Éedaa Heather Burge joins UAS as coordinator for language immersion program and Tlingit language instructor

“I am incredibly excited to be back home in Juneau, and to help support our Haida, Tsimshian and Tlingit scholars in my capacity as project coordinator, as well as an adjunct faculty member”

Juneau, Alaska

Date of Press Release: July 17, 2020

The University of Alaska Southeast (UAS) is proud to announce the hire of Éedaa Heather Burge as the project coordinator for the “Haa Yoo X’atángi Deiyí: Our Language Pathway” project, a three-year grant focused on language immersion in collaboration with Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI).

“I am incredibly excited to be back home in Juneau, and to help support our Haida, Tsimshian and Tlingit scholars in my capacity as project coordinator, as well as an adjunct faculty member,” notes Burge, “While I rejoined the UAS community in a time of extreme stress and uncertainty about the future, I couldn't be more grateful to support this university and our Southeast Alaska community for as long as Iʼm able. As a student of UAS I was incredibly supported, inspired, and given the opportunity to grow as a scholar, and I can only hope that Iʼm able to continue that tradition in my current role.”

Burge graduated from UAS in 2015 with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Alaska Native Languages and Studies. She earned a Master of Arts in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, focused on researching the way Lingít expresses the future. She is currently working on a Ph.D. in linguistic anthropology also through UBC, with an emphasis on language revitalization and best collaborative practices between language communities and academic communities. She is a member of the Linguistic Society of America, the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, the American Indigenous Research Association, and the Canadian Anthropology Society.

“We are pleased to have Heather both coordinating and teaching in this important Alaska Native Language Pathway program,” Dean of Arts and Sciences Tom Thornton said. “Along with our Box of Treasures program in Northwest Coast Art, this program in Alaska Native language education and certification, in partnership with SHI, seeks to provide training, scholarships, and credentials for those pursuing competency in Indigenous language and art within the broader curricula of the UAS School of Arts and Sciences and UA College of Education.”

Learn more about Alaska Native Languages & Studies at UAS by visiting the University of Alaska Southeast Areas of Study page or by speaking to an advisor at 907-796-6100.