From The Montana State University (US)
via
Sky & Telescope
January 11, 2022
Govert Schilling
Artist’s impression of an outflow coming from a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Astronomers can find massive black holes even in dwarf galaxies by looking for emission related to their outflows.
Credit: Lynette Cook NASA / SOFIA | The National Aeronautics and Space Agency(US)/The DLR German Aerospace Center [Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.](DE)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration(US)/DLR German Aerospace [Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.](DE)SOFIA airborne telescope and cameras
Massive black holes in the cores of puny dwarf galaxies are much more common than previously thought, according to new results presented at an American Astronomical Society (US) press conference Monday. The findings will help astronomers to understand how the newly born universe spawned supermassive black holes in the first place.
Most large galaxies like our own Milky Way harbor supermassive black holes, weighing in at millions or even billions of solar masses. If actively accreting material from their surroundings, they can sometimes outshine their host galaxy. Such quasars have been observed in the early universe, indicating that massive black holes grew incredibly fast from smaller “seeds.”
However, astronomers don’t know the nature of these first seeds. Maybe the growth process started with the ubiquitous remnants of the very first generation of extremely massive stars, known as Population III stars. These black hole “seeds” would have had up to about 100 times the mass of the Sun and could have gained additional bulk through subsequent collisions and mergers.
Alternatively, huge unstable masses of primordial gas could have fallen into galactic centers, directly collapsing into very massive black holes (up to a few hundred thousand solar masses) in one fell swoop.
Since the early universe is difficult to study in detail, astronomers focus on nearby dwarf galaxies. While larger galaxies like the Milky Way are the result of mergers, “dwarf galaxies have remained relatively untouched over cosmic time,” explains Mallory Molina (The Montana State University (US)). So if dwarfs host massive black holes, these provide a window into the past.
So far, a handful of giant black holes have been found in dwarf galaxies, mainly in rather massive ones with little star-forming activity. But in a December 1st paper in The Astrophysical Journal, a team led by Molina and Amy Reines (also at Montana State) presents evidence for the existence of supermassive black holes in 81 dwarfs that are both smaller and more actively forming stars.
This mosaic shows dwarf galaxies that are part of Molina’s sample.
Credit: Mallory Molina.
Previous surveys missed these black holes because their broad visible-light emission is washed out by the stronger glow of star-forming regions. To see past the light of newborn stars, the astronomers looked for a red emission line of highly ionized iron atoms in spectroscopic data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey for tens of thousands of dwarf galaxies.
SDSS Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, near Sunspot NM, USA, Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).
Apache Point Observatory near Sunspot, New Mexico Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).
Starlight is not energetic enough to produce this extreme level of ionization, but X-rays from hot gas blown away by a central black hole can do the trick.
The team’s systematic search only revealed active black holes, so the total percentage of dwarf galaxies harboring supermassive black holes is still unknown. “That’s the million-dollar question in the field,” says Molina. “What we have found is only the tip of the iceberg.” Still, the new result has implications for our ideas about the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe.
As Ryan Hickox (Dartmouth College (US)) explains, the direct collapse scenario cannot have been very common. “It’s hard to compress large volumes of gas in a tiny region of space, as they would tend to fragment,” he says. So the more supermassive black holes you find in dwarf galaxies, the less likely it is that they are all due to direct collapse.
Mrk 462 is a dwarf galaxy in Canes Venatici, lying to the right of the HCG 68 group of compact galaxies in this image. X-rays from the dwarf galaxy’s massive black hole are shown in the inset.
Credit: J. Parker & R. Hickox X-ray: The NASA Chandra X-ray Center (US)/ Dartmouth College (US); Optical / IR:The University of Hawai’i (US) Pan-STARRS telescope.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chandra X-ray telescope(US).
U Hawaii (US) Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System is a 1.8-meter diameter telescope situated at Haleakala Observatories near the summit of Haleakala, altitude 10,023 ft (3,055 m) on the Island of Maui, Hawaii, USA. It is equipped with the world’s largest digital camera, with almost 1.4 billion pixels.
At the same press conference, Hickox presented unpublished Chandra X-ray Observatory data of the dwarf galaxy Markarian 462, which indicate the presence of a supermassive black hole heavily obscured by dust. “This is one of the first obscured black holes in a dwarf galaxy,” he says. “Such objects might have been missed so far in earlier surveys, so this also points to a much larger population.”
“Both studies seem to support the idea that big black holes are actually pretty common in dwarf galaxies, just harder to detect than supermassive black holes in ‘normal’-size galaxies,” says Sera Markoff (The University of Amsterdam [Universiteit van Amsterdam](NL)), who was not involved in either study. “And that would favor the Population III model [for the origin of supermassive black holes], although it’s still a big problem how exactly they would grow so fast.”
