Around the Oval

Confluence Of Cultures

Interested alumni and friends may want to join The University of Montana as it kicks off the first major Montana event commemorating the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, A Confluence of Cultures: Native Americans and the Expedition of Lewis and Clark. The three-day symposium will run May 28-30, offering a uniquely Indian perspective on the Corps of Discovery and its pivotal impact on American history.

“The Native American voice really has not been heard yet when it comes to Lewis and Clark,” says symposium organizer David Purviance. “We hope to challenge both Indian and non-Indian scholars to investigate the difficult questions underlying the legacy of encounters between the explorers and native people.”

Faculty members and students from thirty tribal colleges and forty-four other institutions of higher learning have been invited to present their research, detailing how life has changed for tribes and tribal culture in the wake of the Corps of Discovery and the Euro-American tide that followed.

Among the speakers are Johnny Arlee, a Salish elder and producer of a pageant on Salish traditions and his tribe’s encounter with Lewis and Clark; Harry Fritz, chair of the UM history department and a nationally recognized expert on the Corps of Discovery; and Jim Holmberg, curator of special collections at the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky, and author of Dear Brother: Letters of William Clark to Jonathon Clark.

The symposium will include music, art, storytelling, dance, dramatic performances, an encampment, and humorous performances about the intrepid explorers. Registration information is available online at www.umt.edu/cultures. pping indicates that, like spoilers on a race car, the wing beats helped press the birds against the uphill slope, improving the traction of their legs on the ground.

In his findings, recently published in the journal Science, Dial proposes that the feathered forelimbs of some small two-legged dinosaurs may have helped the animals run up inclined or even vertical surfaces—during a chase, for example. This sort of flapping motion involves a different set of forces than those involved in aerial flight.

Dial suggests that by modifying these wing movements, birds or their ancestors may have been able to launch themselves briefly into the air and control their descent as they ran downhill. He speculates true flight may ultimately have evolved from these beginnings.

Montanan readers now have an easy way of letting us know what they think of the magazine—a discussion board connected to the Montanan site on the UM Web pages.

Montanan Chat is posted at the top of the Montanan page. On entering the chat area, the users are asked to do a simple and quick registration for security purposes. Then they are able to post their comments to the board.

Originally, Montanan staff looked at creating a site that would allow for mini-surveys of readers that would elicit opinions about each feature article in the magazine.

Technical problems nixed that idea, at least for the time being, but we’re hoping to gather reader reaction to what we do through the discussion board.

At the end of each article posted on the Web, the reader has the opportunity to link to Montanan Chat to give an opinion about that article. Readers can log onto the site after perusing the magazine and tell us what they think. Montanan Chat also will allow readers to communicate among themselves on particular issues.

As you might imagine, we’re excited about this new way of connecting with our readership and we encourage you to voice your opinion about anything and everything to do with the magazine.

Our Web guru has included a guest map along with the Montanan Chat. Readers can put a push pin at the geographical area where they live and post a comment. Log on to our site at www.umt.edu/comm, claim your spot on the guest map, then register with Montanan Chat and tell us what you think. We can’t wait to hear from you.