University of Montana

History

An act of Congress of February 18, 1881, dedicated 72 sections (46,000 acres (72 mi2; 190 km2)) in Montana Territory for the creation of the university.

Montana was admitted to the Union on November 8, 1889, and the state legislature soon began to consider where the state's permanent capital and state university would be located. To be sure that the new state university would be located in Missoula, the city's leaders made an agreement with the standing capital of Helena that Missoula would stay out of the bidding for the new capital and would support Helena over its leading competitor, Anaconda. The cities' bids were supported by the rival "Copper Kings", William A. Clark and Marcus Daly, respectively.

Missoula won the legislative vote for the new university at the Third Montana Legislative Assembly in February 1893, and it was formally opened in 1895. While plans for a university campus were progressing, classes were temporarily held at nearby Willard School. The South Missoula Land Company, owned by A.B. Hammond, Richard Eddy and Marcus Daly, joined with the Higgins family in donating land for the new campus. In June 1898 the cornerstone for A.J. Gibson designed University Hall was laid and Missoula became "the University City".

From 1945 until 1965, the name was changed by the legislature to "Montana State University", while the school in Bozeman was known as "Montana State College".

Presidents

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Academics

The University of Montana comprises eleven full colleges and schools: College of Humanities & Sciences; Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences; W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation; College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences; College of Visual and Performing Arts; Alexander Blewett III School of Law; UM College of Business; UM School of Journalism; UM School of Extended and Lifelong Learning; Missoula College and Bitterroot College.

The Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences is divided into five academic departments and the Institute of Educational Research and Service. In 1914, the University of Montana School of Law became a member of The Association of American Law Schools and in 1923, the school received accreditation from the American Bar Association. The W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation offers five undergraduate majors (Ecosystem Science & Restoration; Forestry; Parks, Tourism & Recreation Management; Resource Conservation; and Wildlife Biology) and five Master's of Science and three PhDs.

Admissions

For the fall 2017 term, 6,182 students applied to the University of Montana. Ninety-three percent were accepted. The entering freshman class had an average high school GPA of 3.55, and the middle 50% range of SAT scores were 540-650 for reading and writing, 520-620 for math, while the ACT composite range was 21–26.

Campus

The original plan of the campus was designed by one of its first professors, Frederich Scheuch, who called for the central oval to be surrounded by university buildings. Although Scheuch's plan called for all building entrances to face the center of the Oval, forming a radiating building pattern, buildings were later constructed with three-story in the Renaissance Revival style, with hipped roofs and Spanish green roof tiles.

The first set of buildings were set up around the oval in 1895. Since that time, various campus plans and architectural styles have been used. Today the campus consists of 220 acres (89 ha) and is bordered to the east by Mount Sentinel and the north by the Clark Fork River. The main campus comprises 64 buildings, including nine residence halls and various athletic venues, including Washington–Grizzly Stadium, a 26,500-seat football stadium and the Adams Center (formerly, Dahlberg Arena), a 7,500-seat multi-purpose arena where the university's basketball teams play.

Landmarks include:

The Oval

A three-acre (1.2 ha) swath of grass running east to west, marking the traditional center of the university. Today it is divided into quadrants by two intersecting brick-laid paths. A double row of trees was planted around the oval on Arbor Day 1896, but many of the trees have since died and are in the process of being replanted. The original gravel driveway that once surrounded the Oval has also been replaced by sidewalk. The original master plan of the university called for all buildings to face the center of the oval, but this plan proved difficult and a new plan was created in 1935.

On the western extreme of the Oval is a life-sized grizzly bear statue created by ceramic artist and sculptor Rudy Autio in 1969. The bronze statue is 7 feet (2.1 m) in height, weighs 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg), and took a year to create. Many photographs of the university picture the bear with the Oval, university (Main) Hall, and Mount Sentinel's 'M' in the background.

The "M" trail

A 3⁄4-mile (1.2 km) trail with 13 switchbacks, it ascends 620 vertical feet (190 m), from 3,200 to 3,820 feet (975 to 1,165 m) above sea level, from the university at the base of Mount Sentinel. The trail offers sweeping views of the city below.

Organization and administration

Administration

The University of Montana is the main campus for the university, which includes four other campuses. The public university system is one of two in Montana; the other is Montana State University. Both systems are governed as the Montana University System by the Montana Board of Regents, which consists of seven members appointed by the state governor, and confirmed by the state senate to serve overlapping terms of seven years, except for one student member who is appointed for one year at a time.. The governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction, both statewide elected officials, are ex officio members of the board, as is the Commissioner of Higher Education, who is appointed by the Board of Regents.

The Board of Regents appoints the university president, who is directly responsible and accountable to the Commissioner of Higher Education.

Funding

The total operating budget for the University of Montana for fiscal year 2017 was approximately $423 million. About $149 million comes from the General Funds budget, $108 million from restricted funds, auxiliary funds ($51 million), designated funds ($44 million), and plant funds ($61 million).

