UAF photo by Sarah Manriquez.
John and Jane Aspnes pose with their smooth-coated collies, from left, Piper, Skye and Moqui, at the Georgeson Botanical Garden at UAF in 2017. The dogs were the last three of the seven they trained and handled while members of PAWS Search and Rescue in ������Ƶ for 32 years.

By Sam Bishop

When former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell urged new graduates recently to protect American higher education, the message resonated with two UAF emeritus professors. Within a year, they had funded two new professorships at the University of Alaska ������Ƶ.

Jane and John Aspnes said they were struck by Powell’s speech at Princeton University in May 2025.

“Our great universities are the envy of the world and a crucial national asset,” Powell told graduates at his alma mater. “Look around you. I urge you to take none of this for granted. When you look back in 50 years, you will want to know that you have done whatever it takes to preserve and strengthen our democracy.”

Years before Powell’s remarks, the Aspneses had already established scholarships at UAF and included the institution in their wills. But they were pondering other ways to help the university when they learned of Powell’s comments on the value of universities.

“That really made us feel good about what we were thinking,” Jane Aspnes recalled in a phone interview from their home in Bellingham, Washington.

What they were thinking has now become reality. Early this year, they launched a five-year plan to endow two professorships at UAF, one in music and the other in electrical and computer engineering. In August, they accelerated their contributions and transferred about half of the $500,000 needed for each endowed position.

“Watching the universities get clobbered in the last couple of years, it was just ‘How can we help things now?’” Jane said.

Repaying Alaska

The Aspneses, who moved to Bellingham in 2022, said they hope the professorships will strengthen the university during uncertain times. They both feel a debt to a place that gave them so much.

“The money and the retirement that we built up, in a sense, should go back to Alaska primarily, because it was Alaska money that built our world where we are now,” Jane said.

Before Alaska, the couple both attended the University of Wisconsin as graduate students — he in electrical engineering and she in music performance. Both musicians, they met while waiting for Gordon Wright to open his music store one morning in Madison.

Wright became conductor of the ������Ƶ Symphony Orchestra and a music faculty member at UAF in 1969. Nine years later, the Aspneses also arrived at UAF, after working at universities, earning more advanced degrees and playing music on the East Coast and in New England.

In ������Ƶ, John joined the Department of Electrical Engineering faculty. Jane became executive director of the symphony orchestra and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Music. They both played in the orchestra.

“I always felt very well supported from the very beginning in my time in ������Ƶ,” John said. “And I’m not saying just financially supported, but supported in other, maybe less tangible, ways. I guess we both felt really welcome, both in the community and in the university.”

In the community, they and their dogs spent more than 30 years aiding search and rescue efforts. 

“The search and rescue was a very important part of our life, because it was a way to give back to the community and an interesting way to do it, too,” John said.

They finally bowed out of the activity after deciding “we were getting too old to keep jumping out of helicopters,” John said.

“Alaska search and rescue is really different than the rest of the world,” Jane said, “because you can’t drive to all these places, and they can’t land just everywhere.”

In retirement, the Aspneses continue to perform with local music ensembles in Bellingham, as well as in communities closer to Seattle. They also remain involved in outdoor activities and environmental advocacy efforts.

Making a difference

Retirement also provoked some thought about their income and where it was going. IRS rules for tax-deferred retirement savings, such as individual retirement accounts, require account owners over 73 years old to withdraw a minimum distribution annually. However, these withdrawals are taxed as income. Similarly, increases in the value of stocks and other assets are taxed as capital gains.

But the Aspneses agree that the federal government is not their favorite charity. They haven’t been pleased with recent trends in federal spending.

“I just reached a point where I didn’t want our required minimum distribution tax money going to the government,” Jane said. “We have such a deficit, and money’s getting wasted rather than trying to solve the deficit. And so we thought, ‘Well, we should help the universities.’”

UAF was at the top of their list, and the time seemed right. They made tax-free gifts from their required distributions and avoided future capital gains taxes by donating stocks that had increased in value. Those actions maximized the tax benefits of their philanthropy.

“We’re in a position to help the university and hope it’ll make a difference and help both [departments] prosper and be able to survive any sort of turmoil that comes down the road,” John said.

A funding source like an endowment is a powerful magnet to secure programs and positions during challenging times, Jane noted.

Inspiring others

At John’s alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, many of the engineering faculty positions are named professorships backed by endowments, he noted.

“UAF has not got a lot of professorship support,” he said. “It’s sort of young at that, and we just thought maybe it would help get things going more in this direction.”

An endowed professorship could help attract and keep faculty, he said.

“If a person is offered an endowed professorship, I believe it encourages a positive response and adds prestige to that particular position,” he said.

The Aspneses hope their actions will encourage others to assist the university in a similar fashion.

“I think it helps to create examples,” John said. “And that’s not just in this specific instance, but if people see an example, it might get the mental gears turning and say, ‘Oh, gee, I might be able to do something like that.’”

Sam Bishop is a writer and editor with UAF Advancement.