April 2004

Bear Briefs
Spring Powwow Time—UM will embrace its American Indian culture during the 36th Annual Kyi-Yo Powwow, which will be held Friday through Sunday, April 23-25, in the Adams Center. Grand entries featuring champion dancers from across Montana and the region will be held Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 1 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m. Admission is $3, and everyone is welcome. Other special events will include tipi races and art and craft sales. For more information, call the Native students’ Kyi-Yo Club at 243-5302 or visit www.kyiyo.com. Kyi-Yo means “grizzly bear” in Blackfeet.

Making It Permanent—Jerry Fetz is the new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UM. Fetz served as dean of UM’s Davidson Honors College before becoming interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences last summer. Fetz came to UM as a German instructor in 1970 and was promoted to professor in 1983. For the past 34 years, he has served in a variety of administrative and faculty positions at the University, including chair of foreign languages and literatures, special assistant to the president, director of several study-abroad programs and chair of the Faculty Senate. He was selected as a Fulbright Visiting Exchange Professor in 1990 and was given the German Friendship Award in 1998 by the Federal Republic of Germany. His honors at UM are numerous, including the Administrative Service Award in 2002, the Distinguished Service to International Education Award in 1996 and the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988.

Washington Post Connection—Nancy Szokan, an editor at the Washington Post, will teach a seminar and work with the Montana Kaimin student newspaper staff as next fall’s Pollner Professor. Szokan, 52, has edited stories ranging from food to foreign wars. She has been editing for more than 20 years and has worked with Pulitzer Prize-winning staffs at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Most recently, she was co-editor at the Post for reporters covering the Pentagon, State Department and CIA during the war in Iraq. The T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professorship brings a working journalist to teach a class and help with the Kaimin during the fall semester each year.

Geology Giant—William Woessner, a UM geology professor, has been awarded a prestigious lectureship from the Geological Society of America’s Hydrogeology Division. Woessner, a UM faculty member since 1981, will be the Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer for 2005, speaking at 30 to 40 host universities across North America. This honor is one of only two major North American lectureships in hydrogeology, a field that studies groundwater and its interactions with surrounding sediments and rock. The lectureship is designed to allow an eminent hydrogeologist to visit a number of higher education and research institutes on a mission to educate, promote the study of hydrogeology and act as an ambassador of goodwill on behalf of GSA’s Hydrogeology Division.

Radio Rewards—The KUFM/Montana Public Radio news staff recently won four regional 2004 Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. Most of the award-winning reporting centered on the summer 2003 fire season. Live on-the-scene coverage of the Black Mountain fire, reported by news director Sally Mauk and anchored by assistant news director Edward O’Brien, won an award in the “spot news” category. Mauk’s three reports on the Black Mountain fire and the Robert (Glacier) fire received the “continuing coverage” award, and her report on the annual Bison Range roundup won in the “best use of sound” category. The station’s news staff, comprising Mauk, O’Brien, Kirk Siegler, Nate Biehl and Beth Saboe, was honored for overall excellence based on the quality of their entries. KUFM broadcasts from studios at UM. The station competes in a region that includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska. Regional winners advance to the national awards competition, which will be judged in early June. The RTNDA has honored outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971.

Telegraph Talk—An upcoming UM history lecture will discuss how the telegraph helped drive westward expansion of the United States. Elliott West, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, will present “The Telegraph and the Creation of the West” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 22, in Gallagher Building Room 123. The free event is the Second Annual Hammond Lecture in Western/Environmental History. It is sponsored by the UM history department’s Hammond Endowment and the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West. West is a specialist in the social and environmental history of the American West. For more information call the O’Connor center at (406) 243-7700.

Radio Raves—Montana Public Radio held its annual on-air fund-raiser March 13-21, earning pledges worth $410,094 from grateful listeners. People in communities across western Montana contributed pledges via phone, mail and e-mail. This year’s goal of $425,000 wasn’t met during the on-air drive, but pledges kept coming in, allowing Montana Public Radio to reach its goal. Listeners donated 2,664 thank-you gifts (called premiums) during the fund-raiser. The gifts were given to those who contributed and ranged from children’s books to a stargazing party — complete with dessert. For more information, call Linda Talbott, Montana Public Radio marketing director, at (406) 243-4215.

