The beginning of a new school year at the University of Montana means many things—freshmen moving into dorms and discovering campus life, friends from years past returning from summer vacation, buying books, paying tuition, and settling in for a new year. It’s a time to relax before the stress of the semester hits, and to look forward to the year to come.
This is what UM President Royce Engstrom spoke to on Friday August 24 at the annual State of the University address. His speech hit similar marks from the midterm update the President gave in January this year—his plans for how UM can teach its students to overcome the obstacles and benefit from the challenges of what Engstrom dubs the “global century”, as well as addressing the negative events and investigations that UM has had to face in the past several months.
Part of Engstrom’s plans for this year are to focus on decreasing the drop out rate in high schools and universities across Montana, and to encourage students to pursue higher education. Along with this, the University is dedicated to meeting the needs of its students; Engstrom listed new academic programs that are now available to students, as well as rebooting campus classrooms with technology for multi-media learning. This year will also be the first year for the Global Leadership Initiative, a challenging supplemental program for incoming freshman that lasts for four full years at the University that is designed to meet the needs of students in the global century.
As far as the Department of Justice, Department of Education, and NCAA investigations into the University for sexual assault, Engstrom reiterated many points he has made before in interviews and other statements. He detailed the steps that UM is taking to try to fix the sexual assault problems that UM has faced, including mandatory tutorials for all students and working together with the city of Missoula to ease the process of reporting assaults. UM also has a new code of conduct for student athletes, and more campus police patrolling during nights and weekends.
Engstrom’s address acknowledged the difficulties of the past months, but the University and its students are ready for another academic year.