Top-of-the- World University

He had just finished a term as an Alaskan federal judge, and was cleaning out his chambers, when somebody came along with a consolation prize. How would he like to start a college in Alaska and become its president? Pennsylvania-born, Bucknell-educated Charles Ernest Bunnell thought he might, on one condition: whenever he decided that the college could get along without him, he would quit and return to the law.

That was 25 years ago. Last week, at 69, Bunnell, onetime farmer, hotel proprietor, bank manager, lawyer and politician, was still on the job as president of the University of Alaska, and showing no signs of quitting.

30-Below Schooldays. From a campus window near Fairbanks last week, 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, shirt-sleeved President Bunnell watched his 335 students trudge to their classes in knee-deep snow and 30-below temperatures. They were so used to the view that only a few paused to look off at 20,300-ft. Mt. McKinley, in the distance, copper-red in the glare of a dead-of-winter sun. Skis stuck in the snow made picket fences around the dorms.

Despite the record enrollment, classes at America's "farthest-north university" were still small, rarely more than 20. President Bunnell wanted it that way: he thought students ought to know each other and their professors well. As in past years, there were a good many sourdough scholars, older than the average undergrads in the States; they had gone to the university for its courses in agriculture, mining and engineering. But this year there were also 215 ex-G.I.s and former WACs who had traveled thousands of miles, some because they liked Alaska, others because they couldn't squeeze into the overcrowded colleges back home.

Many an ordinary Alaskan had reason to be grateful to the University. More than 5,000 had taken its five-week courses in mining, taught by roving staff members to would-be prospectors.

Sparks & Spaghetti. Archeologists had rounded up 75,000 specimens of Eskimo handiwork for the university, pieced together exhibits of prehistoric monsters. Campus scientists had collected important data for the Government on magnetism and the upper atmosphere, incidentally scotched an old sourdough's tale that the flashing northern lights set off sparks in their whiskers.

To keep the university going and growing since 1921, President Bunnell has made regular campaigns on the floor of the Territorial Legislature in Juneau. Last week he had a more urgent plea. West Coast shipping strikes had cut off supplies, reduced the university cooks to a bill of fare of soup, spaghetti, and milk from the experimental dairy. Warned President Bunnell: unless the university got quick relief, its students would be "freezing and starving."

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