Meloy Collection at UM
The art holdings at The University of Montana tripled in June with the permanent loan of the Henry Meloy Collection—almost the entire life’s work of the artist—to the Museum of Fine Arts. Meloy, a Townsend native, was

This self Porttraitof Meloy is an oil painting.

educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and taught at Columbia University. When he died in 1951 at age forty-nine, his family gathered the contents of his studio and brought them home to Montana, where they sold some of his work to provide scholarships for Montana visual arts students.

During Homecoming 1998, an inaugural exhibit will be held at UM’s Paxson Gallery, which will be renamed the Henry Meloy Gallery. UM will curate, exhibit, travel and sell portions of the Meloy collection to benefit the Henry Meloy Educational Trust and the Museum of Fine Arts.

“We are honored to include such a remarkable array of the life work of a major Montana artist in our holdings,” says James Kriley, former dean of the School of Fine Arts, which oversees UM’s permanent collection. “These sorts of transactions are very rare. We thank the Meloy family for this wonderful opportunity.”


Greetings from the President
This summer I attended the Governors’ Summit on Youth: Montana’s Promise—an outgrowth of the 1997 Presidents’ Summit: America’s Promise. As both gatherings focused on finding ways to make a difference in children’s lives, we reconsidered what we thought we knew about the relationship between education and healthy societies. As you read this Montanan, I hope you too will reconsider this dynamic relationship.

We human beings have some remarkable characteristics, perhaps most significantly the relatively slow, but critically interactive, maturation of our young ones. For that process to succeed, children need a healthy start, a relationship with a caring adult, a safe place to grow, a meaningful education and an opportunity to give back to their communities through public service. In my view, a meaningful education ranks first among those five resources.

The more we learn about the way human beings grow and develop, the more it becomes apparent that education is vital to that growth and development. Failing to take an active interest or to stimulate curiosity in babies, for example, undoubtedly hinders their intellectual and emotional development. Children deprived of interaction with another person will resort to increasingly extreme behavior to attract attention. Educators have reported over and over that children respond to expectations, and perform and learn in almost direct relation to those expectations. Certainly we have learned enough to recognize the tremendous cost of depriving our young of the nurturing and education that will help them become healthy adults. But we have yet to act as a society that provides its children all that we know they need.

As you read this issue, I hope you will consider how we as a society can better serve our children. The nearly 1,500 people who attended the Governor’s Summit reaffirmed their commitment to providing these essential resources to an additional 30,000 Montana children by the year 2000. We will need your help to succeed.

George M. Dennison
President


THE SIX MILL LEVY
Supporting A Half Century of Education in Montana
Every ten years, Montanans have a chance to profoundly affect the future of higher education when they go to the polls. On November 3, 1998, Montanans will once again have that chance when they vote on Referendum 113. The referendum asks Montana citizens to support the Montana University System by continuing the current levy on property at the rate of six mills. The levy contributes $14 million per year or 14 percent of state support toward Montana’s six four-year colleges and universities and five colleges of technology, which educate about 35,000 students. On a statewide basis, the levy represents about 1.5 percent of a property owner’s taxes. Owners of a home worth $100,000, for example, would pay $23.

A tax levy to support higher education is not new. In 1923 Montanans first approved a statewide tax levy of one and a half mills to support higher education. It was increased to three mills in 1929 and to three and a half mills in 1940. In 1948 the levy was increased to six mills, and it has been approved at that same six mills by large majorities of voters ever since. The levy was last approved in 1988 by a majority of nearly two to one.

A broad cross section of Montanans support the six mill levy. These supporters include Montana’s congressional delegation and all of Montana’s living governors—Governor Marc Racicot and former governors Stan Stephens, Ted Schwinden, Tom Judge and Tim Babcock. The levy is also backed by a wide array of grassroots groups and organizations in the state including the Montana Chamber of Commerce, the Montana State AFL-CIO, the Montana Farm Bureau Federation and the Republican and Democratic parties.

“Our parents and grandparents enacted the six-mill levy and kept it in effect to provide vital support for higher education for our generation,” says former legislator Bob Brown, director of the 1998 six-mill levy campaign. “Now we have the opportunity to renew that same support for for the next generation of Montanans, who are our children and grandchildren. The six-mill levy has been there for us. Let’s renew it for the future.”

As of press time, the staff at the Montanan was unable to find organized opposition to the six- mill levy.


QAC, Take Three
The third Quality . . . Access . . . Cost conference on the future of public higher education in the West was held in Missoula June 7-9 and was hosted by Montana Governor Marc Racicot, UM President George Dennison and Montana Commissioner of Higher Education Richard Crofts. Business, government and university leaders discussed the hows, wheres and whats of public higher education in the future.

New Student Aid
Excess interest earnings of about $100,000 will be transformed into application-free, repayment-free grants for some UM students, creating the first new state financial aid program in more than twenty years. Eligible students at UM and its sister campuses—Montana Tech, Western Montana College and Helena College of Technology—will receive grants of up to $500 for the 1998-99 academic year through the Montana Tuition Assistance Program. Students who are Montana residents will be selected from the existing applicant pool, based on their need.

