News - Media Center

Quick Links

 

News Brief for the week ending February 17, 2012

Montana University System News:

No Rush: Cruzado Agrees to Longer Search for New Dean- “Montana State University President Waded Cruzado agreed on Wednesday to allow more time to search for a new dean for MSU’s biggest college, compromising with faculty who worried that a rushed search wouldn’t find the best candidates,” reports the Missoulian. “At a sometimes feisty town hall meeting for the College of Letters & Science, Cruzado told a crowd of about 150 professors and students that she’d be willing to set a goal of hiring the new dean by Jan. 1, 2013. Waiting until summer 2013 would be too long, she said.  In a rare show of concern, department heads within the college had earlier signed a letter urging MSU’s top leaders not to rush the hiring process.” Read More

Search Committee Formed for New MSU-Great Falls Dean/CEO Search- The Montana State University College of Technology has formed a search committee to find a new dean/CEO for the college. The search committee will be co-chaired by Gwendolyn Joseph, interim dean/CEO for MSU-Great Falls, and Bob Hietala, dean of MSU's Gallatin College Programs in Bozeman. Committee members include faculty, staff, administrators, members of the Great Falls community and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. "This is a very important position for MSU and therefore we will be conducting a national search in order to identify and bring to campus the best possible candidates," said MSU President Waded Cruzado.  Read More

UM Media Arts Program Experiments with Cutting-Edge 3-D Printer- “When a student in the University of Montana's Media Arts program needed a replacement button for his car's emergency brake earlier this semester, he did what anyone from the early age of automobiles probably would have done: He fashioned a new one,” reports the Missoulian. “But instead of whittling it out of wood or hammering it from tin, the student turned to a distinctly modern technology. He created a three-dimensional model of the button on his computer, and then printed it - not just a picture, mind you, but the part itself - in ABS plastic.  It is a trick so new that even many of the students in UM's cutting-edge, technology-meets-art program had never heard of it before late last semester, when UM purchased its first-ever 3-D printer, a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic.”  Read More

Recent MSU Graduate Wins Prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship- Hilary Fabich, who graduated in December from Montana State University with a degree in chemical engineering, has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship that will fund graduate work at the University of Cambridge in England. Fabich is one of 40 Americans, and 50 non-U.S. scholars, to receive the prestigious scholarship funded by the Gates Foundation. Fabich plans to use her Gates Cambridge scholarship to research compressed sensing techniques for magnetic resonance imaging while she obtains a doctorate at Cambridge. "I would not have received this scholarship without the support of my mentors and the resources available at MSU," said Fabich, who grew up near Livingston with a passion for music and had only the vaguest idea of what engineers did before enrolling at MSU. Read More

Northern Launches Fundraising Drive- Montana State University-“Northern’s Foundation sounded the call this week for alumni and friends to help them in “Lighting Up Our Future” — their new fundraising drive,” reports the Havre Daily News. “Just a few days before this year’s We Love Northern Ball, the foundation announced the beginning of their capital campaign, to help with infrastructure on campus and to establish an endowment for scholarships.  The opening gift for the drive came from Independence Bank, which employs many Northern alumni, with a $100,000 donation.  Half of that donation will go to the endowment for scholarships for students.”  Read More

National News:

Obama Budget Sustains Pell Grants, but Cuts Perks- In a 2012 budget blueprint that administration officials portrayed as austere and Republicans derided as profligate, President Obama kept his promise to privilege spending on education and research — though not without some potential pain for programs important to colleges and students.  In many of its priorities and emphases, the president's proposed budget for 2012 stood in stark contrast to legislation put forward by House Republicans on Friday to fund the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, which ends in September. While the GOP measure would slash the maximum Pell Grant by $845, end funding for several other student aid programs (as well as the AmeriCorps national service program), and slice billions of dollars from agencies that support academic research, the Obama budget for 2012 keeps those and other programs largely intact.  Read More

Negotiators Wrap Up Second Week of Deliberating Over Proposed Changes to Student Loan Regulations- Negotiators concluded week two of the student loan negotiated rulemaking process Thursday, with tentative agreement on six issues and pending discussion, recommendations and internal discussion set to take place between now and the committee’s final meeting in March.  In the second of three week-long meetings, the student loan committee is negotiating 25 student loan regulatory issues that will ultimately result in a package of proposed rules to be published for public comment before promulgation of final rules.  Read More

For-Profit Colleges Lose Incentive to Target Vets Under Bills- For-profit colleges would lose a financial incentive to enroll soldiers and veterans under U.S. Senate and House bills aimed at curbing what sponsors call aggressive marketing of subpar programs. For-profit colleges such as Apollo Group Inc. (APOL)’s University of Phoenix can get as much as 90 percent of their revenue from federal financial-aid programs. Schools solicit troops partly because their government-tuition programs are excluded from that cap. Under bills being introduced today by two Democrats, Delaware Senator Thomas Carper and California Congresswoman Jackie Speier, that money would count toward the limit. The law should be changed to protect taxpayers and current and former military members, according to a summary of the Senate bill. For-profit colleges and John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the House education committee, have said such aid restrictions would reduce educational access for veterans who have been neglected by traditional schools. Read More

Colleges Looking Beyond the Lecture- The lecture hall is under attack. Science, math and engineering departments at many universities are abandoning or retooling the lecture as a style of teaching, worried that it’s driving students away. The faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has dedicated this academic year to finding alternatives to the lecture in those subjects. Johns Hopkins, Harvard University and even the White House have hosted events in which scholars have assailed the lecture. Lecture classrooms are the big-box retailers of academia, paragons of efficiency. One professor can teach hundreds of students in a single room, trailed by a retinue of teaching assistants. Read More

The Next Race to the Top? Arne Duncan Outlines Vision for Teacher Reform- The Obama administration is focused on teaching again – but this time it’s hoping to reform the entire profession itself. On Wednesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan spoke to teachers at a town-hall meeting to launch a $5 billion proposal that would try to improve the teaching profession at every level, from the recruitment and training process to the career ladder and pay and tenure systems. “Our goal is to support teachers in rebuilding their profession – and to elevate the teacher voice in shaping federal, state, and local education policy,” Secretary Duncan told the teachers, according to prepared remarks. “Our larger goal is to make teaching not only America’s most important profession – [but also] America’s most respected profession.” Read More

Andrea Opitz/Outreach Coordinator
406.444.0681