Unfortunately, observations of dwarf galaxies in the local universe are not going to entirely answer the question of the origin of supermassive black holes. “Although growth from smaller seeds now starts to look like the more reasonable scenario,” Molina says, “what we really need is to watch their formation in the early universe. The James Webb Space Telescope may finally nail it down.”
See the full article here.
five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
Stem Education Coalition
The Montana State University (US) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state’s largest university. The Montana State University offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master’s degrees in 68 fields, and doctoral degrees in 35 fields through its nine colleges. More than 16,700 students attended Montana State University in fall 2019, taught by 796 full-time and 547 part-time faculty.
The Montana State University is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and had research expenditures of $129.6 million in 2017.
Located on the south side of Bozeman, the university’s 1,170 acres (470 ha) campus is the largest in the state. The university’s main campus in Bozeman is home to KUSM Television, KGLT Radio, and The Museum of the Rockies. The Montana State University provides outreach services to citizens and communities statewide through its agricultural experiment station and 60 county and reservation extension offices. The elevation of the campus is 4,900 feet (1,500 m) above sea level.
Montana became a state on 8 November 1889. Several cities competed intensely to be the state capital, the city of Bozeman among them. In time, the city of Helena was named the state capital. As a consolation, the state legislature agreed to put the state’s land-grant college in Bozeman. Gallatin County donated half of its 160-acre poor farm for the campus, and money for an additional 40 acres, which had been planned to hold a state capital, was raised by the community, including a $1,500 donation from rancher and businessman Nelson Story, Sr. This land, as well as additional property and monetary contributions, was now turned over to the state for the new college.
The Montana State University was founded in 1893 as the Agricultural College of the State of Montana. It opened on 16 February with five male and three female students. The first classes were held in rooms in the county high school, and later that year in the shuttered Bozeman Academy (a private preparatory school). The first students were from Bozeman Academy, and were forced to transfer to the college. Only two faculty existed on opening day: Luther Foster, a horticulturalist from South Dakota who was also Acting President, and Homer G. Phelps, who taught business. Within weeks, they were joined by S.M. Emery (who ran the agricultural experiment station) and Benjamin F. Maiden (an English teacher from the former Bozeman Academy). Augustus M. Ryon, a coal mine owner, was named the first president of the college on 17 April 1893. Ryon immediately clashed with the board of trustees and faculty. Where the trustees wanted the college to focus on agriculture, Ryon pointed out that few of its students intended to go back to farming. While the rapidly expanding faculty wanted to establish a remedial education program to assist unprepared undergraduates (Montana’s elementary and secondary public education system was in dire shape at the time), Ryon refused. The donation of the Story land to the college occurred in 1894, but Ryon was forced out in 1895 and replaced by the Rev. Dr. James R. Reid, a Presbyterian minister who had been president of the Montana College at Deer Lodge since 1890.
The college grew quickly under Reid, who provided 10 years of stability and harmony. The student body grew so fast that the high school building was completely taken over by the college. A vacant store on Main Street was rented to provide additional classroom space. Both the Agricultural Experiment Station (now known as Taylor Hall) and the Main Building (now known as Montana Hall) were constructed in 1896, although the agricultural building was the first to open. Both structures were occupied in 1898. The university football team was established in 1897, and the college graduated its first four students that same year. The curriculum expanded into civil and electrical engineering in 1898.
The college suffered greatly during the Great Depression. The price of agricultural products (Montana’s economic mainstay) soared during World War I, as European and Russian farms were devastated by military campaigns, in which American and European armies demanded food. For a few years after the war, these prices remained high. But as European agriculture began to improve, an agricultural depression swamped the United States beginning about 1923. State tax revenues plunged, and fewer buildings were constructed on campus after 1923. The United States entered the Great Depression in 1929. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933 to provide federal funding for public works construction as a means of economic stimulus. But President Atkinson was strongly opposed to Roosevelt’s New Deal, and refused to accept PWA funds to expand the college. With the state unable to assist, Montana State College stagnated through the 1930s.
President Atkinson resigned in 1937 to become president of The University of Arizona (US). A. L. Strand, an entomologist who had discovered ways of controlling the devastating locust invasions in Montana, was named the new president. Strand was the first graduate of the college to become its president. An upsurge in campus drinking occurred after the end of Prohibition, and in 1940 the Student Union Building (now Strand Union Building) was built to provide students with a gathering spot on campus that (it was hoped) would keep them away from the saloons downtown.
President Strand resigned his office in 1942 to accept the presidency of The Oregon State University (US) (in which role he served for 19 years). With Montana still not yet having emerged from the Great Depression, the college struggled to find a new president. Engineering professor William Cobleigh took over as Acting President until from 1942 to 1943 while a replacement for Strand was found. During Cobleigh’s year as president, college enrollment plunged as young men entered the armed forces or left to work in war industry plants on the West Coast. Nonetheless, federal funding increased as the United States Department of War sought rapid, significant increases in the number of chemical, engineering, and physics graduates to feed the war effort.
