MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellowship but unofficially known as a "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to between 20 and 30 individuals, working in any field, who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" and are citizens or residents of the United States. According to the Foundation's website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality and potential"; the current prize is $625,000 paid over five years in quarterly installments. This figure was increased from $500,000 in 2013 with the release of a review of the MacArthur Fellows Program. Since 1981, 942 people have been named MacArthur Fellows, ranging in age from 18 to 82; the award has been called "one of the most significant awards, truly'no strings attached'". The program allows no applications. Anonymous and confidential nominations are invited by the Foundation and reviewed by an anonymous and confidential selection committee of about a dozen people.
The committee reviews all nominees and recommends recipients to the president and board of directors. Most new Fellows first learn of their nomination and award upon receiving a congratulatory phone call. MacArthur Fellow Jim Collins described this experience in an editorial column of The New York Times. Cecilia Conrad is the managing director leading the MacArthur Fellows Program. In the 2008 Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York, The main character Caden Cotard was a recipient of the Grant, used it to fund his immersive play. Guggenheim Fellowship Thomas J. Watson Fellowship MacArthur Fellows Program website
Old Harbor, Alaska
Old Harbor is a city in Kodiak Island Borough, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 218, down from 237 in 2000. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 26.5 square miles, of which 20.5 square miles is land and 6.0 square miles, or 22.59%, is water. The community of Old Harbor has its origins in the era of Russian conquest. On August 14, 1784, Grigory Shelikhov with 130 Russian fur traders massacred several hundred Qik’rtarmiut Sugpiat tribe of Alutiiq men and children at Refuge Rock, a tiny stack island off the eastern coast of Sitkalidak Island. In Alutiiq, this sacred place is known as Awa'uq. Old Harbor first appeared on the 1880 U. S. Census as an unincorporated village with 160 residents: 155 Inuit and 5 Creole, it returned with 86 residents in 1890, all Native. It did not return again until 1920, it formally incorporated in 1966. As of the census of 2000, there were 237 people, 79 households, 51 families residing in the city; the population density was 11.3 people per square mile.
There were 111 housing units at an average density of 5.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 13.08% White, 73.00% Native American, 13.92% from two or more races. There were 79 households out of which 44.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 32.9% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 34.2% were non-families. 26.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 3.8% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.00 and the average family size was 3.60. In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 39.7% under the age of 18, 7.6% from 18 to 24, 29.5% from 25 to 44, 19.0% from 45 to 64, 4.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 27 years. For every 100 females, there were 127.9 males. For every 100 females of age 18 and over, there are 142.4 males. The median income for a household in the city was $32,500, the median income for a family was $26,000.
Males had a median income of $33,750 versus $23,750 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,265. About 30.8% of families and 29.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32.5% of those under the age of eighteen and none of those sixty five or over. The Old Harbor School, a K-12 rural school, is operated by the Kodiak Island Borough School District. Kodiak.org – Information about Old Harbor
Michael E. Krauss
Michael E. Krauss is an American linguist, professor emeritus and long-time head of the Alaska Native Language Center; as of February 2013, the Alaska Native Language Archive is named after him. Krauss is known first and foremost as an Eyak language specialist, a language that became extinct in January 2008. However, he has worked on all of the 20 Native languages of Alaska, 18 of which belong to the Na-Dené and Eskimo–Aleut language families. With his 1991 address to the Linguistic Society of America, Krauss focused awareness of the global problem of endangered languages, he has since worked to encourage the documentation and re-vitalization of endangered languages across the world. Krauss joined the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1960 and served as director of the Alaska Native Language Center from its inception in 1972 until his retirement in June 2000, he remains active in efforts to document Alaska's Native languages and encouraged awareness of the global problem of endangered languages.
Krauss received a B. A. from University of Chicago. A. from Columbia University,. D. in Linguistics and Celtic from Harvard University. His dissertation was titled "Studies in Irish Gaelic Phonology & Orthography." Krauss conducted fieldwork with Gaelic in Western Ireland Krauss conducted fieldwork with Norse languages in Iceland and in the Faroe Islands. After completing a dissertation on Gaelic languages Krauss arrived in Alaska in 1960 to teach French at the University of Alaska, but Krauss was aware of and interested in the indigenous languages of Alaska prior to his arrival. In fact, while en route to Alaska he visited Harry Hoijer, the leading scholar of Athabaskan languages at the time. Arriving in Alaska he became aware of the dire situation of the indigenous languages of Alaska and turned his attention to documenting those languages, focusing on the Tanana language; this turned out to be quite fortuitous for scholars of Athabaskan comparative linguistics, as Lower Tanana nicely demonstrated a split in the Proto-Athabaskan *ts- series, not evidenced in Hoijer's data.
