CIRI Shareholder Katherine Gottlieb Receives National Award

CIRI shareholder Katherine Gottlieb, president and chief executive officer of Southcentral Foundation, became the first Alaska Native recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Award, also known as the “genius award.” She was among 23 recipients of this award announced Sept. 27 by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Gottlieb received the announcement while in Washington, D.C., for a national health care conference at the opening reception of the new National Museum of the American Indian. During the reception, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife, Alma Powell, announced Gottlieb’s fellowship. Following the announcement, Gottlieb presented at a plenary session in Washington, D.C., where she was honored with an ovation from health care leaders representing organizations throughout the country.
“It is an unbelievable award! I cannot thank everyone enough for all the years of support, nor can I thank all those who supported the selection,” Gottlieb said. “I was overwhelmed with tears when they called. I thank God for His blessings.”
The MacArthur Fellows Program has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, MSNBC, on many national TV news programs, and in the Anchorage Daily News all highlighting the importance of this award to Gottlieb as she continues to celebrate her achievement.

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. The Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. The fellowship is intended to be an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential. The purpose of the MacArthur Fellows Program is to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.

These awards most often recognize those who have gone well outside “the box” to achieve impressive individual changes in spite of the system rather than transform the system itself.

“What Katherine has done is to lead change by questioning basic assumptions,” said Dr. Doug Eby, vice president of Medical Services at Southcentral Foundation. “When presented with a ‘box’ of ‘that’s just how we do it,’ her usual approach is not just to push the boundaries of that ‘box,’ but rather to question why it is a box to start with and why we cannot just explode the thing and do what the customer/owner really wants.”

Gottlieb has never understood why the entire Alaska Native Community cannot have the very best, Eby points out. “She expects the services to be world class, immediately available, and Native in their orientation. She expects facilities in which we provide services to be culturally based showplaces that begin the process of lifting up pride, confidence, and well-being just by walking into them. She does not understand why the system and the people in the system should provide anything less than the very best every single time.”

Gottlieb was honored for her exceptional creativity and innovative accomplishments that have built Southcentral Foundation into a quality-driven, patient-centered organization tailored to the health care needs of Alaska Natives.

Gottlieb

Toloff Joins The CIRI Foundation Staff

The CIRI Foundation has hired CIRI shareholder Tabetha Toloff as the new program officer to assist in the management and administration of the Foundation’s scholarship and grant programs. Toloff is a CIRI shareholder of Athabascan descent and was raised in Nikiski and Anchorage. She earned an associate’s degree in business from the University of Alaska Anchorage, a bachelor’s degree in organizational management from Alaska Pacific University and plans to pursue her master’s degree in business administration.

“Education is a lifelong journey, and it’s an honor to be chosen as the Foundation’s program officer. I look forward to being able to draw from my experiences both as a student and a Foundation recipient to help other Alaska Natives achieve their educational goals,” said Toloff.

Toloff

Youth Tackle Trails at CITC Summer Camp

By Automme Anderson, CIRI Lands Intern

“A beautiful project, the kids did a marvelous job!” is how Dean Kvansnikoff, owner of Alaska Native Resource Consultants, Inc. (ANRCI), described another successful summer for Cook Inlet Tribal Council’s Youth Camp. Several years ago, CIRI President and CEO Carl Marrs envisioned combining CIRI’s reforestation of logged areas on the peninsula with employment opportunities for Alaska youth. Representatives of CIRI, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, and ANRCI put their heads together and developed a youth camp which opened in June 1999.

Since the camp opening, more than 650 youth have participated in tree planting and the planting of 550,000 seedlings. Other accomplishments include the region’s 2000 Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Award for the camp’s reforestation efforts, as well as a special project with a group of three youth who planted trees on federal land leased by Marathon Oil near Sterling. In addition to reforestation, youth participate in activities such as work ethic exercises, life skills building and cultural enrichment projects.

This year marked yet another collaborative and innovative project for the 2004 season—a trail rehabilitation project to repair a portion of the Falls Creek Trail. The trail, located near Ninilchik, crosses a tributary that flows into a fish breeding stream and serves as one of the main trails to the Caribou Hills Recreation Area. The project served as a pilot program for future trail hardening projects on CIRI land.

