While campus denizens lucky enough to stay in Missoula for the summer enjoy such favorite pastimes as hiking, bicycling and floating the river, UM is preparing for another expected record fall semester enrollment.

The 2004-05 academic year officially begins Friday, Aug. 27, when President George Dennison will deliver the State of the University Address. New faculty members also will be introduced at the free public event, which begins at 10 a.m. in the Montana Theatre.

Classes kick off Monday, Aug. 30, when students can enjoy a free lunch and live music at WelcomeFEAST -- 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the Oval -- while learning about UM programs, departments and more.

UM will host booths at four of Montana's largest fairs this summer. The booths will offer a variety of University information, including admissions brochures, catalogs, athletic schedules, sports posters and more.

Fair booths are scheduled for July 30-Aug. 7 at the Montana State Fair in Great Falls, Aug. 10-15 at the Western Montana Fair in Missoula, Aug. 13-21 at the MontanaFair in Billings and Aug. 18-22 at the Northwest Montana Fair in Kalispell.

Stop by and say hello.

Did they or didn't they? Efforts to uncover the truth about tales of starvation and cannibalism among the historic Donner Party have thrust a UM archaeologist into the national spotlight.

Kelly Dixon, co-leader of a dig at the suspected Donner Party campsite, has been mentioned in newspapers ranging from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Washington Post in recent days. The dig in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Truckee, Calif., has produced a number of artifacts including a cooking hearth, bone fragments, porcelain dinnerware, musket balls and wagon parts.

DNA analysis of the bones could yield important evidence about the Donner Party, whose wagon train was snowbound during the winter of 1846-47.

A team of Billings Skyview High School students won the first-ever state championship title for Brain Busters, an academic quiz bowl sponsored by UM and televised on NBC stations statewide.

Skyview students defeated a team from Bozeman High School 240-160 during a May 22 contest in Missoula. As Brain Busters champions, each Billings Skyview High School team member receives a $5,000 scholarship that can be used at any UM campus. Bozeman contestants each received $4,000 scholarships.

UM and Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton have started a new doctoral program partnership designed to train the next generation of outstanding biomedical researchers.

The Graduate Partnerships Program in Biomedical Sciences and Related Disciplines will allow select UM students to earn graduate degrees from the University while conducting research projects using RML facilities under the direction of RML scientists. RML researchers also will help develop and teach UM courses, as well as assist with recruiting exceptional students to the University.

RML is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Harvesting Community, a partnership between Garden City Harvest and the UM Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society, is the recipient of the 2004 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration.

Seventeen partnerships applied for the $10,000 award, which recognizes exceptional work accomplished by campus-community partnerships. The award is hosted by Montana Campus Compact, a statewide nonprofit coalition of college and university presidents.

Earning a professional certification or associate degree has never been easier. The UM College of Technology's Future Focus programs provide flexible courses so that you can train for a new career or promotion without giving up your day job.

Future Focus programs feature evening, weekend and online courses for a customer relations online certificate, National Carpentry certification, Microsoft or A+ certification, and associate of arts degrees. For more information, call (406) 243-7812 or e-mail outreach@mso.umt.edu.

UM's annual report has won a Beacon Award for Excellence in Education Marketing from the Association for Educational Publishers.

The award honoring "Confluence," UM's 2003 President's Report, was presented during AEP's annual conference June 9 in Alexandria, Va. The University learned in April that it was among four finalists for the national award. More than 1,400 entries were submitted for consideration in various categories, and 119 winners were selected.

The report highlights diversity on the Missoula campus with five short profiles of students and employees, as well as UM's top achievements of the 2002-03 academic year.

The UM-Missoula radio-television department will have to find more room in its trophy case after a series of awards this summer.

A student-produced documentary titled "Settling the Tab on Montana's Alcohol Culture" received the E.B. Craney Award for outstanding non-commercial television program of the year from the Montana Broadcaster's Association and Greater Montana Foundation on June 19. It was only the fourth time a student documentary has earned the award. UM's Student Documentary Unit, led by Professor Bill Knowles, has been in production for 18 years.

Also on June 19, an episode of the department's "Business: Made in Montana" program earned a Student Emmy Award from the Seattle-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Northwest Chapter.

The public is invited to get a close-up look at Montana's big sky this summer during Friday open houses at UM's Blue Mountain Observatory.

Stargazers can look through the observatory telescope to see the moon, planets, star clusters, nebulas and galaxies. UM faculty astronomers Dave and Diane Friend will answer questions and point out constellations. Upcoming stargazing sessions are scheduled for Aug. 13 and Sept. 10 and 17. Each evening's viewing begins an hour after sunset -- about 10 p.m. in August and 9 p.m. in September.

Directions and a map are available online. In case of questionable weather, call (406) 243-4299. A message will advise if the evening's viewing has been canceled.

A new series of Montana maps offers tantalizing glimpses of how Big Sky Country first caught the attention of cartographers, moving from tribal territory to full statehood.

Printed by the newly resurrected University of Montana Press, the 17 maps begin with a 1778 continental scene in which the Montana area is mentioned only with the note "Mountains of Bright Stones." The final 1898 map shows a state filled with fledgling towns and counties.

The 14-by-20-inch maps are available at the Bookstore at UM for $95. Educators receive a 10 percent discount. To order, call the Bookstore at (406) 243-1234 or (888) 333-1995 or visit the Web site.

Lewis and Clark created extensive journals during their 1803-06 expedition, so we have a pretty good idea of what they experienced during their epic trek. But they didn't bring an artist to document what they saw for future generations.

UM is correcting this oversight with its "An Artist With the Corps of Discovery" exhibit, featuring more than 50 original paintings by Billings artist Charles Fritz. The exhibit is on display through Sept. 11 at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, located in the Performing Arts and Radio/Television Center. Admission is free.

The UM athletic department has hired a hero from its past to guide it through the financial troubles of the present. Don Read, 70, the most successful head football coach in UM history, was named the new athletic director by President George Dennison in May.

Read replaced Interim Athletic Director Marie Porter, who had guided athletics since March, when former director Wayne Hogan resigned because of athletic department fiscal problems. Porter, who returned to her duties as associate athletic director, will retire from that post Aug. 15.

Read coached the Griz during 1986-95, amassing a career record of 85-36 and a Big Sky Conference mark of 54-22. He had 10 straight winning seasons. The capstone of his UM career came when the Griz captured their first I-AA national championship in 1995.

UM All-American runner Scott McGowan captured seventh in the nation at the NCAA championships last month. However, he fell short when it came to qualifying for the Olympic finals this week.

While a top-three finish and an Olympic qualifying time would have earned McGowan a trip to Athens next month for the Summer Games, he finished last in the 1,500 meters July 18 at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Sacramento, Calif. McGowan's time was 3:49.50 -- much slower than the 3:37.73 he ran to qualify for the finals. The top time in the finals was 3:36.13.

McGowan, a Poplar native, said he wished he would have performed better, but he was happy to have reached the finals.