Although Krauss communicated this new information to Hoijer, it was not incorporated into Hoijer's major Athabaskan monograph, printed in 1963. The Minto data did appear in a series of IJAL articles by Krauss in the mid to late 1960s, but it was some time before the existence of an additional Proto-Athabaskan affricate series became known. Krauss' largest contribution to language documentation is his work on Eyak, which began in 1961. Eyak was already the most endangered of the Alaskan languages, Krauss' work is all the more notable considering that it represents what today might be considered salvage linguistics. While some Eyak data had been available, they were overlooked by previous scholars, including Edward Sapir. However, Eyak proved to be a crucial missing link for historical linguistics, being closely related to neighboring Ahtna and to distant Navajo. With good Eyak data it became possible to establish the existence of the Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit language family, though phonological evidence for links to Haida remained elusive.
Further, the system of vowel modifications present in Eyak inspired Krauss' theory of Athabaskan tonogenesis, whereby tone develops from vowel constriction. Michael Krauss' lecture at the Linguistic Society of America conference in January 1991 is cited as a turning point which refocused the field of linguistics on documentation and inspired a systematic global effort to document the world's linguistic diversity. In his lecture, titled "The world's languages in crisis," Dr. Krauss famously warned:."Obviously we must do some serious rethinking of our priorities, lest linguistics go down in history as the only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the field to which it is dedicated." Michael Krauss contends that in the United States, children are only learning 20% of the world's remaining languages. Badten, Adelinda W.. Ungazighmiit ungipaghaatangit. College: University of Alaska. Friedrich, Paul. On the meaning of the Tarascan suffixes of space. Baltimore, Waverly Press.
Gudgel-Holmes, Dianne. Native place names of the Kantishna drainage. Anchorage, AK: U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office. Hale, Ken. "Endangered languages". Language. 68: 1–42. Doi:10.2307/416368. JSTOR 416368. Harry, Annan N.. In honor of Eyak: The art of Annan Nelson Harry. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. Krauss, Michael E.. Na-Dene. College, AK: University of Alaska and M. I. T. Krauss, Michael E.. "The proto-Athapaskan–Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene, I: The phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 30: 118–131. Doi:10.1086/464766. Krauss, Michael E.. "The proto-Athapaskan–Eyak and the problem of Na-Dene, II: The morphology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 31: 18–28. Doi:10.1086/464810. Krauss, Michael E.. "Noun classifiers in the Athapaskan, Eyak and Haida verb". International Journal of American Linguistics. 34: 194–203. Doi:10.1086/465014. Krauss, Michael E.. On the classification in the Athapascan and the Tlingit verb.
Baltimore: Waverly Press, Indiana University. Krauss, Michael E.. Eskimo–Aleut; the Hague: Mouton. Krauss, M
Alutiiq
The Alutiiq people called by their ancestral name Sugpiaq, as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a southern coastal people of Alaska Natives. They are not to be confused with the Aleuts, who live further to the southwest, including along the Aleutian Islands, their traditional homelands include Prince William Sound and outer Kenai Peninsula, the Kodiak Archipelago and the Alaska Peninsula. In the early 1800s there were more than 60 Alutiiq villages in the Kodiak archipelago, with an estimated population of 13,000 people. Today more than 4,000 Alutiiq people live in Alaska. At present, the most used title is Alutiiq, Alutiit; these terms derive from the names that Russian fur traders and settlers gave to the native people in the region. Russian occupation began in 1784, following their massacre of hundreds of Sugpiat at Refuge Rock just off the coast of Sitkalidak Island near the present-day village of Old Harbor. Given the violence underlying the colonial period, confusion because the Sugpiaq term for Aleut is Alutiiq, some Alaska Natives from the region have advocated use of the terms that the people themselves use to describe their people and language: Sugpiaq, Sugpiat — to identify the people, Sugstun, Sugt'stun, or Sugtestun to refer to the language.