Trail hardening is a technique of modifying trail surfaces so they will support use without unacceptable environmental impacts to vegetation, soils, hydrology, habitat, or other resource values. The National Park Service offered guidance for the project, funded by CIRI and Cook Inlet Tribal Council.

The rehabilitation process began with trail preparation, including leveling the surface and removing trees, shrubs, rocks and large tree roots. Next, a technique called “corduroy” was used in some sections of the trail. This technique involved laying a series of wood poles across the trail and securing them with nylon line. A GeoBlock system was also used, which utilizes panels to serve as trail-hardening materials by providing a suitable wear surface for foot and off-highway vehicle use. This also facilitates vegetation re-growth.

Cook Inlet Tribal Council will begin accepting applications in May for the 2005 Summer Youth Camp. Teens ages 14 to 18, may participate in one of five 10-day sessions throughout the summer. The camp is located 11 miles northeast of Ninilchik and 225 miles south of Anchorage. Participants have a chance to earn half an elective high school credit and CPR/first aid certifications. Applications can be picked up at Cook Inlet Tribal Council’s Youth Opportunities Department at 121 West Fireweed Lane, Suite 150, online at www.citci.com, or by calling Courtney Sullivan at (907) 297-1772. Participants are encouraged to apply in early May. Space is limited so plan to attend the earliest orientation.

2004 Summer Youth Camp participants helped repair a section of the Falls Creek Trail.

Students Experience Media First Hand Through MEDIAK

More than 400 Alaska Native and Native American high school students have had a first-hand opportunity to work with the media. Thanks to a grant from the Department of Education, Cook Inlet Tribal Council and Koahnic Broadcast Corporation formed a partnership to create MEDIAK, the Media Education Developmental Institute of Alaska.

This grant provides funding to bring media activities and training to all students enrolled in Cook Inlet Tribal Council’s Partners for Success program. The Partners program has already experienced tremendous success in increasing the academic achievement of Anchorage-area students, and MEDIAK is enhancing the program with a focused media curriculum.

MEDIAK was formed in direct response to a need for more Alaska Natives in the media industry. While Alaska Natives make up nearly 20 percent of Alaska’s population, only one percent of media jobs are held by Alaska Natives. MEDIAK plans on changing that statistic by influencing Native youth to enter careers in media.

MEDIAK offers students a variety of media activities, all designed to spark an interest in media and future media careers. Students work on in-depth media projects that are led by media-savvy instructors. Projects take place on-site at participating high schools throughout Anchorage and at MEDIAK’s fully equipped media lab.

On-the-job training is another aspect of this program. MEDIAK has the funding to place students in internships at media workplaces throughout Anchorage. As students become skilled enough to teach others, they can join the MEDIAK staff as student mentors.
For more information about MEDIAK, contact Kristin Donovan, MEDIAK Director, at (907) 258-5008.

The MEDIAK staff includes (left to right) Shyanne Beatty, career counselor; Dolly Norton, data specialist/IT support; Kristin Donovan, project director; Chris Joy, instructor; and Brenda Maly, project assistant.

Education Department Funds Dena’ina Language Preservation Program

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a three-year grant of $600,000 to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, to be used for the preservation of the Dena’ina language. The creation of a culturally driven language program for middle and high school students will offer culturally appropriate teaching methods, relevant content, and intergenerational learning from within the Native community. Special instructors, elders and tradition bearers will use arts, traditional activities and academically driven programming to supplement in-class instruction received by students in their respective schools.

The Dena’ina Language Program consists of several components: Curriculum development of a two-year high school course in beginning and intermediate Dena’ina and a quarter-long middle school course in beginning conversational Dena’ina; an after-school high school credit course teaching the language and culture; a special summer camp opportunity for five of the high school participants to visit and work at a culturally and historically significant site in Dena’ina country; a nine-week language and cultural class at Mirror Lake Middle School for middle school students; and the establishment of an archive of Dena’ina language and culture at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

The program is in partnership with the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks, Anchorage School District, the Native Village of Eklutna, the Kenaitze Indian Tribe, the University of Alaska Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula Campus, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Bishop Museum of Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Mass.

Last spring, Southcentral Foundation employees Jennifer Hoogendorn and CIRI shareholder Sonda Tetpon took part in the Aleut basket weaving class offered at the Alaska Native Heritage Center as part of their language, art and dance classes.