Asbestos Symposium—Award-winning investigative journalists Andrew Schneider and Paul Brodeur will speak at “Stories From Libby and Beyond: The People and Politics of Asbestos,” a public symposium at UM. The free event will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 1, in the University Center Theater. The symposium is part of “Landscape of Asbestos: Libby and Beyond,” a collaboration between UM faculty members and the Missoula Art Museum. Three months of exhibits, lectures and films are being presented at UM, the museum and in Libby to raise awareness of the many dimensions of asbestos issues. Schneider, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, drew national attention to asbestos exposure in Libby in a series of articles for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in late 1999. Brodeur, a staff writer at The New Yorker for many years, wrote a pioneering piece about the asbestos health hazard for that magazine, and during the next 20 years was author of several series of articles and four books on the subject. The two will be joined by panelists who will speak from personal experience about the impact of asbestos around the world. The symposium is supported by the White Lung Association and UM’s Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Environmental Studies Program, School of Journalism and Faculty Development Committee of the Provost’s Office.

Educational Partners—UM-Missoula recently presented its annual Partnership Awards to schools and organizations that offer field experiences and mentoring to School of Education students. The awards were given to three area schools and a government entity on March 6 during the Annual Education Reception, which was hosted by President George Dennison. The award winners are: Frenchtown Elementary faculty and administration; Sentinel High School faculty and administration; Washington Middle School; and Missoula City-County Health Department, Division of Health Promotion. Partnership Awards provide public recognition of the professional commitment evident in each organization to serve as models for UM education students.

Record Breaker—Scott McGowan, a UM senior from Poplar, finished fourth in the mile with a time of 4:02.07 at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., breaking Montana’s school record and earning All-American honors in the process. McGowan’s time broke the old school record of 4:02.33, set by Frank Horn in 1988.

Basketball MVP—Montana senior Brooklynn Lorenzen was named the Big Sky Conference Most Valuable Player by a unanimous vote of league coaches. Lorenzen, who averaged 6.9 points and a team-high 33.3 minutes per game, ended the regular season with 222 assists on the season and 672 career assists. Lorenzen was Montana’s ninth conference player of the year winner, becoming the single-season and career assist record holder in both Montana and league history. She was joined on the All-Big Sky Conference team by teammates Julie Deming and Hollie Tyler. Tyler also was named the Co-Defensive Player of the Year after garnering the Tri-Defensive Player of the Year honor as a sophomore.

Top Coach—Montana women’s basketball coach Robin Selvig was awarded his 15th career conference coach of the year honor. It was the ninth time Selvig has been honored by the Big Sky Conference, in addition to his one Northwest Women’s Basketball League and five Mountain West Conference coach of the year honors. Selvig shared this year’s honor with Idaho State’s Jon Newlee. Selvig coached his 2003-04 team back to the top of the Big Sky Conference, finishing with an overall record of 27-5, including a perfect 14-0 run through league play that gave Montana its 18th regular-season conference title. The Lady Griz earned their 19th national tournament appearance, hosting No. 5 seed Louisiana Tech in a first-round game. The Lady Griz led by 11 points midway through the second half, but could not hold the lead, falling 81-77 in one of the most thrilling games the Adams Center has hosted in recent years.

Leading Coach—UM men’s basketball coach Pat Kennedy has been chosen to lead the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Kennedy, who has been an NABC board of directors member for 10 years, said the president generally serves a one-year term and then two years on the board as past president. The board meets about six times a year, including a May meeting with the NCAA Selection Committee.

Campus Loss—Nelson Britt, the new director of UM’s Museum of Art and Culture, passed away April 1 after a courageous struggle with cancer. Britt came to UM last August to oversee the largest art collection in Montana, and in his short tenure he developed a vision for securing a permanent home for the more than 8,000 pieces of artwork owned by the University. He brought 18 years of experience in the museum business when he arrived on campus from Dubuque, Iowa, where he held a similar position. After an intensive national search, Britt was selected for the UM position because of his vast experience. He will be greatly missed.

For information, contact:
Rita.Munzenrider@mso.umt.edu
University Relations
(406) 243-2522

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