Date, Time and Location

The Graduate Degree Hooding Ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 10 a.m. at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the UAA Anchorage campus. This special Hooding Ceremony adds to the graduation experience by making it possible to focus on the advanced degree candidates and their accomplishments.

NOTE: Students are to arrive at 9:00 a.m. for registration. We thank you in advance for being on time. Doors to the auditorium will open for family and friends at 9:45 a.m.

Now considered a doctoral granting institution, UAA will be able to better serve the community of Anchorage and the state of Alaska in the future. Though no additional doctoral programs are immediately being offered, UAA can now work with Statewide administration and the Board of Regents to further develop doctoral programs of greatest demand and need in Alaska. UAA's new status will allow for the state's population center to develop additional doctoral degrees in high-demand fields such as nursing and education, among others. The University of Alaska system now has two doctoral granting institutions, UAA and UAF.

Chancellor Tom Case announcement published 5.3.2012 to the University Community.

WAGS is an effective networking web nationally for graduate program officers in colleges and universities. There are 89 member institutions from 13 states and three Canadian provinces. Members swap relevant concerns, strategies and new ideas. WAGS serves as a regional voice on the national U.S. Council of Graduate Schools.

"It's a very good way for UAA to get out there and take a lead in promotion of graduate education among our peers," she said.

Mattison's rise to the two-year position will mean a higher profile for UAA, and could even result in an annual meeting coming to Anchorage in the future, she said. UAA has had membership in the association since 2005. Both UAA and UAF are members.

Mattison's role means influencing future conference agendas. She and other UAA members will attend the WAGS Summer Institute where new discussion ideas for the annual conference are often first raised.

Graduate students at WAGS member institutions can compete for two awards made annually by the association. One is a Distinguished Thesis Award and the other is an Innovation in Technology Award. Mid-September is the deadline for receipt of entries.  The announcement of winners will be made at the 2013 Annual Conference next March. UAA had a winning entry in 2006, Mattison recalled.

There are meetings scheduled for the entire Spring 2012 semester.  The Graduate School calendar posts the dates and times.

Read about Margaret Brady.  Ms. Brady is a UAA Graduate Researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Raised in Wasilla, she recently turned a study of Alaska Hmong refugees into her Master's Thesis in Anthropology.  

Brady defended her 200-page Master's Thesis on Anchorage's Hmong gardeners before an audience of some 50 people in late October. The assembly included many Anchorage Hmong.