Joan Haig was a former board member of OPAG, the nonprofit that publishes Senior Voice as well as a longtime UAA math professor. She retired in 2025 as professor emerita, a designation that indicates a career of exemplary teaching, scholarship and service.
Dr. Joan Haig, Ph.D., a former board vice president for the Older Persons Action Group, died July 7, 2026. She was 79.
Joan, a longtime professor of mathematics at the University of Alaska Anchorage, was deeply involved in her community, and her board service for OPAG, the nonprofit that publishes the Senior Voice, was just part of it.
While she was on the board, she was the treasurer before becoming vice president.
"When I think of Joan, I think the primary impression at work and with the faculty staff association was that she was inveterate optimist," said Mark Fitch," a longtime professor of mathematics at UAA who worked closely with Joan on the UAA Faculty & Staff Association, which serves the university legislative advocacy.
Joan joined the former Anchorage Community College in 1982 as dean of Developmental Studies/Learning Resources Department. She joined the Math Department at UAA when ACC and UAA merged in 1988. She retired in May 2025 as professor emerita, an honorary designation that indicates a career of exemplary teaching, scholarship and service. For over 40 years she dedicated herself to helping students achieve their education dreams. She was a master teacher.
In her first years at ACC she built the Learning Resources Center, into a safe place where students can come for tutoring, academic mentoring and other guidance, said Lee Little, Joan's husband of 43 years.
Lee said Joan loved helping students, particularly women who were terrified of math. "She made it understandable. That was the important thing."
She impressed her gastroenterologist when he found her grading calculus tests in her hospital bed. He told her, "Now here's someone I can really like."
Mark Fitch, her university colleague, said Joan united people. From her earliest days, she worked to bridge divides, first between colleagues at the former Anchorage Community College and University of Alaska Anchorage, and later when the math department was split between general-education classes and higher-level math and statistics classes. "She saw that in divisions, there was always the potential for strife," he said. "That was totally against her view of things."
James Haig, Joan's son, said she had a loving nature. "She connected with everyone she met. She loved the outdoors. That's where she loved to be when she wasn't teaching." The family traveled to Holland and Australia to see the Summer Olympics in 2000, among other destinations.
Joan Haig is survived by her husband, Lee Little; daughter, Jessica Haig; and son, James Haig.
A funeral Mass was Saturday, July 25 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church. A memorial reception was Sunday, July 26 at the UAA Fine Arts Building.
