Bear Briefs

New Registrar Hired—An administrator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been named head registrar at UM. David Micus, associate registrar at MIT since 2002, will join UM July 1. He replaces Phil Bain, who retired as head registrar last month after more than 32 years of service to UM. The Registrar’s Office oversees class registration, course and room scheduling, course catalogs, transcripts, grading, graduation and other administrative academic processes. Micus was hired this month after a national search. He comes to UM with a long history of registrar experience at New England colleges and universities.

Savior Center—Griz football players spend their off-seasons healing, lifting weights and otherwise getting ready for spring football scrimmages. But senior center Jeff Marshall of Newport Beach, Calif., went beyond that: He helped save a life. On Jan. 12 experienced seaman Craig McCabe accidentally fell off his boat after leaving Marina del Rey en route to a boatyard in Newport Beach. His boat continued on without him — eventually crashing into Catalina Island — and McCabe was reported missing, but not before he spent five or six hours in 58-degree water. McCabe’s brother, Lance, went looking for him in his own boat along with Marshall, the Griz lineman. According to Daily Breeze newspaper, the duo miraculously spotted Craig, and Marshall “threw off his Hawaiian shirt and dove into the water” to help rescue him when they drew close. Craig McCabe has made a full recovery.

Funding Pharmacy—UM continues to be a national leader for earning pharmacy research dollars. In fact, UM’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy tallied $9.3 million from federal grants and other sources in 2005. According to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, UM now ranks No. 4 out of 92 pharmacy schools nationally for garnering research funding when the number of faculty members is considered. The University moved up one place in this category from the year before. UM’s pharmacy school has the equivalent of 26 full-time, Ph.D. faculty members who successfully competed for an average of $360,000 apiece in 2005. Only pharmacy programs at the universities of Washington, California-San Francisco and Kansas had a better per-Ph.D.-faculty-member average.

Big Book Award—“Fool’s Paradise: The Unreal World of Pop Psychology” has been awarded the Popular Culture Association Ray and Pat Browne Award for the best book by a single author in 2005. The book, written by UM Professor Stewart Justman, is a witty and astringent appraisal of the world of pop psychology. Ray and Pat Browne Awards honor scholarship within popular culture study. The awards were presented at the 2006 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Joint National Conference April 12-16 in Atlanta. Justman teaches in UM’s Liberal Studies Program. His book “Seeds of Mortality: The Public and Private Worlds of Cancer” won the 2004 PEN Award for the Art of the Essay.

Fantastic Photographer—Mike Greener, a UM photojournalism student, won first place and $2,000 in the picture story/series category of the national Hearst Journalism Awards Program — considered the Pulitzers of college journalism. Greener, a senior from Crystal Lake, Ill., earned the award by documenting the last eight days of David Barton, a man who entered hospice care while dying from lung cancer. The picture story/series category was the last of three photo contests offered by Hearst this academic year. The top four winners in each category, including Greener, now will be asked to submit portfolios of their work, and the top six will be chosen to compete in the program’s national journalism championships in San Francisco this June.

Dining Services Cooks Up Awards—University Dining Services recently won two awards from the National Association of College and University Food Services. Tom Siegel, a UDS executive chef, cooked his way to an American Culinary Federation gold medal during regional competition in Minneapolis. Siegel captured first place by preparing lobster-mushroom-dusted chicken roulade of fig chutney finished with pomegranate tomato. He competed in the NACUFS 2006 Continental Region Culinary Challenge at the University of St. Thomas. He now will advance to the 2006 National Culinary Challenge in Toronto this July. With the other award, UDS won a top national marketing honor for promoting a campus convenience store. UM competed in the fifth annual “Best in the Business” Campus C-Store Contest. Dining Services won for promoting its Cascade Country Store in the Lommasson Center.

Top Scholars—Two UM students, Hilary Martens and Elizabeth Morton, won prestigious Goldwater Scholarships during the 2006 competition. The awards provide up to $7,500 per year for university expenses. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program honors the deceased Arizona statesman who served 30 years in the U.S. Senate. Goldwater Scholars demonstrate outstanding academic performance and the potential to succeed in careers involving mathematics, the natural sciences or engineering. Martens, a junior majoring in physics from Missoula, plans to earn a doctorate in space plasma physics. She hopes to conduct research with a team of scientists on space missions. Morton, a junior majoring in biology from Omaha, Neb., intends to earn a doctorate and conduct primary research exploring the nature and mechanisms of gene regulation. Both students are part of UM’s Davidson Honors College, which offers support and an enhanced curriculum to gifted, motivated students.

New Life for Sculpture—UM’s public art piece “Teepee Burner” has been reinstalled on campus after being removed in January for repairs and conservation. The welded steel sculpture by John Vichorek, commissioned by the University in 1970, is part of the Montana Museum of Art and Culture’s Permanent Collection. “Teepee Burner” is located between Jeannette Rankin Hall and UM’s Natural Sciences Building. The sculpture is an abstract version of a device used during the 1960s and 1970s to burn lumber-industry waste. The artwork’s top section, meant to resemble plumes of smoke, was originally a highly reflective polished steel surface. Exposure to wind and weather caused the metal to deteriorate, and cracks at the posts destabilized the artwork. A new concrete base now provides increased stability for the large sculpture. Powder coatings, chosen to match the surfaces of the original work, will prevent further rusting. Two Missoula companies, Montana Silhouettes and Armor Powder Coating, handled the sculpture repairs.

Pharmacists to the Rescue—Most people see their pharmacist much more frequently than their doctor. So what would happen if these front-line health professionals took a more active role in helping people quit smoking? That’s the question posed by Larry Dent, an assistant professor in UM’s Department of Pharmacy Practice. Dent and his research team of Kari Harris and Curtis Noonan received a two-year, $70,000 grant from the national Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation to study the issue. Dent is conducting his study at the Missoula Veterans Affairs clinic. Smokers referred to him by clinic physicians are randomly divided into two groups. The first, the control group, receives the standard five- to 10-minute intervention about smoking risks. The second group receives pharmacist-delivered programs that include three group sessions over a five-week period. The study will assess what works better.

Prestigious Scholarships—Two UM students captured prestigious Morris K. Udall Scholarships this year. UM students now have received a total of 24 Udall awards since the program started 1997. The Udalls went to Kelly Hopping, a senior in philosophy and biology from Eugene, Ore., and Michael O’Brien, a junior in wildlife biology from Dixon. Both will receive $5,000. Hopping is a National Merit Scholar and Presidential Leadership Scholar in UM’s Davidson Honors College. O’Brien is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and a descendant of the Fort Peck Assiniboine. Eighty students from 59 colleges and universities were named Udall Scholars this year.