In 1943, the state board of higher education appointed Montana State College economist Roland “Rollie” Renne to be the new acting president of the college. Renne was a protege of nationally known liberal economists Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons and a strong proponent of the New Deal. He’d taught at The Montana State University since 1930, although he’d taken a leave of absence in 1942 to become the director of Montana’s Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (a federal wartime agency). Renne was named the permanent president of the college on 1 July 1944.
Renne was president of the college for 21 years, the third-longest of any individual (as of 2013). With the passage of the G.I. Bill just eight days before his appointment and the end of the war in sight, Renne realized that servicemen returning from the war were going to flood college campuses. Renne quickly began hiring additional faculty and recycled wartime wooden buildings from around the state to build temporary classroom and housing space. His foresight helped the college survive the rapid rise in enrollment, which doubled from 1,155 in 1945 to 2,014 in 1946 and then nearly doubled again in 1947 to 3,591. Faculty numbers also skyrocketed, from 132 in 1945 to 257 in 1950. Believing that a college education was as much about instilling democratic values as teaching skills and trades, Renne rapidly changed the curriculum to emphasize liberal arts such as anthropology, archeology, history, political science, psychology, and sociology. Although The University of Montana (US) (long considered the state’s “liberal arts college”, while Montana State College was the “ag school”) opposed much expansion in this area, Renne successfully established a Department of Education, reconstituted the School of Business, and established new undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture, geography, geology, military science, and other disciplines.
Throughout the 1950s, Renne worked to rapidly expand the college’s physical plant. During his presidency, 18 major buildings were constructed on campus — more than double the number that had been built between 1893 and 1944, and almost as many as were built between 1966 and 2013. These included the 1949 Library Building (now Renne Library), the campus’ first dedicated library (it had previously been housed in a few rooms on the second floor of Montana Hall), and the 1958 Brick Breeden Fieldhouse (which supplemented the aging, outdated Romney Gym). The construction program included a chapel (Danforth Chapel in 1950), five large classroom buildings (McCall Hall in 1952, A.J.M. Johnson Hall in 1954, Reid Hall in 1959, Cooley Laboratory in 1960, and Gaines Hall in 1961), and seven residential and dining halls (Hannon Hall in 1954; Johnstone Hall in 1955; Culbertson Hall, Harrison Dining Hall, Mullan Hall, and Langford Hall in 1955; and Hapner Hall in 1959). Begun under his presidency but completed the year after he left were three more residential and dining halls (North Hedges, South Hedges, and Miller Dining Hall).
There was some criticism that Renne did not pay full attention to the college in the 1950s. His governance style was somewhat authoritarian, and his extended absences led to leadership vacuums. He agreed to consulting roles with the Water Resources Policy Commission, Mutual Security Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Department of State (US), and The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (US) throughout the 1950s that often took him away from campus for weeks at a time. He took a leave of absence from the college to become Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for International Affairs from 1963 to 1964.
Dr. Renne resigned as president of Montana State College effective 1 January 1964, to run for Governor of Montana. He lost the election, 51.4 to 48.6 percent, to incumbent governor Tim Babcock.
Campus life was not without its controversy during Renne’s tenure, either. With McCarthyism and anti-communist feeling running high in the country, Renne sought to protect the campus from political investigations by restricting student speech and assembly. He also restricted the kind of speakers who visited the campus, most famously denying former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and literary critic Leslie Fiedler the right to speak on campus. Other incidents also brought notoriety to campus. On 7 March 1957, 1,000 male students engaged in a “panty raid” on Hannon Hall. It turned into a riot that took all night to control.
In February 1964, Dr. Leon H. Johnson was appointed president of Montana State College. A research chemist who joined the college in 1943, he had most recently been the executive director of school’s Endowed and Research Foundation (at the time, Montana State College’s largest research unit) and Dean of the Graduate Division. Deeply committed to the college’s research function, he pushed for Montana State College to be named a university — a change Renne had since the early 1950s, and which the Montana state legislature approved on 1 July 1965. At that time, the school received its new name, Montana State University. Bachelor’s degree programs in economics, English, history, music, political science, and other disciplines were quickly established, as was the first university honors program. Johnson was a devoted admirer of the arts, and Montana State University’s art and music programs blossomed. Johnson quickly worked to end the acrimonious relationship with the University of Montana, and the two schools began to present a united front to the state legislature.
In 1966, Johnson altered and enlarged the university’s administrative structure to help cope with increasing enrollment and increasing campus complexity. These changes included creating a 12-member executive council to advise him. The council included newly created vice presidents — overseeing areas such as academic affairs, administration, finance and research.
