UM's Easter Eggstravaganza Is Saturday
 

On your mark, get set -- the seventh-annual Missoula Easter Eggstravaganza will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 7, on the UM Oval.

This year’s Easter egg hunt will be bigger and better than ever with more than 20,000 prize eggs and 25,000 pieces of candy for local youngsters.

The Easter Bunny and Monte will make special appearances during the region’s largest egg hunt. The event takes place in the heart of campus, where children scour nearly four acres of lawn for age-appropriate candy and prizes.

Free and open to the public, the hunt features separate sections for the following age groups: 0-2, 3, 4-5, 6-7 and 8-9 years old. Parents are allowed to help infants and toddlers collecting goodies in the 0-2 section only. Kids who find maroon, silver and gold eggs will be rewarded with top prizes.

Adults also will have the opportunity to win prizes through special drawings held from noon to 1 p.m.

 

 UM Named To National Honor Roll
 

UM has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. The distinction honors students, faculty and staff for helping to build a culture of service and civic engagement.

In being named to the honor roll, UM was recognized by President George Bush “for extraordinary and exemplary contributions to meeting critical local and national needs through community service and service-learning.”

“The University of Montana has earned this listing because of the dedication of the faculty, staff and students to community and national service,” said UM President George Dennison. “I believe we have every reason to take pride in this accomplishment.”

The honor roll is a project of the Corporation for National and Community Service, whose mission is to improve lives, strengthen communities and advance civic engagement through service and volunteering.

 

 Law Week Addresses Indian Legal Education
 

The fourth annual UM Native American Law Students Association Indian Law Week will address the issue of Indian Legal Education for All in a series of events Monday, April 9, through Friday, April 12.

The week is part of the Margery Hunter Brown Project. Established in Brown’s memory, this student assistantship encourages and supports law students pursuing a more focused examination of issues relating to Indian law, public lands and natural resources.

The events will include a book signing, teaching demonstrations and panel discussion.

The goal of Indian Law Week is to provide a basis for the UM law school to begin teaching federal Indian law in important areas of basic legal education, in anticipation of the addition of Indian law to the Montana Bar examination.

Teaching demonstrations during the week will operate like regular class periods, with student and practitioner attendees preparing two or three cases for discussion. The demonstrations will be led by esteemed Indian law specialists in areas of required legal study.

For a complete schedule and more information, read the news release.

News release 

 Semitool CEO To Speak At UM
 

Raymon Thompson, founder and CEO of Semitool Inc., will give the 2007 Harold and Priscilla Gilkey Executive Lecture on Wednesday, April 18, at UM.

Thompson will speak at 5:30 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building Room 106. The event is free and open to the public.

Semitool, a Nasdaq company headquartered in Kalispell, was founded by Thompson in 1979. Since then the company, a leading designer and manufacturer of semiconductor equipment, has contributed more than $2.1 billion to the economy of Northwest Montana. Semitool employs more than 1,300 people worldwide, and company revenues were more than $240 million in fiscal year 2006.

Thompson received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from West Coast University in Orange, Calif., and was awarded an honorary doctorate in business administration from UM in 2003.

The Harold and Priscilla Gilkey Executive Lecture Series was established in 2004 by the Gilkeys, both 1962 UM graduates, to enrich business education at the University.

 

 Help Determine How Climate Affects Plants
 

Is spring coming earlier? When are plants leafing out and blooming around Montana? This spring, the public can help answer these and other questions through a new national science project.

Project BudBurst is designed to document when plants leaf and bloom in North America. During the campaign, scientists are asking people throughout Montana and beyond to take walks in nature to gather data for the nationwide research project to study the effects of climate change on native plants.

UM biology Professor Carol Brewer leads the project in conjunction with a group from universities, botanical gardens and research institutes around the country.

“We need data over many years to sort out the influence of year-to-year variation from the influence of a warming earth,” Brewer said. “That’s why programs like Project BudBurst are so important.”

The first step to become involved is to log on to the project Web site to get a list of species. The Web site has specific information about how to document observations, as well as clear descriptions and photos that make it easy to identify the targeted plants.

Project BudBurst 

 Running To Speak At Friends Of Library Event
 

UM ecology Professor Steve Running will be the featured speaker at the 44th annual Friends of the Mansfield Library Banquet.

The banquet will begin at 6 p.m., Wednesday, April 18, in the University Center Ballroom.

