Alaska Quarterly Review Editor Honored for Humanities Leadership

This is the first of three Door 15 profiles of University of Alaska scholars recognized for their distinguished service to the humanities at the 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts & Humanities, held October 21 in Fairbanks.

University of Alaska Anchorage Creative Writing and Literature professor Ronald Spatz is best known as the executive editor of the preeminent literary journal Alaska Quarterly Review. Yet during his acceptance speech at the 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts & Humanities, the founder and dean of the University Honors College made clear his passion for excellence in higher education as well.

“Alaska like the rest of the nation is now at a critical juncture,” he said. “We absolutely have to get it right on education. Alaska’s students must not only graduate, but they must be able to compete nationally and internationally if they... are going to help our nation maintain its leadership in the world.”

“Alaska is missing key funding for honors education, the undergraduate research and scholarship training students need to get to the next level. We have to be able to provide more access to excellence. We must find a way to fund opportunities for our next generation of leaders.”

Spatz, a 1973 graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, joined the UAA faculty in 1980 and assumed increasingly responsible roles as director of the university’s M.F.A. and B.A. Programs in Creative Writing and as department chair. Also, in 1980, Spatz and another new facuJty member, James Liszka (now UAA Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Philosophy), co-founded Alaska Quarterly Review, which has since become “one of the nation’s best literary magazines,” according to The Washington Post Book World.