2006 PRESIDENT'S REPORT

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Aftermath Assistance • Students and faculty members in UM’s Environmental Studies Program volunteered their time and expertise in the efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Assistant Professor Robin Saha and Professor Tom Roy took students from their class “Katrina – The Making and ‘Unmaking’ of a Disaster” to help in the aftermath of the storm. The students studied the social and environmental aspects of recovery and reconstruction by visiting impacted areas in Louisiana and meeting with community leaders, scientists, engineers, recovery coordi-nators and grassroots environmental leaders. Environmental Studies Program Director Len Broberg provided a solar power system he constructed to help in rebuilding areas of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The portable system provided power for tools and was used for various reconstruction and educational purposes. The Tulane City Center will manage future use of the system.

Outstanding Achievement • Judy Blunt, associate professor in UM’s Department of English and author of the 2002 memoir “Breaking Clean,” won a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship Award. Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. Blunt is the first faculty member in UM’s Creative Writing Program to receive a Guggenheim Award since Richard Hugo in 1970. The award will allow Blunt to take a sabbatical during spring 2007. She will spend the time working on a book of essays about strength and storytelling among women in the West. “Breaking Clean” won the PEN/Jerard Fund Award and the Whiting Writers’ Award and was a New York Times Notable Book.

Pharmacy Fundraising • 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 last year. 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 number of faculty members is considered. The University moved up one place in this category in 2006 from the year before. When total research dollars are considered without regard to the number of faculty members, UM ranks No. 7 nationally. This ranking is particularly noteworthy because the Skaggs School of Pharmacy is the only top-ranked pharmacy school not attached to a medical school.

Fresh Food • University Dining Services celebrated an important milestone for the UM Farm to College Program in May 2006. The program surpassed the $1 million benchmark in purchases of local and regional foods. The UM Farm to College Program strives to be a model for institutional, local and regional food-purchasing by supporting local economies, preserving agricultural heritage and providing healthy, fresh and delicious food to the campus community. Since its inception in 2003, the program has garnered considerable local and regional media attention, as well as features in the New York Times and TIME magazine.

Alumna Achiever • Stefani Gray Hicswa, a 1991 UM graduate, became the third youngest president of a community college in the United States July 1. The 38-year-old mother of two is the first woman president of Miles Community College in Miles City. The first in her family to go to college, Hicswa graduated from UM with high honors in organizational communications before going on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees. At UM she was an Advocate coordinator, resident assistant, peer adviser and Watkins Scholar, as well as Homecoming queen. She’s married to Scott, a 1990 UM forestry graduate, and together the couple managed the Muddy Creek Ranch outside Wilsall before Hicswa turned to higher education administration. She’s already earmarked 2025 and 2027 as the years her two young sons will graduate from college. She believes that higher education is possible for anyone.

Commendable Commuting • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has named UM one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters among the nation’s colleges and universities. Campuses on the list demonstrate their environmental leadership by offering outstanding commuter benefits, meeting the EPA’s National Standard of Excellence. The EPA noted UM’s excellent benefits, such as providing a 100 percent transit subsidy, purchasing bikes that employees can sign out and use on an as-needed basis, rideshare and carpool matching services, park-and-ride and vanpool staging areas, preferred parking, reduced parking costs for carpools and vanpools, secure bicycle parking, showers and lockers, employee commuting awards and a lunchtime shuttle service. Seventy-two institutions made the list, which was released for the first time in 2006.

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