After years of hosting annual gatherings in Anchorage of Fairbanks, Kawerak's Caleb Scholars Program is "indigenizing". With support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the program is headed to Utqiaġvik for 2025.
The Caleb Scholars Program supports Inuit students from coastal Arctic communities through scholarships and mentorship. But what makes the program unique is how it weaves in cultural conservation.
“Our steering committee is 100% Inuit. Our students are Inuit. And so that's a really important aspect that we make sure that our students are connected with native mentors,” the program’s Director, Denali Whiting, said.
The program is named after the late Caleb Pungowiyi, who was born in Savoonga and served as a leader and role model for preserving traditional indigenous lifestyles. He died from cancer at the age of 69 in 2011. Whiting said his vision for preserving the indigenous way of life guides the program to this day.
“We really work to advance that work and that legacy in that way,” Whiting said. “We started out as a scholarship program, but since there are so many different components of support, we now see ourselves as a fellowship program.”
Fellowship takes several forms in the Caleb Scholars program. It awards a small cohort of six to eight students up to $5,000 per semester while offering mentorship, funding for cultural projects, and opportunities to return home to practice subsistence activities or attend conferences. Both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible.
The program culminates each year in a conference, although COVID-19 sidelined in-person meetings for a while. For 2025, Whiting said the program plans to go-big with a meeting in Utqiagvik.
“We think it's really important for our students to be able to be back on the land,” Whiting said. “And we make an effort to feed them traditional foods, like soups and muktuk and things like that.”
Whiting said the conference places an emphasis on connecting with the outdoors and includes indigenous guest speakers as well as presentations by the students themselves. Whiting said grant from NOAA's Fisheries Indigenous Engagement Program pushes the 24-year-old program into new territory, which historically depended on foundation funding.
“This is our first federal grant,” Whiting said. “I was a little bit hesitant to apply, but it sounded like a really good fit, and a really good fit for our annual gathering.”
To date, the program has contributed over $600,000 to its 43 fellows and 35 additional special scholarship recipients. The most popular degree programs among Caleb Scholars are Rural Development, Biology, Alaska Native Studies, Elementary Education, and Marine Affairs.
The program has also received support from the Wilburforce Foundation, NoVo Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Tamalpais Trust, Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, and Alaska Venture Fund.
For students interested in applying to be a Caleb Scholar, the program has an annual deadline of July 15. Information can be found at kawerak.org.
