September 2, 2022

Dear UM Faculty and Staff,

The past year at UM has been an exciting time of growth and renewal at our wonderful university. Last fall, we grew our enrollment for the first time in a decade, and we’ve just welcomed another large class to campus this week. This spring, we achieved a long-standing goal to become an R1 research institution, a tremendous achievement. We’re also in the midst of the largest infrastructure refresh in our campus’s history, and we recently launched a refreshed brand to appeal to a broader and more diverse audience. There is much to celebrate, and it’s a good time to be a Griz.

As we celebrate these successes, I invite you to a gathering from 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 9, in the UC Ballroom where Provost Mahdavi and I will share ideas for a revitalized academic structure that will roll out and evolve over the coming year.

This new structure will be designed to enable UM to meet the needs of a changing society and to best serve our students and faculty. There has never been a more urgent or important time to create the change and future that we desire.

We will share ideas for an academic structure that focuses on core pillars desperately needed for the future of our world: Understanding, Building, Conserving and Healing. This new, proposed academic framework is informed by Provost Mahdavi’s deep dive into UM’s history, by her many conversations with UM faculty since her arrival, and by her experience both as a faculty member and administrator at several institutions. Our campus is full of exciting ideas for ways we can adapt; we just need the courage to implement them.

Let me also be explicitly clear: Our efforts to restructure our academic enterprise is not motivated by budget. This is not an exercise in cutting or layoffs. Rather, this academic restructuring should help our efforts to grow resources. This restructuring is purely motivated by the desire to better align the University of Montana for the emerging future that we see. 

Thank you for joining me, Provost Mahdavi and our greater UM collective in this exciting renewal of our academic structure at UM. Please be watching for more communication on UM channels as this framework progresses. 

Finally, as we begin this work together, I challenge – and ask of you – to consider meeting this proposal with curiosity and critical thinking around what is possible. Our students, stakeholders, alumni and community deserve nothing less. 

I look forward to seeing you from 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 9, in the UC Ballroom.

In Partnership,
Seth