Benson, Carl S.

English

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REVIEWS • 99THE COLLEGE HILL CHRONICLES: HOW THEUNIVERSITY OF ALASKA CAME OF AGE. By NEILDAVIS. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press,1992. 627 p., b&w illus., notes, index. Hardbound.US$30.00.The setting of the University of Alaska attracted the earliestpeople that came to the Americas from Asia more than 20 000years ago. It is still an attractive site and a great place for auniversity. The Russians did not try to establish a universityin Alaska, and after the United States bought Alaska fromRussia in 1867, it took 48 years for the idea to surface. Thatis only two years longer than it took for the United States toestablish limited territorial status for Alaska in 1912. Indeed,the university and the territory grew up together, and therewas strong resistance to both of them. It took another 47 yearsfor the Territory of Alaska to become a state in 1959. Dr.Davis does a superb job of showing how the history of Alaska(both the territory and the state) and its university are inextri-cably twisted together. The opposition to both of them by out-side fishing and mining interests comes to life on these pages.After a brief history of the Russian and early American“pre-Wickersham period,” Davis  dates the beginning ofAlaskan politics to 1906 when Congress, at the urging ofPresident Theodore Roosevelt, finally passed a bill givingAlaska an elected, nonvoting delegate to Congress. JudgeJames Wickersham was elected in 1908 to be Alaska’snonvoting delegate, and for many years was the leadingpolitical figure in Alaska. Davis wrote a good biographicsketch of him, which is typical of those he provides for mostof the key players in the book. In 1912 Wickersham suc-ceeded in getting limited territorial status for Alaska, and in1915 he obtained federal appropriations for a land-grantcollege for Alaska. As Davis points out, the latter accom-plishment was unusual for several reasons, including thespeed at which it was done. Stimulated by a potential annualsubsidy of $50 000 for a land-grant institution, Wickershamconceived the idea, wrote the bill and got it passed within ayear (4 March 1915), in the face of enormous opposition frominside and outside of Alaska. He returned to Fairbanks inJune, selected a site, and on the Fourth of July 1915 heconducted a ceremony to lay a cornerstone for the “AlaskaAgricultural College and School of Mines.” He then lined upsupport for two bills presented in 1917 to the new territoriallegislature, which met every other year. The first of these wasto accept the Federal funds and land for the land-grantinstitution; the second was to establish the new college withan appropriation of $60 000. The first one passed, with someopposition, but the second one stirred a storm of protest. Itpassed, but the negative feelings ran strong and lingered, sothat in 1919 no appropriation was made for the college. In1921 money was appropriated for the college, including apresidential residence. But again, negative feelings were sostrong that Davis writes:The Juneau Daily Alaska Empire, reporting on the matter,said,“The fight over the Fairbanks Agricultural Collegeappropriation has been one of the hardest fought battlesever witnessed in an Alaska Legislature.” The battle hadbeen largely engineered by fishing and mining lobbyistswho were doing their best to keep expenses—and taxes—down. (p. 44)In an ironical development, Judge Charles Bunnell,Wickersham’s political rival, was appointed as the firstpresident of the new college.The early days were pioneering in every way. Bunnell ranthe college and kept it going for 27 years. To quote fromDavis:Bunnell himself was teaching classes and also performingduties not normally associated with a university presidency.One of the early students, Ted Loftus, recalled coming tothe campus on his first day to find President Bunnell in theboiler room shoveling ashes from the furnace. It soonbecame obvious to all faculty members and students that“Judge” Bunnell (a title people continued to use to describeor address him) was very serious about making the collegea success. By being willing to do anything that neededdoing himself, be it shovel ashes or sweep the floors, heinstilled in others a recognition that no duty is menial. Healso had an unusual ability to cause his employees to enjoyworking long and hard hours; he conveyed to them anunderstanding that he did expect extra effort, but he alsodemonstrated appreciation whenever it was performed.(p. 56)This time span included 1935, when the school had about100 graduates under its belt and an active alumni association.Davis writes (p. 61): “At the urging of the alumni association,the 1935 Legislature converted the Alaska Agricultural Col-lege and School of Mines into the University of Alaska andreplaced its board of trustees with a board of regents.” It wasa tribute to Bunnell’s presidency during those early years.Politics in Alaska are not dull. This may be appropriate forAlaska, “The Great Land,” which is so rich in superlatives.Alaska spans the largest area of any state, has permanentglacier ice covering an area larger than that of twelve of thesmallest states, the highest mountains, more ocean coastlinethan all the other states combined, extensive wildlife, muchof which is unknown in the “Remote States,” and unlikelypolitical extremes including alliances such as that betweenRepublican Senator John Butrovich and Democratic Gover-nor Ernest Gruening. The political extremes were such thatthe actions of the 1947 Legislature resulted in a freeze offunds for many state agencies, including essentially all fundsfor the university. Davis writes (p. 182): “Said Gruening,‘[this action] in my view, came pretty close to being a collapseof responsible government’.” Alaskan voters reacted againstthe mining and fishing interests in 1948 by electing only oneof the eight senators who were up for reelection, RepublicanSenator John Butrovich of Fairbanks. Otherwise the Demo-crats made a clean sweep and controlled both houses of the100 •  