The sign marking the entrance to Alaska Pacific University sits behind pillows of snow on a sunny March morning in Anchorage, Alaska. (Valerie Kern/Alaska Public Media)
Alaska Pacific University has a new scholarship that stems from a student-managed real-world investment fund. The fund has grown from $200,000 in seed money to nearly $2 million since it started in 2001. The new scholarship offers up to $4,000 per semester for eligible students pursuing an undergraduate degree in business or and MBA.
Alaska Public Media’s Ava White spoke with APU’s MBA Director and assistant professor of business, Lincoln Garrick. He says the fund started about 20 years ago, when Robert B. Gillam donated 100,000 dollars in seed money to the university.
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This script has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Lincoln Garrick: Basically, it’s a portfolio that students would be in charge of. APU matched that money 100%. So, the fund started with $200,000 and over the last 23 years, students have taken the class and purchased stocks and bonds and different financial securities.
It’s grown and [the fund] was over $2 million and so a decision was made to peel off some of those unrealized gains, and create a scholarship program. We were looking at how big it was getting. It was getting to the point where it was maybe a little unwieldy for us as a class, to invest, and they still have that amount of diversification in it.
One of the big inspirations here in creating this scholarship fund was to open up doors for folks who have interest in finance and have interest in business areas, but maybe don’t have the funds to make that happen in their lives.
AW: How unusual is this? I mean, do you know of any other schools that are using this model of a student managed fund that’s eventually providing scholarships for future students?
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LG: Student funds are pretty common. Throughout the United States, a good number of them are virtual funds, meaning that they’re simulated, in that you work through a computer program and you invest pretend dollars. Some schools use actual dollars.
I don’t know of too many who have had both the success that the APU student fund has had, and also have made the decision to take those unrealized gains and turn it into a scholarship program.
AW: One thing I was really interested to see is that this fund created this class that you’re talking about, where students are actually getting to work on and grow this fund. And you’ve mentioned that you’ve actually taken this class yourself. Can you walk me through what the hands on aspect looks like?
LG: It is still, in many ways, a stock picking class.
It is a growth fund, meaning that the goal is to get as much gain as possible in the period of time that the course runs. But it’s also a very diversified fund. One of the ways that we mitigate risk the same way you would in a diversified portfolio, by having a basket of different types of goods, so that if one industry, like financial instruments, goes down, then you have a hedge against that downturn by having other things in the basket.
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AW: You’re kind of hinting at it a little bit, but obviously this class is a learning experience, but everybody makes mistakes. So how do you balance keeping the class a learning experience while keeping it and making sure that students aren’t suffering the fund?
LG: You’re not going to torpedo the fund as a student. That’s just not going to happen. Through the lessons of the class, you are able to identify the best options within your particular industry.
We have some parameters around the fund. We don’t invest in emerging markets, we don’t invest in any of the areas like derivatives or shorting stocks. We would say the Russell 4000 is kind of our home turf.
AW: As someone that’s worked on this fund, this must be a really full circle moment for you. Can you talk a little bit about what this is like?
LG: I had no idea of what the world of finance looked like. I learned so many things through that class. How people view money is different based on how much they have. I think a lot of the learning goes beyond just picking stocks.
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But, the role of finance is really what I took from the class. Being able to take some seed money, invest it in companies based on sound financials, and then have those realized gains turn into opportunities for folks that come after you, 10 or 20, years later. I think [that’s] something poetic and remarkable.
Ava White reports on economics and hosts the statewide morning news at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at awhite@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8445. Read more about Ava here.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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