All three names are used now, according to personal preference. Over time, many other ethnonyms were used to refer to this people; the people traditionally lived a coastal lifestyle, subsisting on ocean resources such as salmon and whale. They supplemented these maritime foods such as berries and land mammals. Before contact with Russian fur traders, they lived in semi-subterranean homes called ciqlluaq. Today, in the 21st century, the Alutiiq live in coastal fishing communities in more modern housing, they work in all aspects of the modern economy, while maintaining the cultural value of subsistence. In 2010 the high school in Kodiak responded to requests from Alutiiq students and agreed to teach the Alutiiq language, it is one of the Eskimo languages, belonging to the Yup'ik branch of these languages. The Kodiak dialect of the language was being spoken by only about 50 persons, all of them elderly, the dialect was in danger of being lost entirely. Alvin Eli Amason and sculptor Sven Haakanson, executive director of the Alutiiq Museum, winner of a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship.
Loren Leman, Lieutenant-governor of Alaska, 2002-2006 Cungagnaq known as Peter the Aleut, an Eastern Orthodox saint from Kodiak Island. Chugach Awa'uq Massacre Alutiiq Museum Alaska Native Language Center: Alaska Native Languages Map Alaskan Orthodox Christian texts Alutiiq Museum List of Native American peoples in the United States
Yup'ik
The Yup'ik or Yupiaq and Yupiit or Yupiat Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Central Yup'ik, Alaskan Yup'ik, are an Eskimo people of western and southwestern Alaska ranging from southern Norton Sound southwards along the coast of the Bering Sea on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and along the northern coast of Bristol Bay as far east as Nushagak Bay and the northern Alaska Peninsula at Naknek River and Egegik Bay. They are known as Cup'ik by the Chevak Cup'ik dialect-speaking Eskimos of Chevak and Cup'ig for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect-speaking Eskimo of Nunivak Island. Both Chevak Cup'ik and Nunivak Cup'ig Eskimos are known as Cup'ik; the Yup'ik, Cup'ik, Cup'ig speakers can converse without difficulty, the regional population is described using the larger term of Yup'ik. They are one of the four Yupik peoples of Alaska and Siberia related to the Sugpiaq ~ Alutiiq of south-central Alaska, the Siberian Yupik of St. Lawrence Island and Russian Far East, the Naukan of Russian Far East; the Yupiit speak the Yup'ik language.
Of a total population of about 21,000 people, about 10,000 speak the language. The Yup'ik Eskimo combine a contemporary and a traditional subsistence lifestyle in a blend unique to the Southwest Alaska. Today, the Yup'ik work and live in western style but still hunt and fish in traditional subsistence ways and gather traditional foods. Most Yup'ik people still speak the native language and bilingual education has been in force since the 1970s; the Yupiit are the most numerous of the various Alaska Native groups and speak the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language, a member of the Eskimo–Aleut family of languages. As of the 2000 U. S. Census, the Yupiit population in the United States numbered over 24,000, of whom over 22,000 lived in Alaska; the vast majority of these live in the seventy or so communities in the traditional Yup'ik territory of western and southwestern Alaska. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the Yup'ik at 34,000 people is the largest Alaska Native tribal grouping, either alone or in combination followed by the Inupiat.
The Yup'ik had the greatest number of people who identified with one tribal grouping and no other race. In that census, nearly half of American Indians and Alaska Natives identified as being of mixed race; the neighbours of the Yup'ik Eskimos are the Iñupiaq Eskimo to the north, Aleutized Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq Eskimos to the south, Alaskan Athabaskans, such as Yup'ikized Holikachuk and Deg Hit'an, non-Yup'ikized Koyukon and Dena'ina, to the east. The form Yup'ik was used in the northern area while the form Yupiaq was used in the southern area. Certain places had other forms; the form Yup'ik is now used as a common term. Yup'ik comes from the Yup'ik word yuk meaning "person" plus the postbase -pik or -piaq meaning "real" or "genuine"; the ethnographic literature sometimes refers to the Yup ` ik people or their language as Yuit. In the Hooper Bay-Chevak and Nunivak dialects of Yup'ik, both the language and the people are given the name Cup'ik; the use of an apostrophe in the name "Yup'ik", compared to Siberian "Yupik", exemplifies the Central Yup'ik's orthography.
