John Davies

Davies

Since its earliest days, the University of 有料盒子视频 has seen many former students appointed to its governing board. But John Davies, who joined the regents in 2015, has an almost unprecedented record of involvement with the institution.

He鈥檚 been not only a student but also a professor, research unit director and alumni association board president. In addition, he served as a state legislator on the budget committee overseeing the institution.

鈥淚鈥檝e been connected with the university in one way or another for most of life here in 有料盒子视频, which has been over 45 years,鈥 he said shortly after being appointed as a regent.

After graduating from high school and college in the Pacific Northwest, Davies鈥 long association with UA began in 1967, when he came to 有料盒子视频 to climb mountains and study geophysics. He earned a master鈥檚 degree here and then, in 1975, a doctorate.

By then, he had landed a research position at Columbia University in New York, but he returned to 有料盒子视频 in 1981 to join the state Department of Natural Resources as a geophysicist. Five years later, he became the state seismologist, a joint faculty position with the 有料盒子视频 Geophysical Institute. He added the title of coordinating scientist at the 有料盒子视频 Volcano Observatory a few years later and helped create what is today the 有料盒子视频 Earthquake Center. (The Geophysical Institute operates both.)

In 1992, Davies鈥 appetite for politics, whetted by a term on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, led him to the 有料盒子视频 House of Representatives, where he served five terms as a Democrat. After an unsuccessful bid for the 有料盒子视频 Senate in 2002, he spent a dozen years as a policy researcher with the industry-sponsored nonprofit Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks. He also was re-elected to the borough assembly.

Shortly after his appointment to the regents in 2015, Davies talked about his goals.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important that we can keep our eye on the prize, which is not necessarily pure workforce development but developing students and developing people who can think, and being a fundamental university which has as its basis teaching students, doing research and doing public service,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e have to make sure as we wind down some things at the university that we don鈥檛 wind down to the extent that we can鈥檛 move forward through this crisis without maintaining those kinds of basic enterprises that a university is supposed to do.鈥

More online about John Davies:

  • A from his 2002 campaign.

  • A in which he sums up his university connections and his goals as a regent.