"Where the Rubber Meets the Road": Cross-Cultural Education in Alaska

Abstract

My education began in 1970 when, having just completed graduate school, I took a position with the University of Alaska as the statewide academic coordinator for a new field-based teacher education program aimed at preparing native teachers to teach in Alaska's rural schools. With a fresh Ph.D. in Anthropology and Educational Administration in hand, and experience as a teacher and researcher in cross-cultural settings on my resume, I considered myself well prepared for the task ahead of me, and assumed that my expertise would be readily apparent and appreciated in the hinterlands of Alaska. I was wrong on both counts. I was not prepared to deal with the institutional inertia that had to be overcome or the advocacy role that my new job entailed. Nor was my expertise in cross-cultural affairs taken for granted. In a setting that has served as a rotational proving ground for numerous imported "instant experts," I was just one more outsider to be regarded with suspicion until my tenure was established and my motives made clear.