Joseph Hickman, Director
Phone: (406) 243-4202
E-mail: joseph.hickman@umontana.edu
Joe's Study Tip: Always go to class and participate in class discussions and activities. When final grades are due, professors are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to students who were active in the class. I know that more than once I received and ‘A’ in a class when I really deserved a ‘B’ simply because the professor knew me by name and recognized that I was actively engaged in every class session.
I was a TRiO-eligible student who grew up in western Montana but only recently returned to the state to work at The University of Montana. I graduated high school in Deer Lodge, but left to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks where I majored in Biological Sciences with a minor in Spanish. I also received my Master’s degree from UAF in Anthropology, specifically in the field of Ethnobotany.
I discovered the TRiO programs while in graduate school when I began teaching Marine Science, Wildlife Biology and Spanish for the Upward Bound Math/Science program at UAF. After five summers working for them and spending the academic year working as a Spanish teacher at a grade school in Fairbanks, I decided a career in TRiO was for me.
I left Alaska in 2003 to work for the TRiO – Student Support Services program at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa as an instructor and later as Assistant Director of the SSS program. In 2006 I returned to Alaska to take a position as Director of the TRiO – Student Support Services program at UAF, where I worked until 2011.
Then in 2011, my wife, son and I had the opportunity to move to Missoula when I was offered the position as Director of TRiO – Student Support Services and TRiO - Upward Bound at UM. After being away from Montana for so many years it is great to be back home and to have the opportunity to work with so many promising students who come from a similar background as myself.