Grizzly Encounters
No, not the furry kind. In fact when the Montana Grizzlies officially kicked off the 1998 football season on August 23 with their third annual Great Griz Encounter, there wasn’t a can of pepper spray in sight. The free event featured the usual crowd pleasers—a chance to horse around on the turf at Washington-Grizzly Stadium and get autographs, prizes and Grizzly posters. New this year were free samples of UM’s new line of “Grizzly Edibles” food products. Also new: a chance for kids to feel what it’s like to be a Grizzly receiver and catch a pass from Brian Ah Yat, one of the leading quarterbacks in Division I-AA.

The Last Best Road Trip?
Most Montanans feel tourism is good for the state, according to a survey of 378 Montana households conducted last fall and published by UM’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research. Montanans feel tourism has helped the economy, cultural and historical preservation, parks and recreation, but it has had a negative impact on the natural environment, highways and roads.

And where do Montanans go when they pack their bags? To Washington more than any state according to another ITRR report that is part of a larger study about how, why, where, when and who travels in America. When they’re not headed to the Evergreen State, they’re off to Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota. The most frequent visitors to Montana are—you guessed it—Californians, followed by Washington residents.

Boosting Montana’s Exports
Montana now ranks forty-ninth among the states in international trade. Montana’s new Export Assistance Center at UM, the first in state history, hopes to move Montana up in that ranking. Established by the U.S. Department of Commerce in August, the center is housed with the Montana World Trade Center. It will help small- and medium-sized Montana companies enter the international market, offer export counseling and trade finance services, and provide access to Commerce Department resources, including economic data from 130 countries around the world. Staffed by Mark Peters, a representative of the Commerce Department’s Commercial Service, the center also will work to increase awareness of international trade opportunities among American Indians and companies in rural areas.

Printing and Continuing Ed Find New Home
After twelve months of construction and a few seconds of ribbon-cutting on May 15, the $4.4 million James E. Todd Building opened on the east side of the University Center. Named for the retired vice president, the building’s lower level houses Printing and Graphic Services, which is decorated with refurbished furniture. The main and upper floors are home to Continuing Education and Summer Programs and include conference areas, distance-learning facilities and a technology center.

Grizzly Edibles
Record numbers of Grizzly fans quenched their thirst with bottles of UM spring water last year, placing UM fifth among colleges in sales nationwide. Now a line of Grizzly snack foods is hitting Montana grocery store shelves just in time for the tailgate season. Foods such as bear-shaped pasta, maroon tortilla chips and gummy bears will carry the Montana Grizzlies label and sell at prices ranging from $2.49 to $3.99. Governor Marc Racicot, J.D., a UM law school alumnus, helped his alma mater introduce the new product line to the public during a reception on campus September 11.

Touch that Dial
This year Grizzly fans across Montana can track Grizzly football and basketball and Lady Griz basketball by turning their radio dial to the Grizzly Sports Network. The network will broadcast football and basketball games during the 1998-99 seasons on KGHL-AM, Billings; KOPR-FM, Butte; KXGN-am, Glendive; KMON-AM, Great Falls: KLYQ-AM, Hamilton; KPQX-FM, Havre; KCAP-AM, Helena; KOFI-AM, Kalispell; KXLO-AM, Lewistown; KPRK-AM, Livingston; KMTA-AM and KKRY-FM, Miles City; KGVO-AM, Missoula; KATQ-FM, Plentywood; KCGM-FM, Scobey; and KSEN-AM, Shelby. The broadcast by the Grizzlies’ flagship radio station, KGVO in Missoula will also include half-time shows featuring UM faculty administrators on campus.

Oh Canada!
In May UM President Dennison crossed the border again to sign a long-term agreement with University of Alberta President Rod Fraser that fosters collaborative research and promotes international student exchange. The alliance will emphasize sharing expertise in natural resources, forestry and environmental studies, since Alberta and Montana share a common ecosystem—the Northern Rocky Mountains. The alliance with the Edmonton university is similar to the one forged between UM and the University of Calgary in February.

Appeals at UM
Three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—the second highest court in the nation—heard two criminal and two civil cases at UM’s law school on May 21. The Ninth Circuit Court comprises twenty-eight judges and hears all cases in panels of three judges, typically in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Pasadena. The court session was held in Missoula by special arrangement. The three judges—Harry Pregerson, A. Wallace Tashima and Sidney R. Thomas, J.D. ’78, of Billings—also attended the law school’s annual hooding ceremony.

Farewell to a Friend
Joe Durso, Jr., professor and interim dean of the journalism school, died of a heart attack on July 24, at fifty-two. Durso was to serve as interim dean for the second consecutive year, while a nationwide search for a permanent dean was conducted. With a master’s from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Durso spent fourteen years as a broadcast journalist in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. He came to UM in 1984, where he chaired the radio-television department until 1993. Over the years he taught reporting, writing and broadcast news, and advised the award-winning Student Documentary Unit and UM’s Rodeo Club (see page 8). Durso co-authored two books, a forthcoming book on writing broadcast news with Mervin Block and a biography Growing Up Western.

