October 2003

Bear Briefs
Female Diversity—UM-Missoula has received a $3.5 million grant to set up a program geared toward attracting more female science faculty members. The National Science Foundation grant, combined with another $700,000 in funding from UM, will be used to set up the Partnership for Comprehensive Equity (PACE) program on the Missoula campus.

Journalistic Giant—Maurice Possley, a visiting professor at the UM journalism school, has won a prestigious award for journalistic achievement. Possley, a veteran criminal justice reporter for the Chicago Tribune, received the 51st Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award for journalism. The award, which Possley shares with a fellow Tribune reporter, is presented annually to recognize courageous contributions to journalism in the United States. The reporters were honored for stories about flaws in the criminal justice system that helped influence Illinois Gov. George Ryan to halt executions in the state and pardon inmates who were wrongfully convicted. Possley is spending a semester at UM as the journalism school’s T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Professor of Journalism.

New Web Site—It’s official: UM-Missoula has a new Web site. It went live Sept. 22, replacing the old site at http://www.umt.edu. The new site features user-friendly navigation, information about UM and the surrounding area, a customizable tools and resources section, a Google-powered search engine and an improved A-Z index. The home page also offers fresh content, including feature stories, news releases, current events information and fun, brief profiles of UM people.

Helping Hearts—UM HeartWalkers raised $12,921 at this year’s American HeartWalk held Sept. 20 on the UM-Missoula campus. The amount surpasses last year’s total of $11,000. The grand total raised by this year’s local HeartWalk is expected to reach more than $95,000. Funds raised go to the American Heart Association.

Brain Busters–See the state’s brightest high school students compete for scholarships during Brain Busters, a weekly quiz show sponsored by UM and aired on NBC stations statewide. The show can be seen at 5 p.m. Saturdays on KECI-TV in Missoula, KFBB-TV in Great Falls and KHBB-TV in Helena, and at 9:30 a.m. Sundays on KULR-TV in Billings. Brain Busters, now in its second season, pits teams from 64 Montana high schools against one another, vying for thousands of dollars worth of scholarships to any of the UM campuses. Matthew Ferguson, a Darby High School graduate and member of last year’s runner-up team, is using a $500 scholarship he won on the show to attend UM-Missoula this fall.

Art in Ireland—A traveling exhibit of Western art, organized by the UM-based Montana World Trade Center to foster trade relations with Ireland, opened recently at the Cavan County Museum in Ballyjamesduff, Ireland. The exhibit features work by nine noted Montana artists, including Russell Chatham, Monte Dolack and Larry Pirnie. It debuted in Dublin, Ireland, over the Fourth of July weekend. Geoff Sutton, a former Missoula art gallery owner who helped arrange the exhibit for the MWTC, said it has been well-received.

Unsolved History—UM archaeologist Kelly Dixon appeared in a television program that delves into the secrets of the Donner Party — the ill-fated pioneers forced to resort to cannibalism in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846-47. “Unsolved History: The Donner Party” aired Oct. 8 on the Discovery Channel. Dixon co-directed a recent excavation that discovered new artifacts, including bone fragments currently undergoing DNA analysis. If the remains are identified as human, it may be possible to link them with living Donner Party descendants.

South America Bound—Arthur Lusse, a UM law adjunct professor, recently received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant in law at Universidad de Montevideo and Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay. The Fulbright Senior Specialist Program offers grants to leading U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning.

Winning Students—Two projects produced by UM radio-television students have won first-place awards in the national Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence competition. Jenny Kuglin of Missoula won a first-place prize in feature photography for her story on the Lost Woodsman, a Missoula woodworking shop. Also earning top honors was a piece titled “Montana Journal: First on the Scene,” which documented 24 hours in the lives of emergency workers around the state. The program was directed by Kuglin and produced by Robin Catterton, of Cody, Wyo. Three other radio-TV students earned third-place awards in the competition. The Mark of Excellence Awards are given in recognition of outstanding student work in journalism.

Knowledge of Asia—UM’s Central Asia and Caspian Basin Program has launched the fall 2003 Brown Bag Lecture Series. Presentations are free and open to the public and will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in the Mansfield Center Conference Room. Upcoming lectures are “The War in Chechnya: Its Impact on Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan” on Oct. 22, “Kyrghyzstan: A Geographical Perspective” on Nov. 7 and “Higher Education in Post-Soviet Central Asia” on Dec. 5. The Central Asia and Caspian Basin Program is a federally funded organization that promotes a deeper understanding of Central Asia and the Caspian Basin among UM students, faculty members and the Missoula community. For more information call 243-2235.

International Montana—The Montana World Trade Center at UM-Missoula has received $500,000 in federal funding to help rural businesses compete in the global marketplace. The funding, which came from the Department of Agriculture Rural Development Office, will create the Montana Rural Business Accelerator program. The program will work with traditional agribusinesses that are disadvantaged by their rural locations, helping them retool to add production for the products and services demanded by customers worldwide. For more information call (406) 243-6982 or visit http://www.mwtc.org.

Ethical Issues—UM’s Practical Ethics Center has several more of its “PEC Presents” lectures scheduled. All will be held at 12: 10 p.m. in Gallagher Business Building Room L13 and are free and open to the public. Upcoming lectures are “Ethical Issues in Child Placement” on Nov. 3, “Ethics and Public Service” on Nov. 17 and “War in the 21st Century: How Can We Deal with Those Ready to Die for a Cause” on Dec. 1.

Stopping Violence—The UM School of Education recently was awarded $1.3 million from the U.S. Department of Justice to help prevent school and community violence. The grant will fund a project in the school’s Division of Educational Research and Service. The division will use the money for its Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in Schools Project, which designs, implements, evaluates and disseminates research and programs related to school violence prevention, community safety, mental health and homeland security issues.

Halloween Charity—The UM Office for Civic Engagement is seeking volunteers to trick-or-treat for cans to benefit the Missoula Food Bank this Halloween. Costumed volunteers should meet at the Davidson Honors College at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 31 to participate. Non-perishable food items will be collected until 7:30 p.m. Call (406) 243-5531 for more information.

University Relations | Cary Shimek, Editor
The University of Montana-Missoula
32 Campus Drive | Missoula, MT 59812
phone (406) 243-2522 | fax (406) 243-4520
© 2004 The University of Montana