UM Program Brings UM Faculty to Billings High Schools

Posted: Oct 23, 2019 / 05:18 PM MDT

Updated: Oct 23, 2019 / 05:18 PM MDT

The University of Montana’s We Are Montana in the Classroom program will visit Billings on Oct. 24, Oct. 28, and Nov. 4, bringing UM faculty and instructors to Senior and Skyview high schools to facilitate classes for the day.

The visits are part of an initiative designed to engage Montana high school students with higher education, including opportunities at UM. Each UM faculty member is paired with a high school teacher and will facilitate interactive, hands-on classes that build on what students are learning in their coursework while giving them a taste of college academics and research.

“Making personal connections with faculty mentors is a vital factor in students’ success in higher education,” said UM President Seth Bodnar. “Through We Are Montana in the Classroom, UM is jumpstarting these connections by embedding our faculty in high-school classrooms across the state.”

Thirty UM faculty and instructors from across the academic disciplines and Communities of Excellence will visit Montana AA high schools this fall as part of the initiative. Fall 2019 visits are taking place in Bozeman, Belgrade, Helena, Kalispell, Great Falls and Missoula.

Faculty members visiting Billings include:

Joanna Campbell, director of education programs at UM’s Wilderness Institute, who will visit Zach Robbins’ English classes at Billings Senior High School from 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24.
Nathalie Wolfram, interim director of UM’s Broader Impacts Group and a former instructor in UM’s Davidson Honors College, who will visit Jennifer Fleek Airne’s English classes at Billings Senior High School from 8 to 9 a.m. and 12:58 to 1:55 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28.
Krista Manley, a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive psychology at UM’s Davidson Honors College, who will visit Tamra Kenny’s psychology classes at Billings Skyview High School from 7 to 7:55 a.m. and 10:10 a.m. to 11:07 a.m. Monday, Nov. 4.

We Are Montana in the Classroom’s high school engagement initiative is a collaboration between the UM Broader Impacts Group, the Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, the Davidson Honors College and the Office of the Provost.