Running is the winner of the 2007 Lud Browman Award for science writing. He is the director of the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group at UM and author of several studies on global warming and climate modeling.

The cost for reserved tickets purchased before April 9 is $30 and $250 for a table of 10. Tickets purchased after April 9 or at the door are $35. For information, visit the Web site.

Friends of the Library 

 Missoula COT Plans Advising Night
 

All newly admitted students at the UM College of Technology in Missoula must attend an advising session before registering for classes.

One way to do this is by attending Early Schedule Advising Night from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 11, at the COT Administration Building located at 909 South Ave. W.

Early advising is available only to new students admitted for fall semester 2007. During the session students will meet with an adviser, create a class schedule and register for fall semester classes using Cyberbear, UM’s online site for conducting business on the Web.

Early advising will be available for all College of Technology programs. To R.S.V.P. or for more information about Early Schedule Advising Night, students may call the COT Admissions Office at 406-243-7882 or 800-542-6882.

Students unable to attend Early Schedule Advising Night can make individual advising appointments with their program advisers or meet with their advisers at Orientation, which will be held June 14, July 12 and Aug. 23.

 

 Journalism Professor Wins Nonfiction Prize
 

Michael Downs, a UM visiting assistant professor in the School of Journalism, recently won the 2006 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize for his first book, “House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City.”

Buzz Bissinger, author of “Friday Night Lights,” said “‘House of Good Hope’ is just a beautiful book, filled with the poignant bittersweet of hope and loss ... The subjects are agonizing, but they shine with the poetic clarity of Downs’ prose.”

"House of Good Hope" follows the story of a promise made by five athletes in Hartford, Conn., who met while playing on their high school football team. The five men, all gifted in their own ways, pledged to each other that they would one day return to the hometown that made them who they were and make it a better place to live.

A former reporter for the Hartford Courant, Downs also writes about making peace with his own decision to leave his hometown of Hartford. He met the five athletes and witnessed their pledge while he reported on high school sports for the paper.

Downs will read selections from his book at Missoula’s Shakespeare and Company at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 10.

Michael Downs 

 Broadcast Student Wins Hearst Award
 

Another UM broadcast journalism student has placed in the Hearst Award Program, commonly known as the college Pulitzers.

K’Lynn Sloan, a senior from Havre, took home 11th place in the radio news category of the competition.

Sloan’s award helped land UM’s School of Journalism the ninth-place spot among all schools in the Intercollegiate Broadcast News Competition, which compiles points from the news and features categories in radio and television.

Last fall UM students Melanie Overcast and Amanda Harris won first place and 17th place respectively in the radio features competition. Overcast’s win will send her on to a second “live” round of judging, where she will go to San Francisco and be sent out on an assignment.

 

 Students Exhibit Artwork At Campus Galleries
 

Seniors pursuing bachelor’s degrees in fine arts are exhibiting their work during April at UM’s Gallery of Visual Arts and at the University Center Art Gallery.

The exhibitions, second in a series of two featuring UM artists, offer a diverse array of media and content, including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and ceramic art.

BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition II will be in the Gallery of Visual Arts through April 19. The gallery is located on the first floor of UM’s Social Science Building.

University Center Art Gallery BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition II also runs through April 19. The gallery is located on the second floor of the University Center.

Admission to the galleries is free and open to the public.

 

 Grizzly Track Sweeps Duals at Invitational
 

With 18 Big Sky Conference qualifiers and 13 individual champions, the Grizzly track and field teams swept their four duals at Saturday's Al Manuel Meet in Missoula.

The meet was the Grizzlies' first of the 2007 outdoor season. In duals with Montana State and Eastern Washington, the UM men outscored the Bobcats 120-76 and the Eagles 98-96. The Montana women posted a 110-81 victory over Montana State and a 105-86 win over Eastern Washington.

Highlighting the Montana women's Big Sky qualifiers was junior Loni Perkins-Judisch, who not only qualified in the 200 and 400 meters, but also won both events. Perkins-Judisch had a winning time of 24.62 in the 200 meters and 55.41 in the 400 meters.

For the Griz men, sophomore Ryan Grinnell won two events with Big Sky-qualifying performances. Grinnell, who won the high jump and triple jump at the 2007 Big Sky Conference Indoor Championships, won and qualified in those events Saturday, going 6-8 in the high jump and 48-2 in the triple jump.

Montana Grizzlies