Over the past 30 years, state support for higher education has dropped dramatically. In 1990, the State of Montana provided for 69% of the educational and general funds budget. It now supports 33% of the general fund or 13% of the university's operating budget. This decrease in funding has, in part, been made up by the university competing for sponsored research money with a growth from $12 million in 1994 to $88 million in 2017 and salaries as low as 3/5 the national average.

Colleges, schools, and centers

The University of Montana comprises seven colleges and two professional schools:

College of Humanities and Sciences (1893)

Phyllis J. Washington College of Education and Human Sciences (2009)

W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation (1913)

College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences

Skaggs School of Pharmacy (1907)

School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science

School of Social Work

School of Public and Community Health Sciences

Missoula College (1956)

College of Technology

Bitterroot College (Hamilton, MT)

College of the Arts and Media

School of Art

School of Theatre and Dance

School of Media Arts

School of Music (1893)

School of Journalism (1914)

Davidson Honors College (1991)

College of Business (1918)

School of Law (1911)

Campus media

The Montana Kaimin, founded in 1898, is the student-run college newspaper. It is independent of the university. It attracted national attention in 2009, when football coach Bobby Hauck refused to take questions from the paper in retaliation for a story about an alleged assault by two Grizzly football players. The Montanan is the university's alumni magazine, published by the University Relations office. CutBank, founded in 1973 by the Creative Writing Program, is a literary magazine. Camas: The Nature of the West, is a literary journal run by graduate students of the Environmental Studies Program.

KBGA (89.9 FM) is the college radio station. KUFM-FM is the flagship and founding station of Montana Public Radio. Founded in 1965, its studios are located in the Broadcast Media Center, of the Performing Arts/Radio Television Center. KUFM-TV (Channel 11) is the local Montana PBS station.

Student life

A variety of student organizations exist on campus. Four fraternities and three sororities have chapters on campus.

The University of Montana's International Program began as the International Student club in 1924. In 1981, the Mansfield Center was established and certification in teaching of English as a second language (TESL) began. As of 2010, the university has partnerships established with over 90 universities in over 40 countries. The largest number of partnership are with universities in Japan (eight), China (seven), and Chile (seven).

Programs on Central and Southwest Asia were created in 1997. UM is currently the only American university offering a Bachelor of Arts in Central and Southwest Asian Studies. In September 2010, the Montana Board of Regents unanimously approved the creation of the Center for the Study of Central and Southwest Asia at the University of Montana.

Athletics

The athletic teams are nicknamed the Montana Grizzlies ("Lady Griz" is used when referring to the women's basketball team; all other women's teams are known as the "Griz"). The university has competed in the NCAA's Big Sky Conference since the conference was formed in 1963. From 1924 to 1950, the University of Montana was a member of the Pacific Coast Conference (precursor to today's Pac-12). The University of Montana has an ongoing rivalry with Montana State University, most notably the cross-state football matchups, known as the "Brawl of the Wild", but also includes the cross-state club lacrosse matchup, known as the "Copper Cup".

Programs include:

Montana Grizzlies football – Since the 1990s, the Griz have established themselves as one of the most dominant football teams in both the Big Sky Conference and in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (known as Division I-AA football before 2006). They won the I-AA national title in 1995 and 2001.

Montana Grizzlies men's basketball – The men's basketball team has established itself in recent years as a power in the Big Sky, and was the conference representative to the NCAA Division I Men's basketball tournament in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2018, and 2019. At the 2006 tournament, the 12th-seeded Griz upset fifth-seeded University of Nevada, Reno, 87–79, the school's first win in the tournament in 31 years. The Cinderella run ended against the fourth-seeded Boston College Eagles.

Montana Grizzlies women's basketball – The Lady Griz have won 17 conference titles in 25 years, most recently in 2012, and have competed in the NCAA Women's tournament 17 times. The Lady Griz were coached from 1978 to 2016 by Robin Selvig (Montana, 1974), who had an overall record of 865–286 (.752 winning percentage). Selvig earned his 600th win in just 772 games, the sixth fastest of any NCAA coach (men or women). Selvig finished his career ranked eighth among all women's basketball coaches in victories with 865. Since 2016, the team is coached by former Lady Griz star Shannon Schweyen.

Other intercollegiate sports include men's and women's cross country, women's golf, men's and women's track and field, men's and women's indoor track and field, men's and women's tennis, women's volleyball and women's soccer. In 2015 UM added women's softball.

