ALASKA, UNIVERSITY OF

state university system consisting of three campuses (regional university centres) in Fairbanks (main campus), Anchorage, and Juneau (known as the University of Alaska Southeast). All campuses are coeducational and offer bachelor's and master's degree programs in business and education; the Fairbanks and Anchorage campuses include schools of engineering and arts and sciences as well. The Fairbanks campus has doctorate programs in oceanography, wildlife management, fisheries, atmospheric sciences, and space physics, among other subjects. University of Alaska students can spend a year studying abroad in Japan, Russia, the People's Republic of China, or in Europe. Total enrollment in the statewide system is about 33,000. The University of Alaska was founded in Fairbanks in 1917 as the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines. Instruction began in 1922. The Fairbanks campus was the site of Alaska's constitutional convention and signing. The university has founded or cofounded important research groups, including the Geophysical Institute and the Institute of Marine Science. The University of Alaska Anchorage, the system's largest campus, opened in 1954, and the University of Alaska Southeast opened in 1972. Community-based (mostly two-year) branch colleges are part of the regional university centres located in each region of the state.