Two women have been appointed to lead regional campuses of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The regional campuses are federally designated Alaska Native-serving institutions that are part of the university’s College of Rural and Community Development. They offer two-year degree programs, as well as ways for students to complete bachelor’s degrees through distance-delivered courses and programs from the University of Alaska system.
Wanda Wahl is the new director of the Bristol Bay Campus in Dillingham, Alaska. Wahl has served as interim director since May 2021 and first joined the staff there in 1985.
Whal is an enrolled tribal member of Curyung, the tribe on whose ancestral land the Bristol Bay Campus is located. The Bristol Bay campus serves 33 remote villages scattered over a 55,000-square-mile area, including Bristol Bay, the Alaska Peninsula, the Pribilof Islands, and the Aleutian Islands. Whal holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.
Minnie Naylor was named director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Chukchi Campus in Kotzebue. Naylor has been on the university’s staff for nine years and most recently served as interim director of the Chukchi Campus.
Naylor grew up in Kotzebue. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in rural development from the Univerity of Alaska Fairbanks.