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> MSU News
Gamble finds much to praise, anticipate in spring address
April 26, 2006
Montana State University President Geoff Gamble may have used his second of two bi-annual addresses yesterday to look back over campus accomplishments over the past year, but he did so with an eye to the future.
"I am pretty excited about the future of this university," Gamble told a crowd of 120 students, administrators, faculty and staff that attended his annual spring address. "The past five years have been marvelous, but it is just a prelude to the next 10-15 years."
Gamble told audience members that they are responsible for moving the university up in stature and accomplishments, and all that he has to do is brag about it.
And brag about it he did in a 50-minute speech that was largely draped on the six words that represent the university's key strengths: discover, explore, excel, create, serve and connect. Gamble explained that the words have evolved from the university's new integrated marketing campaign that launched MSU's new logo about six months ago.
"We used to have thousands of messages," Gamble said. However, the university effectively winnowed its messages to those that best represent MSU's strengths and personality.
Chief among the messages and the university's accomplishments during the last year was its recognition by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which listed MSU among the nation's top 94 research universities with "very high research activity."
"This is an immense accomplishment," Gamble said, adding that MSU was the only university in the Northern Rockies, and one of the few in the West, to receive the distinction shared with Yale, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington.
Gamble also recognized Steve Shaw, an MSU engineering professor who received a rare $400,000 Career Award from the National Science Foundation; MSU's three new Goldwater scholars; chemistry professor Paul Grieco, who was recently named a Regents Professor; and student David Steppler, a chemistry major from Lambert, Mont., who was one of 60 students nationally invited to an undergraduate research conference in Washington, D.C., last week.
Gamble also singled out an interdisciplinary MSU outreach program that is revitalizing the city of Anaconda. The College of Arts and Architecture, MSU Extension and the College of Engineering are involved in the volunteer project.
Gamble also had high praise for the MSU for a Day outreach program, which imports MSU professors and classes to high schools throughout the state. He said the program would soon be expanded from two sessions a year to four. The declining number of Montana high school graduates makes such an outreach program important, he said.
"The number of Montana high school graduates is predicted to decrease by 12-15 percent very soon," he said. "It's important for us to encourage larger numbers of Montana high school graduates to go to college."
Gamble also touched on three new contributions to the MSU Earth Sciences department from Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil and Beyond Petroleum, formerly British Petroleum. He added that the recent announcement that Sikorsky, a Connecticut-based aviation company, will build a plant in Montana was based on the College of Engineering's Bozeman location.
Gamble announced the imminent departure of two key administrators: JB Bancroft, dean of the College of Arts and Architecture is retiring, and Sara Jayne Steen, dean of the College of Letters and Science has been named the president of Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
He also announced the appointment of Connie Talbott, CEO of the MSU Foundation, who is coming from Virginia Tech. She will soon be taking the reins for an upcoming MSU capital campaign. Last year Gamble said the campaign would be about $100 million, but has revised it upward to perhaps $150 million, which will be a "modest stretch for us," Gamble said. He said half of the money raised would go into an endowment and the rest would be an important "cash infusion" for the university.
Gamble also gave updates on several campus construction projects, including the Chemistry Building, slated for completion in October 2007; the Health and Physical Education Center (October 2007); the Blackbox Theatre (May 2007); the SUB (spring 2008). Other pending building projects include the proposed Native American Student Center, the Animal Bioscience Complex and the Museum of the Rockies Mesozoic Media Center, part of the Siebel Dinosaur Complex, to be open in mid-June.
"I said when I began this job that many university presidents suffer from doses of 'buildingitis' and that I wasn't one of them, but I'm going to have to rethink that," Gamble joked. "There is a lot of building going on. All of it is important and necessary, but it surprises me."
Gamble said the credit for the university's growth and dynamism belonged to the people in the audience.
"This university has a lot to be proud of, to look forward to over the next 10 to 15 years," Gamble added. "The model that we use, the shared governance model, will get us there."
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