FOR LAUREN CALDWELL it was love at first sight when she stopped in Missoula on her way home to Indiana after a high school backpacking trip in the Canadian Rockies. She doesn't know whether it was her lifelong love of bears or her dedication to preserving the natural environment that she experienced on that trip that made her want to attend UM. “I didn’t look anywhere else for college — The University

of Montana was the only place I applied,” she says. “And from the beginning, the faculty here have made me feel prized ... exceptional.”

Caldwell’s academic performance, as well as her social commitment, are exceptional — and she recently earned two of the nation’s most prestigious scholarships — the Truman and the Udall.

Caldwell, who majors in biology, also is

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interested in ecology and environmental policy and plans to attend law school after a summer internship in Washington, D.C., and a stint in the Peace Corps.

“I’m not driven by grades or recognition,” she says. “I want to be really good at the things I care about, and I want to be able to make important change in the world. I know that the only way I can do that is to do my best all the time.”