Advising

Education

B.B.A, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Biography

I've loved living in Alaska since I first arrived here at the tender age of 2.  I've been blessed to see much of the state having lived in Chugiak, Talkeetna, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Ketchikan.  The beauty and serenity of this special place we live (even with the large amounts of rain) is inspiring.  After graduating from a little Alaskan high school (we had a graduating class of 18 students) I attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, graduating with a BA in Business Administration in 1990.  I 've had the pleasure of working with college students for over twenty years and I am inspired by the perseverance of our students as well as the power of education to help students change their lives for the better.

Other

Advising contact for transfer, nursing, social work, elementary education and business students.

Education

Ph.D., MA, Tulane University
B.S., Oregon State University

William Urquhart’s recent doctoral dissertation on school violence and bullying includes ethnographic and statistical studies at a remote Western Alaska village and at an inner-city high school in pre-Katrina New Orleans.  This work emphasizes the importance of social account conversations in defining peer group norms for retaliation in disadvantaged areas, and will soon be published in book form as a monograph.  His other research interests include Alaskan social problems such as alcoholism and domestic violence, and organizational behavior perspectives on workplace violence.  Currently, he is investigating the effect of climatic temperature variation on seasonal domestic violence rate cycles in northern states.  He enjoys teaching distance education classes, and some of his course offerings include Theory and Research in Criminology, Social Psychology, and Alaska Social Problems; Deviant Behavior, Organizational Behavior, and Environmental Sociology.

Biography

Bill Urquhart teaches courses in sociology, general social science, humanities,  and multicultural education.  As a sociologist, his teaching interests include social problems, deviant behavior, social psychology, education, and criminology, with special focus areas in juvenile delinquency, domestic violence, and social problems relevant to Alaska.  Dr. Urquhart primarily teaches online and serves as the Distance Coordinator for the online Bachelor of Arts in Social Science degree program. He is also the Project Director for a Title III grant for Alaska Native Serving Institutions titled "Strengthening Arts & Sciences eLearning Communities."  Dr. Urquhart was born and raised in Ketchikan, Alaska, from a family long involved in commercial fishing.  After graduating high school, he continued on to Oregon Institute of Technology, Oregon State University, and eventually to Tulane University, where his PhD focused on bullying and conflict resolution among high school students in New Orleans and in a village in Western Alaska. Bill enjoys spending time with his wife, Frankie, who is a high school science teacher, and their four children, Liam, Neila, Torran, and Kinsey.  Bill plays the bagpipes with Ketchikan's Misty Thistle Pipes & Drums, and spends spare time fishing, hunting, and gathering with family.  

Other

Advising contact for all distance-based students in the Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree.

Other

Steve Florian comes to Ketchikan from sunny southern California, where he taught composition, business writing, and academic first year experience classes at California State University Northridge for five years; he also received his MA in Rhetoric and Composition from CSUN. He has also taught composition and critical thinking at Los Angeles Valley College and New York Film Academy. At one time a returning student himself, Steve’s main area of research interest is in retention and persistence among college students. He is currently working on a dissertation in that field through the Composition and Applied Linguistics PhD program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has presented papers at academic conferences across the United States and in Australia, on such diverse topics as protest rhetoric, the rhetoric of surfing, and the commerce of virtue in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews.

Steve was an actor in Los Angeles for many years before joining the ranks of academia. He still enjoys watching movies, as well as fishing, hiking, reading, traveling, and playing tee ball with his wife and young daughter.