Johnson was deeply conservative — fiscally, socially, and politically. He was deeply committed to continuing Renne’s educational plan, but declined to spend money on new buildings (preferring to consolidate and renovate rather than expand). He also continued Renne’s policies largely barring from campus speakers who were not clearly in the political mainstream. Johnson’s policies were largely supported by the student body and the taxpaying public. Montana State University practiced a policy known as in loco parentis, in which it acted as a “parent” toward the “children” attending school there. Students themselves accepted these restrictions, which included dress codes, older adult chaperones at dances, a ban on alcohol, and mandatory military training for freshmen and sophomores. Although many American college campuses were engulfed by student radicalism, Montana State University’s student body was as conservative as Johnson was, however, and for many years the biggest issues on campus were ending Saturday morning classes and building student parking lots.
There were some campus protests, however. The first protest against the Vietnam War occurred in 1966 (drawing about 100 students), two underground student newspapers briefly appeared, and some students organized clubs to debate issues of the day. There were minor faculty and student protests when Johnson attempted to prevent English professor James Myers from assigning students to read James Baldwin’s novel Another Country, and in the summer of 1968 a few faculty organized a symposium on the war. When about 150 students rallied in front of Montana Hall in 1969 to ask for co-ed and “open visitation” dorms (e.g., to allow men into women’s dorm rooms, and vice versa), Johnson threatened to call out the city police.
Montana State University’s Bobcat Stadium saw its genesis during the Johnson years. Growing student unrest over the football team’s use of decrepit Gatton Field (while the basketball team used modern Brick Breeden Fieldhouse) led to a proposal by Johnson in April 1968 to build a 16,000-seat stadium funded by student fees. The proposal failed in December 1968 after students argued that the university should concurrently build a new fitness center as well.
President Johnson died of a heart attack on 18 June 1969. He’d suffered a heart attack in October 1968, and then underwent surgery out of state in April 1969.
William Johnstone, a professor of education and Vice President for Administration at Montana State University, took over as Acting President. He was the first and (as of 2013) the only Montanan to become president of Montana State University. Johnstone pledged to build the fitness center first, and in December 1969 the student body approved the finance plan for the new football stadium. On 2 April 1970, about 250 students engaged in a sit-in in Montana Hall to protest Myers’ termination, but it ended peacefully a day later. Myers was terminated, and another eight faculty resigned in protest. But during his year in office, the university completed Cobleigh Hall (ironically named for the last individual to be named acting president).
Dr. Carl W. McIntosh was named Montana State University’s eighth president in June 1970. Previously the president of 28,000-student The California State University-Long Beach (US), McIntosh brought a consultative and deliberate style of decision-making to the university. He faced a poor fiscal climate: The state was entering a decade-long depression brought about by a steep drop in commodity prices, the state’s higher education system had grown too large and unwieldy, and Governor Thomas L. Judge had established a blue-ribbon committee to close several of the state’s colleges. In 1974, women faculty at Montana State University sued, alleging gender discrimination. They won their suit in 1976, leading to a $400,000 damages award, a back-pay award, and extensive promotions (which also increased salaries). To accommodate these fiscal realities, McIntosh ordered several doctoral and master’s degree programs terminated, and all advanced degree programs in the social sciences and liberal arts canceled.
But McIntosh also scored a number of successes. In 1972, he persuaded the legislature to allow Montana State University to participate in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI) medical education program, which allowed 20 (now 30) Montana citizens per year to begin medical school at Montana State University before completing studies at The University of Washington (US). The college of nursing (Sherrick Hall) was finished in 1973, and after three long years of construction Reno H. Sales Stadium (now Bobcat Stadium and Martel Field) and the Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center both opened. In 1974, the long-planned Creative Arts Complex (Cheever Hall, Haynes Hall, and Howard Hall) was also completed. Unfortunately, major increases in inflation led to significant design changes. Instead of a 1,200-seat concert hall with superb acoustics, a cramped and aurally dead 260-seat auditorium was built. Finally, in 1976, the university completed the new medical science building, Leon Johnson Hall.
In 1976, the “hidden million” controversy ended McIntosh’s tenure as president. In 1975, Montana’s first Commissioner of Higher Education, Dr. Lawrence K. Pettit (a former Montana State University professor of political science) launched an investigation of several Montana colleges and universities. He was particularly interested in Montana State University, where McIntosh’s laid-back governance style was widely considered to have hurt the university. In March 1976, Pettit announced he was confiscating $1 million in surplus student fees from Montana State University — money he argued the university was trying to hide from state auditors and the legislature. In fact, the monies were the result of excessively high enrollment in the 1974–1975 school year, and were intended to help see the university through the 1975–1976 school year (when the legislature would not meet, and thus could not provide the needed budgetary boost to handle the over-enrollment). Pettit all but accused Montana State University and McIntosh of fraud, and McIntosh refused to attack Pettit’s statements as mischaracterizations and slander. The public outcry about the “hidden million” led the Board of Regents to request McIntosh’s resignation on 30 June 1977, which he tendered. (Pettit resigned the following year, his combative attempt to turn the commissioner’s office into a sort of chancellorship having failed.)
