December 19, 2023

By Melissa Paulsen

On October 26, 2023, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance hosted a roundtable on “Partnerships in Higher Education” featuring five leaders at the University of Montana. The MHTBA’s Missoula events were sponsored by Blackfoot Communications.

Seth Bodnar, President of the University of Montana, facilitated the enlightening conversation among the panelists and Alliance members. Keep reading for the key takeaways from the discussion.

UM Addresses Challenges in Higher-Ed and Workforce with Grizzly Promise and New Cybersecurity Bachelor’s Degree

Through versatile curriculum the University of Montana is preparing students of all ages and backgrounds for the high-growth jobs of tomorrow. During his opening remarks, Seth Bodnar, President of the University of Montana, emphasized the university’s focus on “inclusive prosperity” as a driving force behind UM’s work to increase access to higher education for all Montanans.

Recent data reveals that 50 percent of Montana’s high school graduates have decided to forgo higher education in favor of immediate entry into the workforce. The University of Montana is addressing Montana’s decline of human capital through its Grizzly Promise initiative. Launched in 2022, the Grizzly Promise offers free tuition at the University of Montana for students who come from families that earn $50K or less a year. In addition, UM has seen great success through increased enrollment and retention rates and obtaining R1 status for its cutting-edge research.

Bodnar also highlighted how UM is adapting to better serve its students, community partners, and alumni.

“[The University of Montana]’s mission is to ensure that every single member of our community has the opportunity to achieve their unique full potential,” he said. “We have to make sure that we are building those foundational skills in students across disciplines to solve real-world problems. We need to make sure that every single student at the university has significant work-based experiential learning and meaningful internship experiences as part of their programs, and we need to serve learners over the course of their entire lives and careers.”

New programs like the cybersecurity bachelor’s degree offered through the UM College of Business — which is Montana’s first and only cybersecurity bachelor’s degree — are also helping prepare students for high-growth and high-paying jobs while simultaneously addressing shortages in Montana’s workforce. In the fall of 2023, there were an estimated 1,100 open cybersecurity jobs in Montana and the median wage for these roles was about $112K.

Formed as a collaborative effort between the UM College of Business, UM Computer Science program, and Missoula College, the cybersecurity bachelor’s degree builds on the standalone cybersecurity certificate that has been offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels since 2017.

“The students who graduated with a certificate in cybersecurity had a 100 percent placement rate by January and they graduate in May, so we know there’s demand,” said Suzanne Tilleman, Dean of the UM College of Business.

 The UM College of Business offers six unique undergraduate and three graduate degrees, including a Master of Science in Business Analytics which boasts a 100 percent placement rate for graduates of the program.

UM’s Innovative Interdisciplinary Programs Merge the Arts & Technology

Michael Musick, Dean of the College of the Arts & Media at UM, shared how the recently launched BFA in Sound Design and Media Technology merges arts and technology to teach students imperative skills for the new economy.

 “This new Sound Design and Media Technology degree takes advantage of those skills that artists and musicians already have with an arts-based education — critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration — and uses the creative coding and interactivity curriculum we’re developing within the College of the Arts & Media to create a really broad yet technologically rigorous degree for students as they design new types of immersive experiences,” Musick explained.

 Musick added that the BFA program offers a variety of opportunities for students at all levels since it doesn’t require prior experience with music or sound technology before registering.  

 UM’s Game Design and Interactive Media degree is another program that seamlessly blends the arts and technology. Associate Professor Michael Cassens developed the Game Design and Interactive Media program in 2019 when he switched to teaching full-time in the UM College of the Arts & Media from the UM computer science department after 18 years. The program saw its inaugural class graduate in the spring of 2023 and currently has 46 students enrolled.

 Cassens said the goal of the Game Design and Interactive Media degree program is to excite students about learning and technology. Students are encouraged to go beyond classroom learning to experiment and create projects that spark their interests. Some of the projects include a virtual hunter’s education course that teaches how to field dress a deer through virtual reality as well as building Minecraft mazes to make educational videos more engaging complete with quests for armor and fighting the Ender Dragon.