Notable people

Athletes

Raul Allegre, football player; New York Giants placekicker

Colt Anderson, football player; Buffalo Bills safety

Josh Barnett, former UFC Heavyweight Champion, mixed martial artist

Doug Betters, football player; Miami Dolphins defensive end

Kroy Biermann, football player; Buffalo Bills defensive end

Guy Bingham, football player; New York Jets center

Dan Carpenter, football player; Buffalo Bills placekicker

Dylan Cook, football player; Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle

Scott Curry, football player; Green Bay Packers offensive lineman

Barry Darrow, football player; Cleveland Browns offensive tackle

Keron DeShields (born 1992), basketball player in the Israeli National League

Dave Dickenson, Canadian football player; BC Lions and Calgary Stampeders quarterback, CFL MVP (2000) and Grey Cup MVP (2006)

Terry Dillon, football player; Minnesota Vikings defensive back

Aldo Forte, football player; Chicago Bears offensive tackle

Scott Gragg, football player; New York Giants offensive tackle

Tim Hauck, football player; Green Bay Packers safety

Entertainment and the arts

Jeff Ament, musician

Eric Braeden, film and television actor

Miguel del Águila, composer pianist

Ted Geoghegan, screenwriter and director, best known for the 2015 horror film We Are Still Here

Susan Gibson, singer and songwriter, wrote the Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces" while at UM

Lily Gladstone, actress

Gen Huit, Salish-Pend Oreille singer-songwriter

Mary Kirkwood, artist

Beth Lo, artist

Sahir Lodhi, film and television actor, radio show host in Pakistan

Colin Meloy, singer and songwriter

George Montgomery, film and television actor

Carroll O'Connor, film and television actor

Lee Powell, actor

Rob Quist, singer and musician

J. K. Simmons, actor

Steven Rinella, outdoorsman

Reagan Wilson, actress and Playboy model

Law, politics, and government

Forrest H. Anderson, 17th governor of Montana

Gordon Belcourt, former executive director of Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council

Edward Butcher, state legislator

Jerry Daniels, CIA agent in Laos during Vietnam War

Charles E. "Chip" Erdmann, circuit judge of United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, former associate justice of Montana Supreme Court

Mike Mansfield, U.S. representative (1943–1953); U.S. senator (1953–1977); Senate majority leader (1961–1977); U.S. ambassador to Japan (1977–1978); received both B.A. (1933) and M.A. degrees (1934) from university and taught Latin American and Far Eastern History before beginning political career, remained tenured professor until his death; UM library named in his honor

Jim Messina, political staffer, White House deputy chief of staff for President Barack Obama 2009–2011

John Milkovich, member of Louisiana State Senate, reared in Roundup, Montana

Lee Minto, healthcare and women's rights activist and former executive director of Seattle-King County Planned Parenthood

Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to US Congress, elected from Montana

Ted Schwinden, 23rd lieutenant governor of Montana and 19th governor of Montana

Garry South, strategist and commentator, ASUM president (1973–74), national Campaign Manager of the Year (1998), UM Distinguished Alumni Award (2008)

Journalism

Hank Green, half of YouTube channel VlogBrothers; creator of educational YouTube channels Crash Course and SciShow; co-founder of DFTBA Records

Vernon Arnold Haugland, author, AP WWII and NASA reporter, first civilian recipient of the Silver Star

Meg Oliver, anchor of the CBS overnight news program Up to the Minute

Jennifer Servo, broadcast journalist

Molly Wood, executive editor for CNET, host of podcast Buzz Out Loud

Science and academia

David Alt, geology professor and writer

Mark Angelo, founder of World Rivers Day

Jessie M. Bierman, public health physician and academic

Stewart M. Brandborg, conservationist

Ragan Callaway, Regent's Professor of Ecology, expert in ecological facilitation and invasive species research

Carla Dove, ornithologist and leading expert of bird-aircraft strikes

Helen M. Duncan, geologist and paleontologist

R. Thomas Flynn, college administrator who has worked at Rutgers University, Ocean Community College and Monroe Community College

Reynold C. Fuson, chemist

Emily Graslie, host of YouTube channel The Brain Scoop and first ever Chief Curiosity Correspondent at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History

John P. Grotzinger, geology professor

Merilyn Manley-Harris, carbohydrate chemist

Lisa Parks, media scholar

Stanley R. Riggs, coastal geologist

Raymond R. Rogers, geology professor

Steve Running, Regent's Professor of Ecology, expert in global ecosystem monitoring, member of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Harold Urey, physical chemist, won Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for work on isotopes; Harold C. Urey Lecture Hall at university named in his honor

Writers

Judy Blunt, writer of Breaking Clean, currently associate professor at UM

Allie Brosh, blogger, webcomic artist, author; author/illustrator of Hyperbole and a Half

Eduardo Chirinos, Peruvian poet, associate professor at UM

Anthony Cronin, Irish writer and poet, visiting lecturer 1966–1968

Rick DeMarinis, novelist and short story writer who taught at UM

William Finnegan, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Biography/Autobiography for his 2015 memoir Barbarian Days, A Surfing Life

Dan Flores, historian of the American West, professor emeritus of UM

Andrew Sean Greer, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel Less

A.B. Guthrie Jr., Pulitzer Prize–winning author, screenwriter, historian

Shannon Hale, young adult fantasy and adult fiction author

Richard Hugo, poet and professor whose work reflected economic depression in Northwest

Joanna Klink, poet

J. Robert Lennon, writer

Deirdre McNamer, writer

Martin V. Melosi, writer of The Sanitary City and historian

Ed Skoog, writer and poet