Dr. William Tietz, Montana State University’s ninth president, arrived in August 1977 just as economic conditions in the state were improving. With three of the four vice presidencies at the university open, Tietz imposed his stamp on the administration almost immediately. This included a strong emphasis on research, faculty development, better teaching, and diversity (particularly for Native Americans, the handicapped, and women). His aggressiveness, energy, and immediate rebudgeting of funds into faculty sabbaticals helped win over professors, who voted against unionization in 1978. Tietz’s major goal, increasing research funding, was greatly helped by a 1981 decision of the legislature to refund indirect cost payments back to the university. This led to an immediate 15 percent recovery of in federal funds, and in time private foundation funding rose significantly as well.
Only two buildings were constructed during Tietz’s presidency — the Visual Communications Building in 1983 and the Plant Growth Center in 1987. Most of his focus as president was on raising salaries. A third building, the modern home of the Museum of the Rockies, opened in 1989. But this structure was paid for by bonds. Faculty salaries had declined 23 percent during the 1970s (due to wage freezes) and Montana State University was in the bottom 10 percent of salaries for faculty nationwide. Cooperative Extension Service salaries were dead last in the nation. The state legislature implemented a new salary funding formula that rectified many of these problems. Some university programs were also reestablished, such as the honors program, and some new ones formed, such as the Writing Center.
The state once more entered a severe economic downturn in the mid-1980s. Budget cuts totaling nearly 10 percent, coupled with an enrollment shortfall, led to significant retrenchment. Tietz argued Montana State University should focus on its strongest programs. Thus, a wide array of programs were terminated: Membership in the Center for Research Libraries; sports like skiing, women’s gymnastics, and wrestling; degree programs like engineering science, business education, and industrial arts; and the office of institutional research. Departments were merged and downsized, and Tietz proposed closing the School of Architecture. A battle broke out to save it, and Tietz backed off his decision. Tietz increasingly blamed Governor Ted Schwinden for a failure to support higher education, and lashed out repeatedly against the governor when Schwinden publicly ridiculed Montana State University’s new Tech Park (a 90-acre (360,000 m2) project designed to function as a technology incubator). Although a second faculty unionization effort failed in 1989, Tietz resigned in March 1990, frustrated by the constant battles with an “old guard” resistant to turning Montana State University toward high technology.
Michael P. Malone was named Montana State University’s Acting President on 1 January 1991, and permanently appointed to the position in March 1991, Malone was named Montana State University’s 10th president. He had served as Montana State University’s Dean of Graduate Studies from 1979 to 1988, and then three one-year temporary appointments as vice president for Academic Affairs while a fruitless nation search occurred for a permanent replacement. As Dean of Graduate Studies, he’d been critical of what he perceived as the state’s unwillingness to invest in high technology education.
Malone’s governance style was democratic, friendly, and personal. His friendly style made him personally popular with legislators and earned their respect. Nonetheless, he was criticized for focusing too much about how little money Montana State University had and for criticizing the legislature too much for not investing in higher education.
Malone was the first Montana State University president to preside over the Billings, Great Falls, and Havre campuses. On 1 July 1994, Montana restructured the Montana University System. The Eastern Montana College in Billings, The Montana Northern College in Havre, and the Vocational-Technical Center in Great Falls lost their independence and were made satellite campuses of Montana State University. Although Montana’s seven tribal colleges remained independent (as they are sponsored by sovereign nations), the state required them to integrate their teaching, operations, and academic operations with both Montana State University and The University of Montana (US) in order to continue to receive state funding.
Montana State University celebrated its centennial in 1993.
During Malone’s presidency, Montana State University witnessed “one of the greatest expansions in campus history”, as a large number of new buildings were constructed. These included the $1 million Centennial Mall (1993), the $22 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Building, the $10 million Bobcat Stadium renovation, the $13.5 million renovation of Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, the $12 million Agricultural Biosciences Building (1999), and the $7.5 million Renne Library renovation (1999). A strong sports fan, Malone’s focus extended to sports personnel as well as sports facilities. In 1999, he fired Bobcats football head coach Cliff Hysell after eight losing seasons and hired Mike Kramer, the winning coach at The Eastern Washington University (US). In October 1999, he fired Montana State University women’s basketball head coach Tracey Sheehan and assistant coach Jeff Malby after an NCAA investigation revealed that the two coaches were overworking their team and causing injuries to student-athletes.
