Since the UW is located at the edge of the Arctic in Ísafjörður, 66.0611° N, 23.1889° W, the important issues of Arctic change are a common thread in our masters programs. There are specific Arctic-focused studies at University of Akureyri and University of Iceland, and UW is also engaged in these networks.

In September, Masters Program Director Catherine Chambers organized a session on fisheries and aquaculture in the Arctic at the University of the Arctic (UArctic) congress science session in Oulu, Finland. UW is a member of UArctic, which is a cooperative network of universities, colleges, research institutes and other organizations concerned with education and research in and about the North. UW also is the lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Arctic.

Last weekend, UW students attended Arctic Circle, the largest Arctic gathering of its kind that brought together over 2,000 academics, diplomats, and other representatives from the public and private sectors with the goal of sharing the latest information and lessons learned from all over the Arctic. UW offers two courses centered on attendance of Arctic Circle, “Arctic Ocean Governance” and “Communicating Climate Change”, where students undertake course projects based on the presentations they attend at the Arctic Circle conference. This year, the students had the additional honor of attending a meeting with the Chairman of the Arctic Circle board, former President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. Mr. Grímsson grew up in Ísafjörður and told the students how important small educational institutions like UW can be on the global level – and how important their research and studies are to coastal and marine sustainability, in the Arctic and around the world. The students also had a private meeting with Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, a lead author on IPCC reports and influential pacesetter in the field of climate change communication.