Clinic Profile: University of Alaska Anchorage
Suzanne Womack Strisik, Ph.D.
The Psychological Services Center (PSC) is like Alaska in the sense that a lot of territory is essentially covered by a handful of people. In Alaska, the proverbial chief, cook, and bottle washer is at the helm of many systems. Beginning my job as Director of the PSC and a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Psychology in 2000 was very energizing and challenging. I had recently graduated from Georgia State University and was ready to jump into being a psychologist and teacher, even though I felt a little out of my league as a clinic director. During a rough week when I can't seem to keep up with the "chief" duties, it's nice to know I can do something simple and not too grueling in the bottle-washer category, like emptying a waste-basket.
Over the six years that I've been at UAA in the Department of Psychology, I've worked with an administrative secretary who has 50% of her workload assignment in the center and acts as receptionist, answering the telephone, compiling reports of client attendance and payment activity, and reconciling our annual budget. That is of enormous help to me. I also select a graduate student once a year to be a teaching assistant in the fall and spring semesters who performs small office tasks, audits client files, manages our client wait list, and keeps the equipment running. I have an unusual workload: 75% (30 hours per week) for 12 months rather than 100% for nine months. I have to work to keep my weekly hours down to 30, and I don't get summers off. The PSC directorship counts as service, and I don't have research in my workload, which feels a little disjointed. I'll be going up for tenure this year, and we'll see how others evaluate my strange workload.
Our challenges in the PSC are finding good referral sources, being relevant and helpful to culturally complex clients, integrating research activities into daily operations, and keeping our center and its equipment from falling apart. Our clients are students who want long-term therapy. The Health and Counseling Center on campus offers brief therapy and medication management. People in the Anchorage area who have fallen through the cracks of the system are referred to us: those who don't have a large disposable income or health insurance or who don't qualify for services (e.g., don't have Medicaid) at our terribly overburdened community mental health agency. We offer individual therapy and some limited child, family, and couple therapyÑall on a sliding scale.
A joyful challenge for us in Fall, 2006 is training two new classes of doctoral studentsÑboth a regular and an advanced cohort. The psychology departments at UAA and UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks) have completed an intensive six-year process of developing a joint doctoral program in clinical psychology with a rural indigenous emphasis; we'll be seeking APA approval. We have some state-of-the-art distance learning technology that is so realistic, it's hard to believe the person sitting at the end of the table is actually 400 miles away in Fairbanks. This technology will help us in teaching classes across campuses and is one of the many things I love about Alaska: the unique circumpolar environment has a rural, indigenous context with such potential for innovative research and learning. I feel fortunate to be working with giftedÑand funÑfaculty who appreciate and respond to Alaska Native cultures and histories and our isolated, beautiful spaces. There are about 20 full-time professors in the Department of Psychology, about 15 of whom are tenure-track. We tend to have a heck of a time recruiting full-time faculty, but once they are here, they stay and do some great research in a wide range of topics that ultimately connect to our cultural and rural interests.
My undergraduate degree is from University of Alaska Fairbanks in Applied Linguistics of Alaska Native Languages, which makes me aware of the very rich and tragic history of Alaska Natives. There are over 20 different Alaska Native languages and cultures in Alaska; Athabascan is the proto-language for many of these, but there are others, such as the Tlingit, Inupiaq, and Yup'ik languages that have no connection to proto-Athabascan and are vibrant and alive. I work to understand my own part in Alaska Native history and integrate it into my identity as a teacher and psychotherapist. My mother's family arrived here in the 1930's and participated in the dismantling as much as the empowering of Alaska Native cultures by promoting dominant cultural values at the expense of Alaska Native knowledge but also working to develop the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).
I feel very appreciative of ADPTC, which has given me eased my isolation, given me a sense of excellence, and connected me to the strange world of training clinic operations and policy development.
