Janice Gullickson Friend of Languages Award

Janice Gullickson Bio

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Janice began her Spanish teaching career in Minnesota, however, in 1974 she returned to her home state of Alaska and accepted a middle school teacher position at Iditarod K-8 school (Mat-Su District). The teaching assignment was English/Social Studies but she convinced the principal to begin a Spanish elective program. After three years Janice accepted a Spanish teacher position with ASD. Teaching at Bartlett HS alongside Jo Sanders (German) and Terry Higley (French) was rewarding. The foreign language department steadily boosted student enrollment and related extracurricular activities, to include a declamation contest. Soon the Bartlett team invited other district high schools to join Bartlett’s declamation competition, hence, the beginning of the districtwide ASD Declamation Contest. Janice was director of the Contest from 1985-89. The Contest again expanded to involve schools throughout the state. Janice was instrumental to the induction of the Statewide Declamation Contest into the Alaska State Activities Association.

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Janice took a leave of absence to be a stay-at-home mom but continued her involvement in the foreign language profession. She was an adjunct Spanish professor ACC/UAA and facilitator for the ASD Foreign Languages Curriculum Committee (1980-1990) She also worked with Nine Star Enterprises to provide ESL training to several rural communities. As an active member of AFLA Janice worked with Mike Travis at the state department who sponsored her to attend the national Advocates for Language Learning Conference in Washington DC. It was at this conference that Janice learned about the language immersion concept in elementary schools.

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Janice Gullickson was the first Anchorage School District Coordinator of World Languages (1991-2013). She pioneered K-12 foreign language and bilingual immersion programs in Anchorage, including the first Russian immersion program in the U.S. As Curriculum Coordinator she worked in the development of numerous national competitive grants for programs of less commonly taught languages and Spanish. Janice was the director for six FLAP (Foreign Language Assistance Program) grants and three bilingual education grants, including a total school restructuring grant for Government Hill Elementary.

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In 1995 Janice was the recipient of the Alaska Association for Bilingual Education “Administrative Support Award” and in 2000 she was awarded the first AFLA Distinguished Educator Award for Lifetime Achievement. Janice received the Pacific Northwest Council of Foreign Languages award for “Outstanding Contribution to the Teaching of World Languages in the Pacific Northwest” in 2003. She was recognized for her work to begin the first and to date, only two-way immersion program in Alaska (Two-Way Spanish at Government Hill EL) when she was awarded the national Two-Way CABE “Promoting Bilingualism Award” in 2012.

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Janice has over 40 years of teaching Spanish and administration at K-12 and post-secondary levels during which time she developed and delivered courses on second language acquisition, methodologies, and curriculum. To increase the numbers of eligible teachers of languages in Alaska, Janice and colleague, Laurel Derksen, designed and instructed the UAA Methods course “Instructional Strategies in the Second Language Classroom” (1989-2008). To support ongoing professional development for immersion teachers Janice established the annual summer Alaska Language Immersion Institute 1992 and served as its director until her retirement in 2013.