No TGIF Next Week
 

TGIF News will join UM students on Spring Break next week, March 26-30.

The e-mail newsletter will return Friday, April 6, with your weekly dose of UM news, events and sports.

Happy spring!

UM Calendar of Events 

 Lecture Examines Nation’s Education Crisis
 

Patrick Allitt, director of the Center for Teaching and Curriculum at Emory University in Atlanta, will give the next installment of the President’s Lecture Series at UM.

He will present “The Crisis of Education in America” at 8 p.m. Monday, April 9, in the University Theatre.

Earlier that day from 3:10 to 4:30 p.m., Allitt will give a seminar titled “The Joys and Sorrows of College Teaching” in Gallagher Business Building Room 123.

Both events, presented in conjunction with UM’s Center for Teaching Excellence, are free and open to the public.

Allitt’s lecture will explore questions about the nation’s contemporary educational system. He will talk about how some situations are not as bad as people have been led to believe and will discuss other issues that may not have been considered and could even be worse.

Allitt is the author of several books, including “I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom” and “Religion in America Since 1945: A History.”

President’s Lecture Series 

 COT Offers Lab Technician Courses
 

Western Montana is the state’s biotechnology and medical science corridor, and a number of companies and agencies in the region are seeking job applicants with basic laboratory skills and knowledge.

The UM College of Technology is responding to the need for qualified job applicants by offering two courses that provide certificates of completion for laboratory workers.

Laboratory Technician I, a two-credit course, will be offered this fall in Missoula and Hamilton. The 14- week evening course offers a Certificate of Completion that qualifies students for entry-level laboratory/manufacturing positions.

Tuition for the course is $275 for Montana residents and $705 for nonresidents. The course also requires an additional lab fee of $70. To register for the course, students must be admitted to COT.

Students who complete the fall course are eligible to take a second seven-week course in spring 2008 that qualifies them for laboratory assistant positions in research and in clinical and industrial production.

For more information call COT at 406-243-7812.

 

 Pioneer in American Indian Law To Speak At UM
 

Professor Rennard Strickland is the featured speaker at the 2007 Judge James R. Browning Distinguished Lecture in Law Thursday, April 5, at UM.

Strickland will present “The Book and the Bow: Native American Lawyers as Briefcase Warriors” at noon in the UM School of Law Castles Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.

A legal historian of Osage and Cherokee heritage, Strickland is considered a pioneer in introducing American Indian law into university curricula. He is Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at the University of Oregon.

He has written and edited more than 40 books and is frequently cited by courts and scholars for his work as revision editor-in-chief of “Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law,” the leading text in the field.

The lecture series is sponsored by the Montana Law Review to honor Browning, who was a member of the review’s first editorial board and later served as its editor-in-chief.

Montana Law Review 

 Accounting Standards Topic Of UM Lecture
 

James Leisenring, an expert on international accounting standards, will speak at UM Tuesday, April 10.

Leisenring is a member of the International Accounting Standards Board and is UM’s 2007 Byrnes Distinguished Speaker.

He will present “Convergence of Accounting Standards” from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building Room 123.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and Continuing Professional Education credits will be available for certified public accountants who attend the event.

The UM School of Business Administration’s Byrnes Distinguished Speaker series is made possible through the Donald and Carol Jean Byrnes Professorship created by Carol Jean Byrnes in memory of her husband, UM alumnus Donald Byrnes.

UM School of Business Administration 

 Just-Retired Prof Awarded Fulbright Grant
 

When Bill Knowles announced his retirement from teaching journalism at UM last year, he made it clear that though he was leaving the University, he was not done with journalism.

It didn’t take him long to move on to the next stage in his long and illustrious career in that field. Knowles recently was awarded a Fulbright Grant to teach journalism in Jordan for the 2007-08 academic year.

“I wanted to do some of the hands-on teaching we do here in broadcast journalism – the writing, interviewing, packaging for TV,” he said.

While Knowles has been awarded the grant, it’s still relatively early in the process, and he is negotiating with the Jordan Fulbright Director to determine the exact nature of his work while there. His proposal indicated a desire to lecture graduate students on the American media and possibly offer consultation to media outlets in addition to teaching the craft.

 

 Bill Introduced To Support Study Abroad
 

UM President George Dennison praised the introduction this month of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2007 -- legislation to establish a national study abroad fellowship program.

The bill, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., would create a national fellowship program aimed to increase the number of students studying abroad to 1 million per year.

The program would be administered by an independent entity and would provide key support for necessary modifications at institutions of higher education to allow all college students the opportunity to study abroad.

Dennison said, “In the increasingly interdependent global society, we must find ways to help students become competent, confident and comfortable as their careers lead them to work in different parts of the world. The experience of studying abroad provides the best possible preparation. The new foundation will open new doors by assisting the students to gain this experience. We strongly support the proposal.”

