Proposals presented to Regents aim for more jobs, better pay

To try to create more jobs and better-paying jobs in Montana, six proposals for using Montana University System resources will be presented this week to legislators and the state Board of Regents.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/05/18/news/regentsbzbigs.txt

If the ideas win support, some may end up as budget requests to the 2005 Legislature, Montana State University spokeswoman Cathy Conover said Monday.

"Montana needs more good paying jobs," according to a 20-page report, prepared for the regents and the legislature’s Postsecondary Education Policy and Budget Committee. The two groups are meeting Wednesday in Great Falls.

Montana ranks 50th in the nation in average wages and is in the bottom five in per-capita income, household income and other measures of wealth, the report said.

Some of the six proposals would involve the MSU Bozeman campus, including one to create an on-line Virtual Montana University to deliver classes and job training to people throughout the state.

Another idea would be spending $1 million to attract to Montana colleges 250 more out-of-state students, whose spending could return an estimated $50 million over five years to the state’s economy.

Other proposals include getting more technology and research from the campuses into commercial use; using university knowledge to help local governments solve problems; improving worker training; and helping businesses with marketing and engineering expertise.

The regents will continue meeting Thursday and Friday in Havre, where attention is likely to focus on the University of Montana’s $1 million athletics deficit.

MSU’s athletics department also has a deficit of around $440,000 and its 2-year-old bailout plan isn’t working. MSU President Geoff Gamble said he plans to give the regents a revised plan for resolving the deficit at their July meeting.

Also on the agenda this week for MSU are requests to:

€ Create of a ninth college at the Bozeman campus, which would be called University College. It would combine under one umbrella the university honors program, undergraduate scholars program, directed interdisciplinary studies, new liberal studies degree and the general studies program, which would be renamed university studies.

There would be no cost for the change, according to MSU. Though every other MSU college has a dean, the proposal doesn’t call for creating a dean’s position or larger staff.

Gamble said leaders of the honors program were disappointed, preferring to have their program be raised to the status of a college, but he didn’t feel honors was large enough at this point to warrant that.

€ Authorize the $28 million plan to renovate MSU’s Strand Union Building and student fitness center and to build a new black box theater. Students voted last month to approve a $55 per semester fee over 30 years to pay for it. The project also calls for the university to contribute $9.5 million in non-state money, from auxiliary funds, which includes money from dorms, cafeterias, SUB rentals and similar revenue sources.