Alaska Dispatch

Fran Ulmer, chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage, laid out the school's recent achievements today in a talk before a Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Egan Center.

One fact that Ulmer is especially proud of is that 75 percent of last year's graduates studied in-demand fields like nursing, engineering, and education. Ulmer also said that there has been a 27 percent increase in the number of science students, and that the number of students graduating with basic nursing degrees went from 71 in 2000 to 187 in 2009.

Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan was in the crowd, and one of Ulmer's PowerPoint slides even showed the mayor back in his basketball days, showing off an effective-looking jump shot complete with Chuck Taylors and short-shorts.