2006 PRESIDENT'S REPORT

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Legendary Lecture • UM’s Entertainment Management Program in the School of Business Administration is known for connecting big-name executives and artists from the entertainment world with students training for careers in the industry. Rock star Huey Lewis, leader of the popular band Huey Lewis and the News, paid a visit to a class in September to talk with students. Lewis spent more than an hour discussing his decades of experience in the music and film business, answering questions and keeping his audience laughing with stories and advice. A part-time resident of the Bitterroot Valley, Lewis occasionally guest lectures in UM classrooms. In 2005 he lent his considerable knowledge to music Associate Professor Robert LedBetter’s class to give students an insider’s view of the history of rock music.

Best Biography • UM’s Broadcast Media Center and Montana PBS joined the company of Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard as winners of a CINE Golden Eagle Award, which honors the highest production standards in filmmaking and videography. The Montana PBS historical documentary “Evelyn Cameron: Pictures from a Worthy Life” was judged in the biography category along with biographies of B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather. Evelyn Cameron photographed Eastern Montana in the late-19th and early- 20th centuries and wrote extensive diaries about pioneer life in the state.

Commendable Conservationist • For the first time, a UM student was awarded a prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship. Dawson Dunning, a 2005 UM graduate in wildlife biology, took the award, worth up to $50,000 per year. He intends to use the scholarship for a master’s degree in science and natural history filmmaking at Montana State University in Bozeman. The award offers the possibility of continued foundation support in a doctoral program elsewhere. In his application, Dunning said he wants to “explore a career as a conservation biologist using science and natural history filmmaking to promote our planet’s most important conservation messages.”

Teaching Abroad • Two UM law school adjunct professors traveled to China to teach classes during the inaugural semester of the Xiamen University Law School Zheng He-Marco Polo Academy. David Aronofsky, legal counsel for UM, and Kristen Juras, author of “Law of the Sea in a Nutshell,” were among the first to present courses created to bring students to Xiamen from different parts of the world to study pertinent policy issues in an international summer school setting. Aronofsky, who helped design the academy’s programs, taught “The U.S. Legal System,” a course involving the study of key Supreme Court cases that collectively illustrate how the system is supposed to function. Juras taught “International Law of the Sea and Oceanic Legal Policy” with Xiamen University Professor Kuen-chen Fu, a world-renowned scholar in international oceanic law.

Security Summit • UM President George Dennison was in attendance when President George Bush launched the National Security Language Initiative in January. Dennison participated in the U.S. University Presidents Summit, which focused on the plan to create more opportunities for students studying critical-need languages, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Korean, as well as science and technology. The initiative aims to provide scholarships, expedite visa requests for students and develop more exchange relationships between American and international universities. UM already is involved in myriad projects to recruit foreign students and encourage current students to spend a semester abroad.

Athletic Ambassadors • Two UM football coaches and a group of recently graduated Griz football players brought American-style football to the Land of the Rising Sun when they traveled to Japan in the summer to participate in the New Era Bowl. Defensive coordinator Kraig Paulson and offensive coordinator Rob Phenicie, along with six recent Griz football greats, participated in the cultural exchange. U.S. coaches and players spent a week in Japan preparing a team of Japanese coaches and college athletes for the big game. UM helped coach the White Stars to victory over the Blue Star squad, coached by a group from the University of Washington.

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