Like William Tietz before him, Malone also pushed hard for faculty and the university to seek and win federal funding for scientific research. Federal research funding grew from just $13 million in the late 1980s to more than $50 million in 1999. The undergraduate curriculum was revamped, enrollment hit a historic high of 11,746 students in 1999, and the Burns Telecommunications Center was established. Malone benefitted from a strong economy that eased many of the fiscal pressures Tietz faced. He expanded alumni fund-raising programs, and pushed the Montana State University Foundation to redouble its fund-raising efforts. But the legislature was not forthcoming with salary increases. He weathered a strike by clerical and administrative support staff in 1992. He was later criticized, however, for initiating projects without having the money to complete them and then using the subsequent construction crisis to raise the funds to finish the project. Tuition doubled during his time in office, angering students, and some faculty criticized his willingness to construct new buildings while declining to pay for teaching equipment.
The Montana State University community was shocked when Malone died of a heart attack on 21 December 1999, at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport. He was the second Montana State University president to die in office, and the second to die of heart failure.
Malone’s successor, Geoffrey Gamble, was named the 11th president of Montana State University on 5 October 2000. His governance style was open and consultative. In addition to making the president’s executive council more representative and reaching out to the Faculty Senate, he established a new 25-member University Planning, Budget and Analysis Committee to establish the budget. Legislatively, Gamble promoted Montana State University’s accomplishments, praised legislators for their financial support (even when it was not forthcoming), and spoke of state funding for the university in terms of investment that led to economic and job growth. According to Cathy Conover, Montana State University’s chief legislative lobbyist, Gamble’s style was “a sea change” that led the Republican-dominated state legislature to rave about him.
Montana State University also implemented the “Core 2.0 curriculum” during Gamble’s tenure as president. This program encourages undergraduate students to engage in research or practice their art prior to graduation.
Gamble also focused on research. Between 2000 and 2009, federal research funding at Montana State University grew by 61 percent to $98.4 million. Gamble trademarked the name “University of the Yellowstone” to reflect the high level of research Montana State University conducted in the greater Yellowstone National Park ecosystem.
Gamble also made diversity a major effort of his presidency. He appointed the university’s first permanent female vice president, and by 2009 women outnumbered men among Montana State University’s deans, five to four. He appointed Dr. Henrietta Mann (chair of the Montana State University Department of Native American Studies, and one of the most prominent Indian educators in the United States) his personal representative to the seven tribal colleges which participate in the Montana University System and created a Council of Elders to bring leaders of the tribal colleges together twice a year at Montana State University for discussions. Native American enrollment at Montana State University rose 79 percent (to a historic high of 377 students) during Gamble’s time in office.
In 2006, a major sports scandal engulfed Montana State University. On 30 June 2006, former Montana State University basketball player Branden Miller and former Montana State University football player John LeBrum were charged with murdering local cocaine dealer Jason Wright. After an 18-month investigation, six additional current and former Montana State University athletes were charged with buying and selling cocaine. Three of the six were charged with running a cocaine smuggling ring that sold 26 pounds (12 kg) of cocaine in Bozeman between June 2005 to May 2007.
Court records later revealed that some Montana State University coaches knew Miller carried handguns in his athletic bag at school and that the murder weapon and other handguns had been secreted in Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. In August 2007, Sports Illustrated ran a front-page article, Trouble in Paradise, that recounted drug use, violence, theft, intimidation, and illegal activities by current and former Montana State University student athletes and the complicity of low-level coaching staff. An investigation by the NCAA revealed significantly lower graduation rates for Montana State University football and basketball players under football coach Mike Kramer as well as men’s basketball coach Mick Durham, and a large number of athletes on or flirting with academic probation. Gamble quickly fired Kramer, who then sued Montana State University for unlawful dismissal. Kramer and Montana State University settled out of court, and Kramer received a payment of $240,000. In 2009, Gamble said his hardest time as president was dealing with the sports scandal.
Gamble announced his retirement on 22 March 2009.
Waded Cruzado, the former president of The New Mexico State University (US), succeeded Gamble as president, taking office on 4 January 2010. Since her arrival, the university’s headcount enrollment has grown from 13,559 in the fall of 2010 to a record 16,902 in the fall of 2018 – a 24.66 percent increase – making Montana State University the largest university in the state of Montana.
In addition to enrollment increases, the campus has seen the completion of numerous major construction and renovation projects since Cruzado’s arrival. In the fall of 2010, the university reopened one of its most heavily used classroom buildings on campus, Gaines Hall, after a $32 million renovation funded by the Montana Legislature.