 “Our students are going to have the skills and the creativity to come up with things that someone hasn't thought of yet,” Cassens said. “I want [the students] to be continual learners.”

 In addition to heading the Game Design and Interactive Media program, Cassens also works with a variety of students on campus by leading the Griz e-Sports team.

 The competitive gaming program started with 50 students and now consists of over 400 students with diverse backgrounds and majors. Built into the e-Sports program are opportunities for paid internships so students can pursue their passions while still serving as valuable team members. When students join the e-Sports team they’re doing more than gaming; they’re also skill-building through their experiences.

 “[The e-Sports program] is highly experiential, so [students] are doing broadcasting, they're doing development, they're doing all the things within the program itself while playing games,” Cassens said. “They're learning about the soft skills of teamwork and leadership and how to communicate effectively.”

 Through its collaboration with 20 different Montana high schools, the e-Sports team allows high school students to play with each other remotely from Sydney to Baker to East Helena and beyond. In the spring, the Griz e-Sports team invites its high school participants to campus to play together in person, truly living up to its motto of “Every Game. Every Body. Every One.”

 “We have relationships with some of our schools that are on the reservations where students come together, meet each other, get to play with each other, and learn with each other,” Cassens said. “So that's what e-Sports is. Primarily, they're playing competitive video games, but it's also so much more than that.”

MT AIMS and Accelerate Montana Help Break Down Barriers to Tech Careers

The Montana American Indians in Math and Science (MT AIMS) program invites Native American middle and high school students to campus each summer so they can experience a taste of college life at UM for free. Students spend time in the dorms, eat at the Food Zoo, and experience different activities related to STEM fields such as chemistry, biology, and engineering workshops.

Dr. Aaron Thomas started the MT AIMS program five years ago to cultivate an interest in STEM for Montana’s Native American youth. For Dr. Thomas, the program is all about fostering strong relationships between his students, himself, and the university.

“[The program is] very relational because as a student begins to develop a trust with you, with the university, and with the campus, they're more likely to return,” he said. “We're not trying to remediate students. We're trying to make sure that they're prepared when they come on campus [by] starting early with them.”

Bodnar remarked that Dr. Thomas’s efforts have played an instrumental role in enabling the University of Montana to grow its Native American student enrollment. Since 2018, the Native American student enrollment increased by 30 percent, and the retention rate among Native American students at UM has increased from 55 percent to 69 percent.

The next step for Dr. Thomas and the MT AIMS program is to engage with Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy so that all the reservations in Montana are included as part of the highly successful program.

Through partnerships and targeted relevant workforce training and skills development, Accelerate Montana also helps break down barriers and creates viable career pathways for learners at all stages of life.

Founded in 2017, the Missoula-based non-profit provides students with the tools they need to begin a successful career in tech, business, construction, film, and more without the commitment of a four-year degree.

This year, Accelerate Montana partnered with Cognizant to produce a Salesforce Administrator rapid training program. The course makes the online learning process less daunting by providing students with a cohort and access to Salesforce professionals at Cognizant for hands-on learning.

“We've curated Salesforce trailheads, we've added additional education training to help people be effective in the workplace, and we've got a part-time model cohort based at a weekly pace,” said Paul Gladen, Director of Accelerate Montana. “[The Salesforce cohort] gets access to two Cognizant professionals that provide live education each week during office hours. [The program] can successfully navigate people through tech skills training in a relatively short period of time.”

Other projects underway for Accelerate Montana include working with The Whole Group to introduce rapid training on the ServiceNow platform, as well as introducing new tech skills on the Fort Belknap reservation with its Microsoft TechSpark fellow, Ticia Cliff, to grow economic opportunity in Montana.

According to Gladen, Accelerate Montana will have assisted nearly 3,000 Montanans by the end of 2024.

About the Publisher: Launched in 2014, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit association of more than 200 high tech and manufacturing companies and affiliates creating high-paying jobs in Montana. For more information, visit MTHighTech.org or subscribe to our biweekly newsletter.

About the Author: Melissa Paulsen is the Communications Coordinator for the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. She graduated from the University of Montana in 2022 with a BFA in creative writing and a minor in history.