Carol Van Valkenburg will succeed Durso as interim journalism dean for 1998-99.

Fort Missoula: The Park
A new chapter in the development of Fort Missoula began on August 18 with the transfer of about 100 acres of land from UM to the city of Missoula. UM President George Dennison and Missoula Mayor Mike Kadas signed a contract sealing the $689,290 land sale during a noontime celebration at Fort Missoula. The state Board of Regents and the state Land Board approved the sale.

In accepting the city’s bid to purchase the land at the appraised price of $7,000 an acre, Dennison said the city’s proposal to preserve the land for open space and public recreation best suits UM’s goals for the property. “The city intends to use this land to serve the community while also respecting the views of a majority of the residents,” he said. UM received two bids for the land—the city’s and one from Billings-based JTL Construction, which proposed using the land to mine gravel

The acquisition of land at Fort Missoula provides a site for Missoula’s first regional park, and Dennison presented Kadas with a $1,000 check to launch the fund raising for the regional recreation complex. Fort Missoula, a cornerstone of Missoula’s Open Space System, was listed on the 1995 open space bond ballot as a potential purchase. About $1.5 million now remains in the open space bond fund, which also helped pay for Mount Jumbo and North Hills land purchases.

Campus Cutbacks
UM has waived plans to build a $12.5 million parking structure west of Harry Adams Events Center. The two-story parking garage would have helped alleviate the campus parking problem by providing about 870 additional spaces, but the $14,368-per-space price tag was just too high.
The structure was part of a Series E bond issue. UM cut its initial bond request from about $48 million to $10.1 million. Some of the projects cut include a $2.3 million child care facility on campus and a new family housing project at Montana Tech. Left in the loop were a $3.6 million enhancement of the University Center and a $2 million one-stop center for academic and career services called the Center for Student Success.


UM’s New Vice President
V. Scott Cole replaced James Todd as UM’s vice president for Administration and Finance on August 24. Cole came from Arizona State University at Tempe where he was chief planning officer since 1996. While at ASU, Cole developed a $234 million, five-year capital improvement plan for the university system campuses, including $100 million for ASU. Cole will serve as chief fiscal and administrative officer for UM’s four campuses and will oversee Facilities Services, Human Resource Services, the Budget Office, Business Services, the Office of Campus Security and the Center at Salmon Lake.

James Todd retired effective July 1. Known as “James Bond,” Todd led bonding projects for campus buildings totaling $150 million during his seven-year tenure at UM.

Distinguished Alumni Awards
A documentary producer, a theater professor, a retired state advocate, a lawyer, an English teacher and a geology professor will be honored as outstanding alumni during the 1998 Homecoming festivities.

John J. “Jack” Cloherty, Jr. ’72, the Washington, D.C.-based senior producer of NBC’s “Dateline,” has garnered awards for investigative reporting on politics, commerce and social services.

Felicia Hardison Londre ’62, M.A. ’65, Ph.D. ’69, is a theater professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and an accomplished author, performer and director.

Donna A. Hoover Metcalf ’35, Senator Lee Metcalf’s widow and closest adviser, organized the Forever Wild Endowment and served as trustee to the Ruth Mott Fund.

John O. “Jack” Mudd, J.D. ’73, a partner with Garlington, Lohn & Robinson, was a professor and dean at UM’s law school from 1979 to 1988, where he made changes in the curriculum that influenced legal education nationwide.

Anne M. Sullivan ’70, who taught English, speech and debate at Bozeman High School for twenty-six years, coached ten state championship speech teams and seventeen state champions.

Lee A. Woodward ’53, ’58, M.S. ’59, a geology professor at the University of New Mexico for more than thirty years, was instrumental in establishing the Rio Grande Rift as a major tectonic feature.



Earth to Venus
Scientists are studying the effects of greenhouse gases on the Earth’s atmosphere by using flux towers, nearly seventy of them, which monitor local CO2 and water changes around the globe. Steve Running, a UM forestry

Aerial view of Venus' Tick Volcano

professor and leading expert on biospheric climate change, began collaborating such international information by organizing a FLUXNET meeting in Polson in June. Along with seventy global-warming experts from thirteen countries, Running created a blueprint for the FLUXNET system—a worldwide exchange of information about greenhouse gases and global warming.

One planet away, Venus is another site for UM research. David Opitz, a computer science assistant professor, is working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop software that will classify and map volcanoes and other features on the surface of Venus. Researchers estimate that there are a million active volcanoes dotting the surface of Venus, but it would take ten to twenty years to find them among the 30,000 images of Venus taken by the Magellan spacecraft in the early 1990s. Opitz, who specializes in machine learning, envisions crafting software that would allow human operators to give suggestions and modify the learning algorithms as the program examines the Venus data.


Commencement 101
On May 16, students—2,562 of them—went through commencement and listened to an address by George McGovern, former U.S. senator and 1972 Democratic nominee for president who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural agencies in Rome. Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees were awarded to journalist Mel Ruder, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Montana’s 1964 floods, and historian Stephen E. Ambrose, whose book, Undaunted Courage, about the Lewis and Clark expedition won international acclaim and will become an ABC mini-series.