By Brooke King, Staff Writer
Back in 2007, Sheldon Jackson College, located in Sitka, Alaska, was shut down due to low enrollment and lack of funding. Since that time, John Peterson, science professor at Saint Leo since 2001, intends to take a group of students from Saint Leo to help volunteer and revitalize the once prestigious college.
Sheldon Jackson College is the oldest educational institution in Alaska and was founded over 150 years ago by a Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson. As a private religious college, it shares history similar to Saint Leo University. The only major difference is that several years ago Sheldon Jackson was suddenly, without any notice to students, faculty, and staff, shutdown. The continuation of this closure would be a mean to an end of a college and the closure of the other historical and environmental facilities that share the same campus as the college.
The campus itself, is located in Southeast Alaska in the Russian capital of Sitka. The college is home to the Sheldon Jackson Museum, the college’s library, chapel, a new swimming pool and gym, the science center and salmon hatchery, as well as several beautiful classroom buildings and dorms. These have been abandoned since its abrupt closure, with the exception of the museum and salmon hatchery that is operating now completely by student volunteers. Peterson has spent most of his life in Alaska and intends to bring a group of students from Saint Leo to help volunteer at the hatchery the summer of 2011.
With the knowledge of the college’s tragic closing, the governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, is asking on his Facebook page if there might be a college or university somewhere with similar values as Sheldon Jackson’s to partner with the state of Alaska to open the campus back up in Sitka, Alaska. Peterson suggests that he could see this as an opportunity for Saint Leo University to partner with Sheldon College and help it reopen as a university.
One advantage of this partnership would be to continue the close relationship Sheldon Jackson always had with the Alaska State Trooper Academy in Sitka by offering criminologist courses to the cadets at the academy. Sitka and Sheldon Jackson College is a magnet for students coming from the Alaskan villages and this relationship could continue at Saint Leo’s new Alaskan Center.
Most Alaskan Eskimo villages are almost 100 percent Catholic, many who wish to continue their deep Catholic faith at a college setting. Professor Peterson having firsthand account of this because he taught science in some of the most remote villages in Alaska before coming home to Saint Leo University. Furthermore, he feels that some of the good things that helped Saint Leo University grow, like the Center for Online Learning, would help bring back the college in Sitka and by offering classes to students online to the more than 400remote villages in Alaska. A relationship could form that would be a permanent one by the renaming of the college to Sheldon Jackson/Saint Leo University.
“In 2009, I led a SERVE trip to Alaska, during which we worked with the teen leader of St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Juneau (a Coast Guard member and a third year student of Saint Leo University’s Center for Online Learning). The SERVE trip turned out to be a huge public relations mission, as so many people in Alaska were very interested in Saint Leo University and what it has to offer. Everywhere we went, we were given the red carpet treatment,” said Peterson.
Though it is not certain as to whether Saint Leo University will get involved in the Sheldon Jackson College reopening effort, there is still a scientific trip planned for summer 2011 to Sitka, Alaska. Any questions and further information can be sought through Peterson at john.peterson@saintleo.edu.
