Native American Center earns LEED Platinum status

The Payne Family Native American Center at UM has received LEED Platinum status, the highest level of certification awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council for achieving sustainable building standards.

The center is the first building on campus to achieve LEED Platinum certification, and a certification ceremony is tentatively scheduled for November.

The center needed to tally 52 out of a possible 69 points to earn Platinum status, and it scored 54. The building scored a perfect 10 in the optimum energy performance category, indicating energy savings of 42 percent over that of a standard building.

Green features of the Native American Center that helped it reach the Platinum level include its east-facing, canted roof with a central oculus and slotted skylight, which provide natural light to the majority of the building; high-efficiency fixtures such as low-flow faucets, showers and toilets; a groundwater-based cooling system; and high-efficiency air filters that minimize dust.

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MUS receives $20 million science, engineering grant

Gov. Brian Schweitzer announced recently that the Montana University System has received a $20 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to strengthen the state's science and engineering workforce with a program that will reach into campuses and communities across the state. 

The grant will allow the hiring of at least 12 new science and engineering faculty members across the state. The grant will support undergraduate and graduate student research. It will set up a math mentoring system where Native American students in tribal colleges will help students in tribal high schools make the transition to higher education.

It will involve interactions with Montana businesses, especially resource-based companies that may have special needs or interests. It also will involve social scientists who will examine issues, especially as they relate to science and engineering. Education and outreach will be an important component of the grant.

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Input needed at two-year education listening sessions

Faculty, staff, administrators and students are encouraged to attend listening and input sessions on two-year education on campus Thursday, Oct. 13. 

Sessions at UM will be offered from 9 to 10:15 a.m. in University Center Room 326 and from 5 to 6:15 p.m. in Room HB11 on the College of Technology East Campus.

The role of two-year education, the comprehensiveness of two-year units and the branding of two-year education in Montana will be discussed. Refreshments will be served, and sessions are free and open to the public.

The Montana Board of Regents is pressing forward with expansion of two-year educational opportunities to ensure affordability and access for Montanans and stimulate the development of a workforce for the 21st century.

More information on the session is available online.

UM officials visit area tribal colleges

In an ongoing effort to strengthen ties with the state's tribal colleges, UM officials visited Blackfeet Community College in Browning and Stone Child College in Box Elder Oct. 5-6.

The UM delegation included Royce C. Engstrom, UM president; Jim Foley, UM vice president; Richard Storey, UM Western chancellor; Daniel Bingham, UM-Helena College of Technology dean/CEO; Amy Verlanic, Montana Tech of UM technical outreach director; and Fredricka Hunter, UM American Indian Student Services director.

Engstrom has made it a priority of his administration to increase connections between UM and Montana's tribal colleges. On Sept. 15 UM hosted a meeting of tribal officials in Missoula at The Payne Family Native American Center in an effort to get acquainted and increase research and economic development opportunities.

Deans' panel slated for Family Weekend at UM

UM will host a deans' panel from 4 to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 14, in the University Center Theater as part of Family Weekend 2011, which takes place Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14-15. 

The panel, which is free and open to the entire campus community, will provide an insider's view into academic life at the University for students and their families. Faculty and staff also are encouraged to attend.

After the panel, the deans will invite participants back to their respective buildings for various "college session" experiences, such as lectures on timely and interesting topics and behind-the-scenes tours.

A complete Family Weekend schedule is available online.

UM offers new graduate program in systems ecology

UM has launched a new master's and doctoral degree program in systems ecology. The state Board of Regents unanimously approved the new degree offerings during its September meeting.

Systems ecology studies ecological science on large-landscape and regional scales. The discipline also looks at human-mediated landscape transformations, as well as environmental and cultural systems.

Professor Ric Hauer with UM's Flathead Lake Biological Station played a lead role in creating the new Systems Ecology Graduate Program, which will be offered by both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Forestry and Conservation. It will be administered by the Division of Biological Sciences.

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Big Sky Brain Project receives $1.3 million boost

The Big Sky Brain Project, a collaboration between UM's Center for Structural and Functional Neuroscience and spectrUM Discovery Area, recently received a five-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The grant, awarded by the NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse, will fund a neuroscience learning center called the Brainzone that will feature four hands-on exhibits, a computer lab and a working laboratory aimed at increasing science literacy and interest among K-12 students.

UM will work with the Exploratorium in San Francisco to develop the Brainzone, which will be housed in a future spectrUM location off campus set to open in the fall of 2013. The Brainzone also will be incorporated into spectrUM's mobile science center that travels to schools across Montana, including many in rural and tribal regions.

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Funding will address child abuse in Indian Country

The federal Administration for Children and Families recently announced that the National Native Children's Trauma Center at UM and its partners have won a $3.2 million grant to apply cutting-edge research to the problems of child abuse and neglect in Indian Country. The award is one of five such grants in the nation.

The work will benefit at least three reservations in Montana during the next three years, bring pilot programs to three more reservations elsewhere in the nation and ultimately serve as a model for similar work throughout Indian Country.

The center at UM has been a pivotal player in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network for eight years, helping compile evidence directed at the effects of abuse and neglect on children. Until now, the center's work has been concentrated in schools, delivering evidence-based interventions for problems rooted in trauma such as alcohol and drug abuse, delinquency and teen suicide. The new grant, however, will allow that focus to expand by moving beyond schools to involve child and protective service workers, parents, extended families and foster parents.

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College receives $1.1 million for biomass study

Three UM College of Forestry and Conservation professors were awarded a $1.1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant as part of a research team investigating how to turn forest biomass into an alternative energy feedstock.

The project, part of the U.S. Forest Service's Biomass Research and Development Initiative, involves four universities, four Forest Service units and six private companies. UM forestry faculty members Woodam Chung, Christopher Keyes and Tyron Venn each will work on a component of the project over the next four years.

"This research will really help energy providers and the public make important decisions about how and where to efficiently use biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels," Keyes said.

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Foreign correspondent to deliver Pollner lecture

Karen Coates, a freelance journalist who spent more than a dozen years reporting from Southeast Asia, will deliver UM's T. Anthony Pollner Lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, in the University Center Theater.

Coates, the 2011 Pollner Distinguished Professor in UM's School of Journalism, will present "This Way More Better: Finding Inspiration in this Messy New World of Journalism." Coates and her husband, photojournalist Jeremy Redfern, have reported stories from across Asia, focusing on food, the environment, health and social issues.

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UM to host speakers forum on sustainability

UM's Office for Civic Engagement will co-sponsor four guest speakers who will share their experiences in creating a sustainable world during the International Speakers Forum from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, in University Center Rooms 326-327. The event is free and open to the public.

Speakers include Annika Dopping, an environmental journalist, filmmaker and author in Sweden; Lars Larsson, an engineer, inventor and researcher in sustainable traditions; Kelly Franklin, founder of Sustainable Smiles; and Mike Robertson, community organizer.

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