Connecting the World By Dr . Philip Price & NJ Harrison
When Alaskans travel “ outside ” ( i . e , anywhere in the world that ’ s not Alaska ), they are often hit with questions about ice road truckers , Deadliest Catch fishermen , the Iditarod , and , more recently , the melting polar ice caps and the Northwest Passage .
As a child growing up in Ireland , I remember reading perilous tales of Gold Rush stampeders , in which those who were well supplied survived and those who were not perished . As a young adult , I watched news coverage of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on the BBC and learned how it was created to honor the sled dogs and
By 2015 , a Digital Learning Compass study ( 2017 ) found that 29.7 % of all post-secondary students were enrolled in at least one online class .
trail that got mail , food , mining equipment , and other life-saving supplies to Alaska ’ s icebound northern ports many decades ago . It seemed that living a life in Alaska meant living a life with logistics .
I have been in Alaska since 1999 , yet I remain amazed at Alaska ’ s connection to logistics and supply chain management . When I travel from my home in Anchorage , I fly from an airport that is one of the top five globally for cargo throughput and less than 10 hours by air from 90 percent of the industrialized world . I live in a state rich in natural resources such as petroleum , natural gas , minerals , timber , and fisheries , but which faces logistics challenges in weather , geography , and transportation infrastructure that is unparalleled in most of the world . I call home to a state poised to become America ’ s most important hub in Arctic shipping as polar sea ice continues to melt and shipping lanes increase .
As a professor of logistics working first in London and then in Almaty , Kazakhstan , I was drawn to Alaska by the allure of its history and identity , so closely tied to logistics and supply chain management . ( Logistics concerns the management and control of the flow of goods and information , typically within one organization . Supply chain management focuses on the flow of goods , information , and related finance across multiple organizations .) Initiated by leaders in Alaska ’ s supply chain management industry and local government in 1998 , a fledgling program was in the works at the University of Alaska Anchorage ( UAA ) to bring logistics and supply chain education to Alaska . I was hired at that time to develop the academic curriculum for UAA ’ s new graduate and undergraduate programs in logistics and supply chain management .
Because the call for logistics and supply chain management pathways at UAA was initiated largely by industry , I knew it was critical to get industry input when developing the programs . With the support of UAA ’ s College of Business and Public Policy ( CBPP ) administrators , we conducted focus groups of local supply chain management leaders and developed , distributed , and analyzed surveys of Alaska ’ s supply chain executive leaders , managers , and supervisors . We used the results of this “ Global Logistics Environmental Scan ” as we developed the Master of Science in Global Supply Chain Management ( MS GSCM ), a now long-running degree program whose graduates are leaders at ConocoPhillips , FedEx , Lynden International , Alaska Railroad Corporation , Foss Maritime , Boeing , Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium , Delta Western Petroleum , Fairweather , Advanced Supply Chain International , and many more companies across Alaska and the world .
UAA ’ s MS GSCM program had been a traditional face-toface program , conducted on the Anchorage main campus on weekends . Throughout the past few years , we have seen that distance learning is becoming a reality in the postsecondary
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