A professor leads her class to "the Last Frontier" and discovers the most gratifying mements in the words of her students.
I was awed by many things during my Environmental Economics class’s immersion experience in Alaska: the sheer beauty of the state; its abundant natural resources; the fascinating Native culture; and the wonderful hospitality from our hosts and guides.
But the most rewarding moment for me was provided by one of our students.
It came after one of our many encounters with leaders of businesses, non-profit organizations, and state government. I’d arranged these to give the students a behind-the-scenes, on-the-ground experience of what these people must consider when trying to weigh environmental issues and economic growth.
The learning didn’t occur exclusively in meetings and boardrooms. At the Anchorage Museum we saw exhibits on the history of the state and its exploration, including one on the 800-mile-long Trans Alaska Pipeline, a truly staggering feat of engineering. We visited the Alaska Native Heritage Center and heard about the construction of native homes to withstand snowstorms, high winds, and polar bear invasions. We received a guided tour by a native Alaskan, Yaari Kingeekuk, who recounted the “coming of age” procedure by which young adults in her tribe reached maturity and adulthood.
The class also encountered the outdoor tourism industry—the second largest private-sector industry in the state —up close and personal with a hike up Flat Top Moun-tain and a guided trek on Matanuska Glacier. From our guides, we heard details about the amount of business they receive from hunters, fishers, and other tourists visiting the state.
We also learned more about native land claims, an issue that goes to the heart of property rights, optimal allocations, and social justice we had studied in class. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) aimed to settle aboriginal land claims and establish corporations to oversee native interests. We met with Tom Panamaroff, president and CEO of Koniag Corporation (established under ANCSA), who told us the company’s history and plans for development. Tom stressed that the corporation aimed to provide a strong economic foundation for future generations of native Alaskans, and to preserve the heritage and history of the Alutiiq tribe it represents.
The goal of economic development has often been at odds with native interests. For example, the intent of ANCSA was to provide tribal groups with a clear legal claim to lands allocated to each group. However, the property rights delineated by ANCSA often conflicted with traditional native ways of life, in which tribes lived a migratory existence, following the herds of caribou. Now, specific tribes were given specific parcels of land, which would disallow this migratory pattern that many native Alaskans depended upon for subsistence living. Tribes that had coexisted peacefully with each other for generations now became enmeshed in legal battles over land use. We heard about how complex issues like these affected the people on the ground in the discussions we had with the native Alaskans we met.
But it was our meeting with Carl Portman, deputy director of the Alaska Resources Development Council (RDC) that became first of two events that tested and refined the critical thinking of one of my students. The RDC supports the responsible development of natural resources, including the proposed drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). After talking with Carl, we met with Betty McIntosh of the Alyeska Pipeline Services Company. She explained the extreme challenge of developing safe and reliable operating techniques to transport such a massive amount of oil on a daily basis. Betty also gave us a thorough grounding in new spill- response techniques developed since the Exxon Valdez accident. She stressed the company’s continuing commitment to safety and environmental protection.
Later on, I heard a comment from Steve Stankovich ’12, who had initially been against drilling in environmentally sensitive areas. After everything he heard in our meetings, he now believed that responsible drilling in the OCS made sense. He learned that drilling domestically would generate jobs at home and would occur under the stricter environmental regulatory system in the U.S., as opposed to other countries that may not have as stringent environmental protections.
Some other students did not agree; this is a difficult issue. But it was immensely rewarding to hear Stevan say that he had started out with one perspective and had used what he had learned from this experience—conversations and observations on the ground that supplemented what he’d read in the class—to formulate a more complex view of the world.
That one moment captures for me why these immersion experiences are part of our classes and our liberal arts education—and why I’m looking forward to the next one.
Professor Byun is BKT Assistant Professor of Economics. Her Environmental Economics course and her work
with Greg Estell ’85 was featured in “Making It Real,” WM Spring 2011.