The Office of Academic Affairs and Research, Department of K-12 Outreach, has experienced some bittersweet personnel transitions over the recent months and weeks. In July, Alaska said goodbye to longtime Alaska Teacher Placement director and, later, director of K-12 Outreach, Melissa Hill, who accepted a position at Heritage University in her home state of Washington. Then, in August, Sonta Hamilton Roach, program director for Future Educators of Alaska, announced her intent to return to her home village of Shageluk to pursue her dream of teaching. During her tenure with FEA, Sonta led major program initiatives including transitioning FEA into a Career and Technical Student Organization and developing an Exploring Education Careers curriculum. She was also responsible for leading the way in re-establishing an Education Track with the Rural Alaska Honors Institute (RAHI) and extending FEA clubs in 28 Alaska School Districts. Her vision, dedication and leadership have served FEA well and will be a resource to all her future students. The K-12 Outreach staff is proud to see Sonta embodying the mission of FEA—to grow our own educators for Alaska.

The staff is pleased to welcome Mike Dunleavy to his new positions as director of both Alaska Teacher Placement and the Department of K-12 Outreach. Mike earned his Master of Education degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, with an emphasis in Cross-Cultural Education. He has served as a vice principal and principal of a large rural elementary school. His district office experience has included director of elementary education, state, and federal programs; assistant superintendent and superintendent; and administrator of a large, correspondence homeschool� program serving 1,200 students in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, where Mike is currently President of the district's school board. Additionally, Mike was chairman of Gov. Sean Parnell's Educational Transition Team that provided the governor with educational policy positions for his administration to consider. He is also an executive board member of the Association of Alaska School Boards, as well as a member of the Alaska Council of School Administrators. After 21 years working in the public school system, Mike started his own educational consulting business providing continuing service to educational entities and school districts. In 2006, then-Commissioner of Education & Early Development Roger Sampson asked him to be the Program Manager of the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project, and Mike fulfilled this role until recently accepting his position with the University of Alaska.

Financial Accountant & Supervisor
Fund Accounting

Started July 18, 2011

Alex Amegashie, new fiscal accountant for fund reporting, assists in preparing financial statement reports on the university for external authorities. He also helps provide guidlines to keep internal bodies in compliance.

Amegashie has been in Fairbanks for over five years. He originally came here on active duty military orders from Texas.�

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Liberty University in Virginia. Amegashie is currently pursing a MBA at UAF. He is married with two daughters.

Amegashie says he's glad for the opportunity to work for the university. It is a great way of giving back to the community.�

Senior Accountant
Controller’s Office

Started June 6, 2011

Wei Guo, senior accountant, works primarily with debt issuance and internal reimbursable service agreements.�

Guo came to the Statewide Controller's office from Cook & Haugeberg LLC in Fairbanks where she was a manager. Prior to coming to Fairbanks she worked as a staff accountant for Neal, Bradsher & Taylor, P.A. in North Carolina.

Guo was born and raised in Beijing, China. She moved to Alaska in 2006 from North Carolina.

She received a Master of Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Guo's husband, Xiyu Zhou, is an associate professor for the UAF School of Management. Their son, Victor Zhou, is a fourth grader at Immaculate Conception School of Fairbanks.

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Statewide Labor and Employee Relations Coordinator
Office of Labor and Employee Relations

Started� August 15, 2011

As statewide labor and employee relations coordinator, Julie Shalvoy serves as a resource for all UA employees on labor and employee relations issues. Shalvoy has been working in human resources within the university system for nearly a decade. Most recently, from March 2008 to August 2011, she was human resources manager at the Geophysical Institute. Prior to that, from March 2007 to March 2008, she was a human resources consultant for UAF Human Resources. In her first HR role at UA, from August 1993 to March 2007, she was a human resources professional for the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, the Agricultural Forestry Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service.

Originally from Bridgeport, Conn., Shalvoy grew up in New England. In 1979 she moved from Connecticut to California. She came to Fairbanks in 1984.

Shalvoy enjoys working with diverse personalities, solving difficult HR issues, and assisting folks in communicating with one another. She is a trained mediator and is currently preparing for the Professional Human Resources certificate exam in December. She is also working on a bachelor's degree in communications.
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She has been married for 23 years, and has one 16-year-old son who is a junior at West Valley High School. She is a Certified Master Gardner who loves gardening. In addition to growing pumpkins, she grew 25 different varities of annual flowers this year.

Shalvoy has been a curler since 1999 and loves it. Curling is a great motivator to get out of the house at 40 below when it is dark out: one can warm up on the ice at the Curling Club!! She also loves Yankee baseball.

Identity and Access Management Developer
Office of Information Technology

May 2011

Melinda Shore is responsible for developing and maintaining access management infrastructure.

Before joining OIT she was with the infrastructure group at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center from September 2009 to May 2011. Prior to that she was a technical leader with Cisco Systems' Strategic Cryptographic Development group and before that she was a member of the scientific staff with Nokia.

Don't tell anybody, but she was born in Los Angeles.� Shore grew up in Virginia but spent most of her adult life in the Finger Lakes area of New York state. She moved to Alaska in 2009.

Shore has an undergraduate degree in music theory, with a minor in art history, from Ithaca College.� ABD (all but dissertation) in information retrieval from the University of Chicago. She also has patents in security and cryptographic authentication, authored networking standards, and has chaired security working groups in the Internet Engineering Task Force and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Shore has a dog team and loves to fish.� Actually she enjoys nearly anything outdoors, really.

Accounting Specialist
UA Foundation Accounting

Started May 23, 2011

Jim Thomas, accounting specialist for the UA Foundation, comes from a background in Foundation work. He was employed by the University of Nevada Las Vegas Foundation for the past 16 1/2 years. The last position he held was as accountant and real estate manager (around six years).

Thomas was born in Niagra Falls, New York, and moved to Las Vegas soon after. He lived in Vegas for more than 30 years, until moving to Fairbanks on May 18, 2011.

Thomas received formal training/education at UNLV including a Bachelor of Science in Economics.

He enjoys outdoors, traveling, volunteer work and reading books on finance/investing. Thomas just started a program to learn Arabic.

It is hard to know what to do or say when someone who has been at the university as long as Wendy Redman decides to retire. In her case, the problem was solved in part by clear expectations of what not to do at her going away party.

Wendy agreed a staff party could be held with these ground rules: 1) no speeches� 2) just say good-bye (personally---nothing that resembles a speech!) and grab some food 3) take the rest of the afternoon off, with President Gamble's blessing and your supervisor's permission--Wendy's gift to you!

So with these ground rules in place friends and co-workers gathered in Butrovich 109 on July 26 to say (privately) farewell to Wendy Redman and to wish her the best in her retirement.

Doug Creek played some great jazz tunes on saxophone while guests enjoyed fruit, cheeses, brownies and punch. More than 50 people from statewide, UAF and the community came to the celebration.

The Transitions section is one of the most popular aspects of the Statewide Voice, allowing everyone an opportunity to meet new employees. However, we cannot publish information without your help. Please contact us with the name of any new employees or position changes in your department to see them listed in this section.