That same fall, the university opened its new, 40,000-square-foot Animal Bioscience Building. The $15.7 million building was funded, in part, by donations from Montana’s livestock and grains industry. In addition to classroom and teaching laboratory space, the building is home to the Montana State University College of Agriculture’s Department of Animal and Range Sciences.
While the Gaines Hall renovation and the Animal Biosciences building were underway before Cruzado took office, in the fall of 2010 she launched an ambitious 90-day campaign to raise $6 million in private donations for a $10 million project to replace and expand the 38-year-old south end zone of the university’s football stadium. The university would cover the remaining $4 million for the project, paying it back from revenues generated by Montana State University athletics, including ticket sales. The campaign was successful and resulted in a new end zone opening for the fall 2011 season. The end zone project resulted in a net gain of 5,200 seats for the stadium for a total capacity of 17,500. However, through additional standing-room-only attendance, the stadium thrice exceeded 21,000 spectators in the fall of 2013.
The fall of 2010 also marked the official opening of Gallatin College programs at Montana State University, offering two-year degrees. The program was previously known as Montana State University-Great Falls College of Technology in Bozeman and was located away from the central campus, but with the renaming, Gallatin College was also given offices and classrooms in Hamilton Hall, located in the campus center. The program’s first dean, Bob Hietala, oversaw a period of steady enrollment growth, with Gallatin College growing from 100 students at its start to more than 800 in fall 2019. The program also expanded into new spaces, leasing empty classrooms in the local high school and space in a commercial building off-campus.
Montana State University marked its 125th anniversary in 2018 with a year of celebratory events. Several thousand attended daylong events on 16–17 Feb. featuring family activities, music, fireworks and speeches commemorating the university’s history. A newly installed statue of Abraham Lincoln by Bozeman-area artist Jim Dolan was unveiled at a ceremony honoring the former president’s contributions to land-grant universities.
In November 2019, the Board of Regents voted to raise Cruzado’s salary by $150,000, citing her performance as president and amid reports Cruzado had received a larger offer from another university. Cruzado declined to name the university that wanted to hire her. The 50% raise received support for putting Cruzado’s salary in-line with other universities’ presidents’ salaries but also criticism given Montana’s median salary ($53,000) and the pay of lower-level employees. In 2020, Cruzado’s salary stood at $476,524 per year.
Severe snow and cold during the winter of 2019 contributed to the collapses of two gymnasium roofs at the university’s Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center. The center’s south gym roof fell during the early morning hours of 7 March, followed two days later by the north gym roof. No one was injured in the collapses, and the entire fitness center was closed for the remainder of that spring semester for repair and demolition work. Two inflatable gym structures were opened as temporary replacements in October of that year while plans were made for permanent replacements.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 forced Montana’s public university system to switch to online and remote course delivery midway through the spring semester. To help stem the spread of the disease, the university canceled events, encouraged students not to return after spring break, and asked employees to work from home, essentially emptying the campus. The in-person spring commencement ceremony was also replaced by an online alternative.
Colleges:
College of Agriculture
College of Arts and Architecture
Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship
College of Education, Health & Human Development
Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering
College of Letters & Science
College of Nursing
Graduate School
Gallatin College
Honors College
Roland R. Renne Library
Research:
Montana State University maintains extensive research programs, providing opportunities for undergraduates, graduates, and advanced graduate students. The university is in the top 3 percent of colleges and universities in the United States in research expenditures and regularly reports annual research expenditures in excess of $100 million, including a record $138.8 million in the fiscal year that ended in June 2019. In that same year the university said its faculty wrote 1,100 grant proposals, which led to grant awards worth about $485 million which will be spent over several years.
Montana State University’s Office of Research and Economic Development coordinates programs that encourage faculty to pursue externally funded research. Its Office of Research Compliance oversees programs that promotes ethical and responsible research and ensures compliance with local, state, and federal regulations for research. The Office of Sponsored programs manages financial, reporting, compliance, auditing and related tasks for externally funded research.
The university maintains a technology transfer office to commercialize Montana State University faculty inventions, spur businesses based on those technologies and network with businesses looking to license Montana State University technologies. The office manages more than 500 technologies and 375 patents, trademarks and copyrights.
Research and Education Centers, Institutes, and Programs:
Montana State University’s Office of Research and Economic Development maintains a listing of the university’s research and educational centers, institutes and programs.