 

 Odyssey Of The Stars At UM April 14
 

Esther England and Margaret Johnson will be honored by former students, special guests and current UM students and faculty who will perform and celebrate their careers at the seventh annual “Odyssey of the Stars – A Celebration of Artistic Journeys.”

This year’s event, “Legends and Legacies: A Tribute to Two Grand Dames,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 14, in the University Theatre.

Tickets cost $25 for the general public and $12.50 for students and are available through GrizTix or by calling 406-243-4051 or 888-666-8262.

In 38 years of teaching voice and music at UM, England has shaped the talents of more than 1,500 students, including world-class opera singers. A Fulbright Scholar, England also is a former associate dean of the School of Fine Arts and UM professor emerita of music.

Johnson directed her first play more than 44 years ago, the same year she began teaching English and drama at Sentinel High School. Since then she has directed more than 190 productions and has had a lifelong impact on students she sees regularly to this day.

“Odyssey” is produced every year by the UM School of Fine Arts as a showcase event to benefit the school’s scholarship fund.

GrizTix 

 Professor Wins Spur Award
 

UM School of Journalism Professor Dennis Swibold has won the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America in the contemporary non-fiction category for his book “Copper Chorus: Mining, Politics and the Montana Press, 1889-1959.”

The Spur Awards are among the oldest and most prestigious in American literature. The winners are selected by a panel of judges and, according to the organization, “are given for works whose inspiration, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West.”

Swibold’s book about the Anaconda Company’s grip on the Montana press beat out 41 other books nominated in that category.

The award was announced at the March 19 Festival of the West in Phoenix. Swibold will be honored with other winners in June at the Western Writers of America convention in Springfield, Mo.

 

 COT Students To Present Brazilian Fare
 

The UM College of Technology will hold its annual Capstone Dinner Saturday, April 21.

This year’s multi-course dinner – prepared by the graduating class of COT’s Culinary Arts Program – features the cuisine and culture of coastal Brazil and highlights the celebration of Carnivale.

The event begins at 5 p.m. in the COT foyer, located at 909 South Ave. W. in Missoula. Tickets are $75 and may be purchased at The Source in the University Center or by calling 406-243-4636.

The fundraising event for the Culinary Student Education Fund includes entertainment and a raffle. Door prizes will be given away throughout the evening.

For more information call COT at 406-723-7815 or Chef Melinda Dorn at 406-243-7880.

 

 Law Student Receives National Award
 

UM law student Valerie Grubich of Great Falls has been selected to receive the 2007 Distinguished Bankruptcy Student Award for the 9th Circuit from the American College of Bankruptcy.

The awards are presented annually to the top law students in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 11th circuits. Grubich is the first Montana student to receive the award for the Ninth Circuit, which includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

She was nominated for the award by the Hon. Ralph Kirscher, chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Montana.

Grubich will travel to Washington, D.C., this month to represent the 9th Circuit at an awards reception to be held during the annual meeting of the American College of Bankruptcy.

 

 UM Researcher Finds Mercury In Area Osprey
 

With the largest Superfund site in the country in his proverbial backyard, UM Assistant Professor Heiko Langner knew he had a great laboratory for examining the aftereffects of mining on local raptor populations.

What he didn’t expect was the lack of poisons everyone was worrying about and the presence of a particularly dangerous one that no one was looking for: mercury.

Langner, along with Rob Domenech, director of local nonprofit Raptor View Research Institute, visited eight osprey nests from Deer Lodge to Missoula to band the birds for tracking and take blood samples to detect abnormal levels of common contaminants from mining operations.

The legacy left behind by the mines of Butte is one of devastation in the Clark Fork River, and the current cleanup project at the Milltown Dam has biologists and project engineers monitoring the five most prolific contaminants: arsenic, copper, zinc, lead and cadmium.

But what Langner found in the osprey wasn’t elevated levels of any of the main suspects, but high – very high – levels of mercury.

“Mercury really seems to be retained in the ecosystem,” Langner said. “And it is a big deal.”

Full News Release 

 Ex-UM Coach Krystkowiak Makes NBA Debut
 

Plenty can happen in a year, just ask former UM men’s basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak. Just 364 days after he led the Griz to an upset over the University of Nevada in the NCAA tournament, he guided the languishing Milwaukee Bucks to an improbable victory over the San Antonio Spurs in his debut as an NBA head coach.

“It’s basketball in its purist form,” Krystkowiak said of the NBA at a press conference the day after his first win. “College is a little different ball game. I am not the best recruiter. I would have struggled with that without a great assistant coaching staff.”

Krystkowiak was signed to a multi-year deal on March 14 to helm the franchise he once played for in an attempt to find a new direction in the midst of the Bucks’ miserable season. Krysko’s new team came out with renewed energy and promptly snapped the powerhouse Spurs’ 13-game winning streak his first night on the job.