"The apostrophe represents gemination of the'p' sound". The names given to them by their neighbors: Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq: Pamana'rmiu'aq, Pamanirmiuq Deg Xinag Athabaskan: Dodz xit'an, Novogh xit'an Holikachuk Athabaskan: Namagh hit'an Koyukon Athabaskan: Nobaagha hut'aankkaa Dena'ina Athabaskan: Dutna, Naghelghazhna Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan: Dodina sg Dodinayu pl The common ancestors of the Eskimo and the Aleut are believed by archaeologists to have their origin in eastern Siberia. Migrating east, they reached the Bering Sea area about 10,000 years ago. Research on blood types and linguistics suggests that the ancestors of American Indians reached North America in waves of migration before the ancestors of the Eskimo and Aleut; this causeway became exposed between 8,000 years ago during periods of glaciation. By about 3,000 years ago the progenitors of the Yupiit had settled along the coastal areas of what would become western Alaska, with migrations up the coastal rivers—notably the Yukon and Kuskokwim—around 1400 C.
E. reaching as far upriver as Paimiut on the Yukon and Crow Village on the Kuskokwim. The Russian colonization of the Americas lasted from 1732 to 1867; the Russian Empire supported ships traveling from Siberia to America for whaling and fishing expeditions. The crews established hunting and trading posts of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company in the Aleutian Islands and northern Alaska indigenous settlements.. Half of the fur traders were Russians, such as promyshlenniki from various European parts of the Russian Empire or from Siberia. Grigory Shelikhov led attacks on Kodiak Island against the indigenous Alutiiq in 1784, known as the Awa'uq Massacre. According to some estimates, Russian employees of the trading company killed more than 2,000 Alutiiq; the company took over control of the island. By the late 1790s, its trading posts had become the centers of permanent settlements of Russian America
Kenai Peninsula
The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe, the Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina, that inhabited the area, they called the Kenai Peninsula Yaghanen. The peninsula extends 150 miles southwest from the Chugach Mountains, south of Anchorage, it is separated from the mainland on the west on the east by Prince William Sound. Most of the peninsula is part of the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Gerasim Izmailov was the first European man to explore and map the peninsula in 1789, though Athabaskan and Alutiiq Native groups have lived on the peninsula for thousands of years; the glacier-covered Kenai Mountains, rising 7,000 feet, run along the southeast spine of the peninsula along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska. Much of the range is within Kenai Fjords National Park; the northwest coast along the Cook Inlet is marshy, dotted with numerous small lakes.
Several larger lakes extend through the interior of the peninsula, including Skilak Lake and Tustumena Lake. Rivers include the Kenai River, famous for its salmon population, as well as its tributary, the Russian River, the Kasilof River, the Anchor River. Kachemak Bay, a small inlet off the larger Cook Inlet, extends into the peninsula's southwest end, much of, part of Kachemak Bay State Park; the Kenai Peninsula has many glaciers in southern areas. It is home to both the Sargent Icefield and Harding Icefields and numerous glaciers that spawn off them; the peninsula includes several of the most populous towns in south central Alaska, including Seward on the Gulf of Alaska Coast, Kenai and Cooper Landing along the Cook Inlet and Kenai River, Homer, along Kachemak Bay, along with numerous smaller villages and settlements. Homer famously marks the terminus of the paved highway system of North America and is a popular destination for travelers who have driven to Alaska from the lower 48 states.
Seward is the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad. There are airports with scheduled flights in Kenai and Homer as well as smaller general aviation airports in Soldotna and Seward; the Seward Highway connects Seward to Anchorage, the Sterling Highway is the backbone of Kenai Peninsula connecting the larger towns to Anchorage. The peninsula has a coastal climate, mild, with abundant rainfall, it is one of the few areas in Alaska that allow for agriculture, with a growing season adequate for producing hay and several other crops. The peninsula has natural gas and coal deposits, as well as abundant commercial and personal-use fisheries. Tourism is guiding services for hunters and fishers; the Kenai Peninsula is known as "Alaska's Playground"
Alaska Public Media
Alaska Public Media is a non-profit organization with member television and radio stations that are part of PBS, NPR and other public broadcasting networks. Known as Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc. Alaska Public Media relies upon several funding sources, including member donations and federal dollars, grants from private foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, elsewhere. Alaska Public Media operates KAKM, a television station affiliated with the PBS, along with public radio station KSKA. Alaska Public Media operates the Alaska Public Radio Network, a network of more than 20 radio stations in Alaska that share news and other audio content statewide; the stations claim 54,000 TV viewers nightly and 37,000 radio listeners weekly in the Southcentral Alaska region. Official website