Agricultural Marketing Policy Center
American Indian Research Opportunities
Animal Resource Center
Astrobiology Biogeocatalysis Research Center
Barley and Plant Biotechnology Programs
Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership
Blackstone LaunchPad – Montana State
Burns Technology Center
Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity
Center for Biofilm Engineering
Center for Mental Health Research and Recovery
Center for Research on Rural Education
Center for Science, Technology, Ethics and Society
Cold Regions Research Center
Energy Research Institute
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)
Functional Genomics Core Facility
Image and Chemical Analysis Laboratory (ICAL)
Initiative for Regulation and Applied Economic Research
Ivan Doig Center for the Study of the Lands and Peoples of the North American West
Local Government Center
Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP)
Montana and Northern Plains Troops-to-Teachers
Montana Area Health Education Center
Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit
Montana IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Opportunities (INBRE)
Montana Institute on Ecosystems
Montana Manufacturing Extension Center
Montana Microfabrication Facility
Montana Office of Rural Health (MORH)
Montana Public Television – KUSM
Montana Space Grant Consortium
Montana Water Center
Museum of the Rockies
Northern Plains Transition to Teaching
Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Optical Technology Center
Plant Growth Center
Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE)
Renne Library
Science Math Resource Center
Spatial Sciences Center
Spectrum Lab
TechLink Center
Thermal Biology Institute
Western Transportation Institute
Zero Emissions Research and Technology (ZERT)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Betelgeuse-a superluminous red giant star 650 light-years away in the infrared from the European Space Agency [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU)Herschel Space Observatory (EU) Stars like Betelgeuse, end their lives as supernovae. Credit: Decin et al. 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration(US)/European Space Agency [Agence spatiale européenne] [Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) Hubble Space Telescope.
Centauris Alpha, Beta, Proxima, 27 February 2012. Skatebiker.
Andromeda Galaxy Messier 31. Credit: Adam Evans.
European Southern Observatory(EU) La Silla HELIOS (HARPS Experiment for Light Integrated Over the Sun).
ESO 3.6m telescope & HARPS atCerro LaSilla, Chile, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres.
MPG Institute for Astronomy [Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie](DE) 2.2 meter telescope at/European Southern Observatory(EU) Cerro La Silla, Chile, 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres.
European Southern Observatory(EU)La Silla Observatory 600 km north of Santiago de Chile at an altitude of 2400 metres.
European Southern Observatory(EU) , Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert •ANTU (UT1; The Sun ) •KUEYEN (UT2; The Moon ) •MELIPAL (UT3; The Southern Cross ), and •YEPUN (UT4; Venus – as evening star). Elevation 2,635 m (8,645 ft) from above Credit J.L. Dauvergne & G. Hüdepohl atacama photo. 
ESO Very Large Telescope 4 lasers on Yepun (CL)
ESO/NTT NTT at Cerro La Silla , Chile, at an altitude of 2400 metres.
Part of ESO’s Paranal Observatory, the VLT Survey Telescope (VISTA) observes the brilliantly clear skies above the Atacama Desert of Chile. It is the largest survey telescope in the world in visible light, with an elevation of 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level. 
European Southern Observatory/National Radio Astronomy Observatory(US)/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan(JP) ALMA Array in Chile in the Atacama at Chajnantor plateau, at 5,000 metres.
European Southern Observatory(EU)/MPG Institute for Radio Astronomy [MPG Institut für Radioastronomie](DE) ESO’s Atacama Pathfinder Experiment(CL) high on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama region, at an altitude of over 4,800 m (15,700 ft). 
TAROT telescope at Cerro LaSilla, 2,635 metres (8,645 ft) above sea level.
European Southern Observatory(EU) ExTrA telescopes at erro LaSilla at an altitude of 2400 metres.
A novel gamma ray telescope under construction on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. A large project known as the Čerenkov Telescope Array composed of hundreds of similar telescopes to be situated in the Canary Islands and Chile at, ESO Cerro Paranal site The telescope on Mount Hopkins will be fitted with a prototype high-speed camera, assembled at the. University of Wisconsin–Madison and capable of taking pictures at a billion frames per second. Credit: Vladimir Vassiliev.
European Space Agency [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU), The new Test-Bed Telescope 2is housed inside the shiny white dome shown in this picture, at ESO’s LaSilla Facility in Chile. The telescope has now started operations and will assist its northern-hemisphere twin in protecting us from potentially hazardous, near-Earth objects.The domes of ESO’s 0.5 m and the Danish 0.5 m telescopes are visible in the background of this image.Part of the world-wide effort to scan and identify near-Earth objects, the European Space Agency’s Test-Bed Telescope 2 (TBT2), a technology demonstrator hosted at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, has now started operating. Working alongside its northern-hemisphere partner telescope, TBT2 will keep a close eye on the sky for asteroids that could pose a risk to Earth, testing hardware and software for a future telescope network. 
European Space Agency [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU) The open dome of The black telescope structure of the‘s Test-Bed Telescope 2 peers out of its open dome in front of the rolling desert landscape. The telescope is located at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, which sits at a 2400 metre altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert.a desert. 
sciencesprings 
Reply