REVIEWSLegislature. “So who became chairman of the powerfulSenate Finance Committee? Yes, incredible as it seems, theDemocrats gave the chair to Republican John Butrovich!Governor Gruening may have had a hand in that.” (p. 183)The 1949 Legislature was as good as the 1947 one was bad.It enacted a series of measures which gave Alaska the taxesit needed to operate, including an income tax. The universitywas authorized funds nearly equal to the amount appropriatedto it by all the preceding legislatures all the way back to theinitial appropriation in 1917. As Davis wrote (p. 183), “The1949 Legislature was the most effective one Alaska ever had—and perhaps the most responsible even to the present day.”How did the university operate when funds were inad-equate? Dr. Bunnell paid bills out of his own pocket bymaking no-interest loans to the university. The irresponsibleaction of the 1947 Legislature had made the situation sodesperate for the university that in 1948 Bunnell securedpledges of $200 000 in no-interest loans from citizens andcorporations in Alaska. This unprecedented action was de-clared illegal by the territorial treasurer, but Bunnell’sfavorable press coverage prevented litigation. These wereinteresting times, to say the least. Davis writes:Newly appointed regent Leo Rhode described the daywhen Cap Lathrop came through with the first part of hispledge:“...Cap ran his businesses just like Bunnell ran hisuniversity, with an iron hand. He wanted me to go to workfor him when I graduated. I already had a job so I didn’tgo with him—I figured he would be very tough to workfor. Anyway, that day when Bunnell told us he couldn’tmeet the payroll, Cap asked him how much he needed, andBunnell said $10 000. Cap got up and went over to thetelephone. He called his bank and ordered them to cut acheck for $10 000, and then he told Bunnell to sendsomebody down to pick it up. This was a real education forme, to see things done this way. I just hadn’t seen that sortof thing before.” (p. 224)After the war, the pioneering style which had marked theuniversity’s beginnings and allowed it to survive began tochange dramatically. The university launched itself intoscientific endeavors as a result of its location in the midst ofa gigantic natural laboratory. It was especially well suited forthe study of aurora by being directly under the region ofmaximum auroral intensity. The Geophysical Institute wasthe first of a series of research institutes on the campus whichnow study an impressively broad scope of research areas.Much of its early auroral research was supported because ofthe need to know how auroral phenomena affect radio trans-mission in the Arctic. Federal funding and interaction withfederal agencies were beneficial to the university, but theybrought problems as well.Davis describes tension in the Board of Regents betweenyounger members (from Homer, Ketchikan, and Anchorage),appointed by Governor Gruening and, like him, more liberalthan the “Old Guard” (basically from Fairbanks) which hadso heroically kept the university alive through its infancy.Bunnell was in poor health. Lack of money and lack ofaccreditation were obvious problems. The university also hadto overcome the image, in some minds, of being the Univer-sity of Fairbanks and truly become the University of Alaska.Younger members of the Board of Regents wanted theuniversity to serve the entire territory and saw problemsoverlooked by the Old Guard. They began thinking about anew president to face the problems.The new president was Dr. Terris Moore, for whom thebook contains a good biographical sketch. The transfer ofpower from Bunnell to Moore is the crux of this book. Davisconsiders this to be the time that the University of Alaskacame of age, as stated in his subtitle.President Moore was faced with an immediate shortage offunding, but no shortage of problems. The Agricultural Ex-perimental Stations, removed from the university in 1947 bythe U.S. Department of Agriculture, were returned to Moore’sadministration. The physical plant needed maintenance andexpansion, and there was increasing pressure for a “branchcampus” in southern or southeastern Alaska. Student rela-tions needed immediate attention, an athletic program wasbeginning, and the food service was losing money. One mightsay this is normal at many universities, but consider three ofthe eight notes Moore made to himself in 1949:5. Student Relations. Condition of Polar Star, theundergraduate newspaper operating in defiance ofadministrative control, indicates condition of unusualtension between students and administration. Dormitoriesdescribed by Regents as being in possession of studentswith administration admitted upon sufferance only.Students reported in possession of firearms and shootingout of windows in defiance of administration control.6. Need for a modern University budgeting system, foradequate control of large scale operations. Also need fordelegation of authority from President’s office throughoutthe university on a clearly understandable basis: NoUniversity organization chart in existence.8. Regents and students urge need for strengtheningfaculty. Regents present new president with a “studentevaluation of faculty teaching”: very unfavorableconcerning some departments. Preliminary survey reveals,in at least one case, faculty member without even abachelor’s degree. (p. 279)President Moore launched an effort to gain accreditationfor the university. One of his proposals was to form a degreecouncil of faculty members who held earned doctorates“from some other nationally accredited college or universityor internationally recognized university.” Unfortunately, onlyseven of the university’s approximately fifty faculty mem-bers held earned doctorates. Davis points out (p. 283): “Thatlow number in itself was awkward, and equally so was thelisting of the four academic officials who would sit on theREVIEWS • 101council, as Moore was the only one with an earned doctorate.”And so it went.Moore set goals and involved faculty and students incommittee activity to operate the university. But he found