raining too much, he keeps his fingers busy composing lofty poems of a bluer heart or stories of longing for a drier hue. When that doesn't work, he takes up his axe planed out of Sitka spruce and gets down to picking away the steel strings in search of a cloudy love song.

Education

B.A., M.S., Ph.D. University of Michigan

Education

Ph.D., University of New Mexico. Dr. Schulte specializes in multicultural education, Alaska Native cultures, sociocultural change, and archaeology of southeast Alaska.

Biography

Priscilla Schulte has been teaching on the Ketchikan campus since 1980 and has been teaching distance classes for over ten years. Most of her students are in southeast Alaska, but some are from as far away as Connecticut. Priscilla has taught summer classes on the Juneau campus as well as distance delivery classes by video and audio conference to the Juneau campus. She teaches primarily lower division anthropology and sociology classes, as well as multicultural education classes.

Priscilla started her teaching career by teaching anthropology at Dine College (formerly Navajo Community College) now located in Tsaile, Arizona. Her anthropological fieldwork in Arizona and Chicago sparked her interest in completing an M.A. in anthropology at the University of Connecticut. During her years of living and teaching on the Navajo Nation, she began her doctoral work at the University of New Mexico which she completed after her move to Alaska in 1980.

Priscilla’s research and teaching interests are in multicultural education, Alaska Native cultures (primarily of southeast Alaska), and Native American culture change. She produced the video, “The Bear Stands Up,” which has aired on public television. Her most recent research has focused on the totem pole carvers of the CCC era. She is an adopted member of the Tongass Brown Bear clan of the Tlingit people. She is the mother of two daughters who have inspired and encouraged her in her research and teaching.

One of the most exciting events of Priscilla’s teaching year is the annual fieldtrip coordinated with the Forest Service to do archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork with local Native elders, cultural teachers, and UAS students. The field trips focus on the survey and inventory of important cultural sites located in southern southeast Alaska.

Education

B.B.A, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Biography

I've loved living in Alaska since I first arrived here at the tender age of 2.  I've been blessed to see much of the state having lived in Chugiak, Talkeetna, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Ketchikan.  The beauty and serenity of this special place we live (even with the large amounts of rain) is inspiring.  After graduating from a little Alaskan high school (we had a graduating class of 18 students) I attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, graduating with a BA in Business Administration in 1990.  I 've had the pleasure of working with college students for over twenty years and I am inspired by the perseverance of our students as well as the power of education to help students change their lives for the better.

Other

Advising contact for transfer, nursing, social work, elementary education and business students.

Education

M.A. Professional Higher Education Administration
University of Connecticut

B.A. International Relations, Spanish
Georgia Southern University

Biography

I love working in the collegiate environment.  Throughout the past 10 years, I have worked in various aspects of student services mentoring and advising students to graduate successfully and become capable leaders in their communities.  Prior to moving to Ketchikan and taking on the role of Outreach Advisor at UAS, I was working in Portland, OR at Lewis & Clark College managing the collegiate outdoor recreation program.  I trained student leaders to guide their peers on outdoor excursions and led many of my own from day hikes to overnight whitewater rafting trips.  Prior to Lewis & Clark, I served as a Resident Director at Reed College where I managed residence halls and served on an on-call crisis management team.  While my career has taken me across the country, I never cease to be inspired by the students I encounter.  I learn so much from each of the students we serve.  The vibrancy and eagerness of the student population (both traditional and non) has made me love working in higher education.

Outside of the work-realm, I am an avid outdoors-woman with a love of biking and kayaking and more recently stand-up paddleboarding with our dog Lola.

Education

Associate of Arts from Seattle Central Community College

Bachelor of Science in Business Management from University of Alabama Birmingham

Courses Taught

CIOS 100, CIOS 101A & 101B, CIOS 110A, CIOS 105, CIOS 132A, CIOS 135, CIOS 193A, ACCT 100 and ACCT 222

Biography

Kimberly Schulte has been teaching and working in computer/technology related fields throughout the past 10 years. After completing a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Management at the University of Alabama, Kimberly worked for several years in Business Management.  In the evenings Kimberly managed the computer lab at UAS-Ketchikan and was hired as Computer Lab Instructional Technician in 2003.  Today she supports UAS faculty, students, & staff with technology needs.  Currently Kimberly supervises the Ketchikan campus Computer Lab, Testing Center, Academic Support, and is an Adjunct instructor for Computer Literacy, Word and Excel courses.

Kimberly has lived in New Mexico, Washington, & Alabama, but has spent most of her life in Ketchikan. She has traveled to all of the continental United States, been to a handful of European Countries, attended school in Japan on the exchange program, and vacationed several times in South American countries. Kimberly is married and has two children that add vibrancy to her life.

Education

B.A. English, Creative Writing Emphasis
Boise State University

Biography

Before moving to Ketchikan, I lived in Boise, Idaho. I worked for a small, independent bookstore called Rediscovered Books. Mostly, I spent my time raising my five wonderful children with my husband Jordan, training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and reading voraciously.

In 2015, I began working as a substitute library assistant at the Ketchikan Public Library before transitioning to working at the UAS Ketchikan campus library until 2019.  I now support students and faculty in our Career and Technical programs.

I enjoy history, poetry, powerlifting, grappling, and a good strong cup of coffee.