CAMPUS REPORT
DATE: January 15, 2002
TO: Board of Regents
FROM: W. Franklin Gilmore, Chancellor, Montana Tech of The University of Montana
RE: Campus Report for the January 17-18, 2002 Board of Regents' Meeting
Dr. Kumar Ganesan, Environmental Engineering, received about $750,000 from the Montana EPA-EPSCoR research program for 2001-03. Half the dollar amount comes from EPA and the balance from state matching.
Dr. Mary MacLaughlin, Geological Engineering, and Michael Stickney, Montana Bureau of Mines & Geology, have been invited by the Montana DNRC Dam Safety Program to serve on the Oversight Committee for the development of Earthquake Ground Shaking Maps for the state of Montana.
Dr. Mary MacLaughlin has published "Investigation of slope stability kinematics using discontinuous deformation analysis" in the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences.
Dr. Mary MacLaughlin has been selected to co-chair a session on "Numerical Modeling/Modeling of Fractured Rock Masses" at NARMS-TAC 2002 to be held in Canada in July 2002.
The Montana Dept. of Corrections has renewed the contract to provide wellness service from the Safety, Health, & I.H. Dept. to inmates at Montana State Prison. The research on this program has produced four publications in peer-reviewed journals concerning service learning and health and fitness for inmates.
The Mine Waste Technology Program is anticipating up to $300,000 available for researching mine waste topics starting in late 2002. The deadline for proposals is mid-January.
The Montana Tech Circle K Club sponsored the Fall Leadership Training Conference for 40 Circle K members from The University of Montana, MSU, Rocky Mountain College, Carroll College, and Montana Tech campuses.
The MUS has been awarded the BRIN grant from NIH and had the first planning meeting in November. The objective of the grant is to make Montana universities more competitive in health related fields and research.
Tech hosted a scholarship banquet on November 6, 2001 to honor all scholarship donors and student recipients. Over $614,000 in awards was given this year.
Dr. Dan Trudnowski, General Engineering, in cooperation with Bob Gunderson of MSU, will be developing an autonomous navigation and control system for small mobile robots to be used for remote rescues. The grant is for $40,000.
Montana Tech has received nearly $8 million in grants to help the college upgrade computer labs from either the federal government or private corporations.
The operational capabilities of the Earthquake Studies Office of the Montana Bureau of Mines & Geology have been substantially upgraded. The US Geological Survey provided new monitoring stations over the last two years and in November 2001, the USGS provided a new state-of-the-art seismic-data acquisition and processing system and personnel to help install it.
The college received information that three major initiatives will be funded by the Congress at the level of $900,000 in FY02. Two of these are direct campus efforts while a third is a joint venture with St. James Health Care:
- The Dept. of Commerce will participate in a $300,000 effort to establish an economic resource center. This will provide a focus at Tech to support regional economic development and to couple the campus resources to local economic development offices and continuing, growing or new business in the region.
- The US Dept. of Interior will participate with Tech in the beginning of a $200,000/year study of extremophilic life in the Berkeley Pit Lake and applications to remediation and pharmacology.
- The US Dept. of Labor will provide an initial $400,000 to St. James Health Care in Butte to develop a National Center for Health Care Infomatics. Tech is a founding partner in this consortium and will provide educational programming to support the initiative.