itdifficult to carry out changes partly because the well-en-trenched former President Bunnell still lived in the presi-dent’s residence and used his old office to confound actionsof the new president. Some traumatic events occurred, fraughtwith misunderstandings and lack of communication. One ofthese involved the directorship of the Geophysical Institute,the National Academy of Science, and world-famous scien-tists. It is too lengthy and complex to discuss here, but isskillfully treated by the author. The growing institution waseffectively launched on its way as a university by the end ofMoore’s time as president. It had come of age, as Neil Davis says.Davis writes this history from the perspective of a physicalscientist, and a long-term Alaskan resident who knew andrespected many of the people who made the history. He alsois a pack rat, and a well organized one, who has placed hiscollection in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Archives asThe College Hill Chronicles Files. He has written manyscientific papers, and his scientific habit of documentingwhat he writes resulted in 806 formal notes at the end of thebook and many additional footnotes on pages of the text. Butthere’s more: this history reads like a novel. Davis writes witha gentle sense of humor, obvious respect, even awe, for thepeople involved, and love of his subject. No one else couldhave written this magnificent book. I strongly recommend itto anyone with an interest in Alaska in general, or Alaska’suniversity in particular.Carl S. BensonGeophysical InstituteUniversity of Alaska FairbanksFairbanks, Alaska U.S.A.99775-0800Northern Hydrology: Canadian Perspectives, published in1990, included review chapters on such topics as snow,permafrost, glacier and floating ice hydrology by Canadianauthors focusing on work in Canada. The second of the series,Northern Hydrology: Selected Perspectives (1991) includedpeer-reviewed papers by scientists associated with the North-ern Research Basins (NRB) working group of the Interna-tional Hydrological Program of UNESCO. The NRB group,which has met regularly for many years, includes representa-tives from all eight circumpolar countries and several othernations which have strong polar interests. As a result, theforty or so papers in this volume provide a useful snapshot ofongoing work in hydrology throughout the Arctic.Like the first volume, the most recent of this NHRI series,Northern Hydrology: International Perspectives, publishedin 1994, consists of solicited review articles by specialists.But in this case each is a review of a work in a differentcircumpolar country—the United States (Alaska), Canada,Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the former SovietUnion. The authors used the approach of Northern Hydrol-ogy: Canadian Perspectives as a model, so that most chaptershave sections on snow hydrology, permafrost hydrology,groundwater hydrology, glacier hydrology, hydrology offloating ice (freshwater and seawater), regional water andenergy balances, water quality and water management. Mostgive some thought to the future of hydrology in the regionconcerned.Naturally, emphases vary. The chapter from Greenland,for example, as one might expect, is dominated by the ice cap!The Icelandic contribution has a special focus on geothermalheat, electricity generation and glacier-related floods. Theauthor dealing with the former Soviet Union makes specialmention of swamps, while the Finn waxes lyrical about thebeauties of snow and ice while providing an excellent over-view of scientific and practical hydrology in that country.Many of the authors pay some attention to climate change,circumpolar pollution and the control of rivers in the North.It is not easy to obtain an overview of research and currenthydrological practices in such a wide range of countries eventhough they clearly share common cold region interests andproblems. Hydrologists operate within various, relativelyself-contained subdisciplines and they submit papers to dif-ferent journals which publish in a variety of languages. Evenwith sophisticated abstracting services and electronic net-working, someone, now and again, has to take the trouble tobring people and ideas together. In this case, for example, Ifound the comprehensive list of references at the end of thebook remarkably useful. The subject matter of the articles, theaffiliations of the authors and the range of journals they usefor publication were all revealing to me in terms of activity innorthern hydrology today.It’s gratifying that a Canadian organization, NHRI, inthese straitened times, has found the time and foresight toprovide international leadership in this field in this way. Thisseries of complimentary volumes shows a persistence ofpurpose which is exemplary. We all know that the problemsof the Arctic are international in scope and that they can beNORTHERN HYDROLOGY, INTERNATIONALPERSPECTIVES. Edited by T.D. PROWSE, C.S.L.OMMANNEY and L.E. WATSON. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan:National Hydrology Research Institute, EnvironmentCanada, 1994. National Hydrology Science Report No. 3.215 p. Hardbound. Cdn$18.00.Progress in science depends on the effectiveness of eachgeneration in building on the successes, and recognizing thefailures, of its predecessors. The organization of our scien-tific disciplines, our journals, conferences, textbooks andelectronic and other networks are all parts of the systemwhich we hope produces “progress.” So are review articlesand books.The National Hydrology Research Institute (NHRI) inSaskatoon has just published the third in a series of publica-tions which, in different ways, attempt to provide state-of-the-art views of hydrology as it is applied to a particulargeographical region, the Arctic. The first of this series,

The College Hill Chronicles: How the University of Alaska Came of Age, by Neil Davis.

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The College Hill Chronicles: How the University of Alaska Came of Age, by Neil Davis.

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