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Education investment paying off, UM President Dennison tells Regents
Montana’s annual higher education investment of $150 million is stimulating more than $500 million for local economies, University of Montana President George Dennison told the Board of Regents on Thursday.
Associated Press
"That’s a threefold investment," Dennison said. "That’s hard to beat."
"Montana Invests," a 23-page booklet intended to highlight the university system’s contribution to the state economy, shows more than half a billion dollars circulated from two main revenue streams this fiscal year. That includes both money spent by faculty, staff and students, and funds brought into the state through grants, contracts and expenditures by nonresident students and their visitors.
The report details economic profiles of UM, Montana Tech, UM-Western, the Helena College of Technology, Montana State University at Bozeman, MSU-Billings, MSU-Northern and the Great Falls College of Technology. The material was prepared for the coming legislative session.
"This is exactly the kind of thing we want out of our shared leadership initiative," said Regents Chairman John Mercer.
Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns said the report successfully puts a face on the universities’ economic impact.
Campus security issues dominated the morning portion of the session, largely prompted by several assault and rape reports at UM over the past year.
Dennison said the Missoula campus plans to spend $125,000 to install 53 new closed-circuit television cameras at eight dormitories, and will add 15 to 20 new lights in dark areas between campus buildings.
The cameras, Dennison said, will be placed in strategic, external locations to monitor the entrances to residence halls, parking lots and remote campus areas.
He stressed that every effort would be made to avoid infringing on the privacy of students.
Regent Lynn Hamilton questioned who would be monitoring the footage, and if someone would be assigned to view it on a regular basis.
Information obtained through video monitoring will be used exclusively for security and law enforcement purposes only when an incident occurs, Dennison said, and the film would be erased periodically.
Bolstering UM’s security, Dennison said, is a delicate juggle of finances, safety and privacy concerns. Campuses by definition, he said, are places in which one should feel free to explore, "but they must also be a place where people feel safe."
UM student government leaders told regents they were pleased with the planned security changes.
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