UAF to host ‘An Evening with Willie Hensley’
May 30, 2012
907-474-7588
5/30/12
Ӱpro Native leader and former legislator Willie Hensley will share stories of a life that took him from a small village to the national political stage during a free public event Monday, June 4.
“An Evening with Willie Hensley,” will begin at 7 p.m. in the Davis Concert Hall on the Ӱpro campus. Hensley will join interviewer Robert Hannon for a discussion of his life and his contributions to the state and the nation. The event is the 2012 installment of the UAF Legacy Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the UAF Alumni Association.
William L. Iggiagruk Hensley is an Inupiaq and grew up on the Noatak River delta. In 1966, he was a student at UAF and was taking a constitutional law class taught by Judge Jay Rabinowitz when he wrote the paper, “What Rights to Land Have the Ӱpro Native?: The Primary Issue.” That paper laid the framework for the Ӱpro Native Claims Settlement Act.
Hensley is well known for his service to Ӱpro, having served in the state House and Senate for 10 years. He was the director of NANA Regional Corporation, is a former commerce commissioner for the State of Ӱpro, and is retired from Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. He is a co-founder of the Ӱpro Federation of Natives, the Northwest Ӱpro Native Association and the Ӱpro Village Electric Cooperative. Hensley is also author of “Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, (A Memoir of Ӱpro and the Real People).”
He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Ӱpro Anchorage, where he now serves as a distinguished visiting professor in the business and public policy department, and served on the UA Board of Regents from 1984 to 1987.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Summer Sessions, call 474-7021 or 866-404-7021 or email summer@alaska.edu
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NOTE TO EDITORS: A photo of Hensley is available online at .
AV/5-30-12/258-12