Aleutian village corporation rep asks UAA about rural worker retention

A representative of a small village corporation in the Aleutian Chain told University of Alaska Anchorage leaders that out-migration is a constant battle for rural communities, then asked how the university works with tribes and Alaska Native corporations to meet workforce-development requirements increasingly attached to their federal grants. The exchange came during the audience question period at a Resource Development Council for Alaska breakfast forum in Anchorage on March 26.

Provost Denise Runge answered with a program that keeps training where the worker already lives. "UAA has an apprenticeship program in early childhood education, and the way that that works is throughout Alaska primarily in rural and small areas, anyone who is employed in any capacity within the school can apply for the apprenticeship, and then they start taking online classes through UAA," Runge said. On-the-job training happens inside the school that already employs the apprentice, she said, and the apprentice eventually becomes a licensed teacher. "In many ways, the Native corporations and the tribes are the partners in this because they're helping to identify the students," Runge said.

A second university administrator said UAA is willing to help any tribal organization assess its own workforce needs, and that the university has recently examined statewide migration patterns: why people move from a village to a hub community, to a larger city, or out of Alaska entirely. Understanding those drivers, the administrator said, could help communities keep people working at home.

Neither answer cited retention figures, and no data was presented showing whether the apprenticeship model has kept graduates in their home communities. That gap matters because training is only one constraint among several; a state workforce focus-group report identifies housing, child care, energy costs, and transportation as the top barriers to attracting and retaining workers in rural Alaska.

A state broadband workforce planning document instructs partner agencies to coordinate with Native entities, universities, labor, and local governments. The partnership Runge described, in which tribes and Native corporations help UAA identify apprenticeship students, is one narrower example of that kind of coordination.