May 2013 - Rocky Now

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Issue 4

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Keeping our friends and supporters informed about what’s new and exciting at Rocky Mountain College

SPONSORS THANKED AT RMC LUNCHEON CO M M UN IT Y DRI VE

GLAD GRADS

Astronaut Loren Acton told more than 200 graduates at the 131st Commencement of Rocky Mountain College that success in life is pretty simple.

“What happens in your particular life depends on what you particularly do. In fact I have this simple rule that if you’ll follow it, you’re going to have a great life. It’s the same rule I COMMENCEMENT 2013

LeeAnne Story has her sights set on entering the physician assistant program at RMC, an aspiration made possible by the scholarship aid she received.

The RMC Community Drive, which ends June 30, was launched with a luncheon for sponsors on April 23. This year’s drive, chaired by Rod Kastelitz, RMC ’91 and a board trustee, and LynAnn Henderson, RMC ’92, brings two executives with business experience to the effort. Both work at Employee Benefit Management Services, Inc. (EBMS), where Kastelitz serves as vice president strategic partnerships and Henderson as vice president business development. EBMS has a long history of supporting RMC. Rick Larson, co-CEO, with his wife, Nicki, has served on the RMC Board of Trustees, and two of their children, Kevin and Kelsey, graduated from RMC. Speaking at the luncheon were three RMC students who testified to the value

give the first graders. All you got to do is do smart stuff instead of dumb stuff. There you go,” he said.

Acton, who was born in Lewistown, Mont., and graduated from Senior High School in A big wink and smile showed how happy Stephanie Gallacher felt at the 131st RMC Billings, received his bachelor’s Commencement. Stephanie, from Glasgow, Scotland, was wearing her country’s flag as she joined more than 200 other students who received their degrees. degree from Montana State University, his doctorate from the University of Colorado, and spent most of his career as a solar physicist. Acton flew on STS-51F/Spacelab-2 (Challenger) in 1985, spending over 190 hours in space as a payload specialist. An accomplished scientist who happened to use space as his laboratory, Acton played a key role in forming the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory at Montana State University. He has been a special friend of Rocky Mountain College and served on RMC’s National Advisory Council.

Speaking for the graduating class were the 2013 winners of the RMC President‘s Cup award, Johnathan Diem and Anudari Batjargal. (For more on Diem and Batjargal, see a special insert in this issue, the Senior Sampler.)

Diem, from Moab, Utah, who was Associated Students of RMC president and a member of the 2011 national championship ski team, graduated with a master of accountancy degree.

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ROC KY NOW

Keeping our friends and supporters informed about what’s new and exciting at Rocky Mountain College

MY PO IN T O F V IE W

BY ROBERT WILMOUTH, M.D., F.A.C.S. -

President

ESTABLISHING NEW RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALUMNI “The only time I hear from you is when you’re asking for money.”

These are words I don’t like to hear from our alumni and friends, and I hope to change that sentiment, one alumnus at a time.

I believe that Rocky Mountain College should function on a platform of honesty, communication, and accountability. Not only should this happen within the College, but in every single interaction we have.

Our College needs to be accountable to our alumni and friends, supporting them throughout their relationship with RMC, regardless of donations.

The College is entering a new era, and one of my goals is to continually foster relationships. Yes, the College survives and thrives on donations, and we want our alumni and friends to be involved with

RMC in those ways, but more importantly, we want to be involved with them.

I’ve recently begun calling alumni to introduce myself and to let them know that RMC is committed to them in the same way we’d like them to be committed to us – for life.

When students come to RMC, they join the RMC family. And like a family, the College is here to share in the joys and triumphs of its members and support them in the tough times – just like the College has been supported during both good and bad times by our students, alumni, friends, and donors.

We want our relationships and interactions with our alumni and friends to be different than they have been in the past. The RMC Office of Advancement is working hard to build a solid foundation of relation-

ships with our friends, alumni, and donors.

Their job is to make sure that the RMC community isn’t just for current students, but for everyone; they’re organizing events, connecting with alumni on Facebook, and sharing alumni news – from a new job to a new baby – to make sure we stay connected to our friends and alumni and that they stay connected with each other.

Let’s make sure the RMC family continues to grow and stays connected to one another and the College. I invite you to join us as Rocky Mountain College begins not only a new chapter, but new relationships.

If you’re a recent alumnus, expect a call from me – and rest assured, I won’t be asking for money, instead I’ll be asking about you.

Scenes from RMC’s 131st Commencement outside the Fortin Education Center, May 4: The Class of 2013 celebrates graduation as they also become new Rocky Mountain College alumni.

GLAD GRADS

Continued from page 1

COMMENCEMENT 2013

Batjargal, from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, graduated with a degree in aviation managment and managerial accounting. She not only was a President’s Cup winner, but was also named outstanding student in aviation, business management, and mathematics.

They offered advice in tandem.

“So, to boil advice into one sentence . . .” began Diem.

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“Know your self,” said Batjargal.

“Know your values,” said Diem.

“And make decisions in alignment with both,” concluded Batjargal.

Carl A. Hansen was bestowed an honorary doctorate of humane letters, presented

by RMC Trustee Dr. Lawrence Campodonico. Hansen was recognized for his faithful service to his alma mater as a member of the RMC Board of Trustees and as its current chair. Hansen received his bachelor’s of science degree in business administration and economics from RMC. Hansen is currently vice president, financial consultant, with D.A. Davidson. Besides his role on

the RMC Board, Hansen is past president and umpire-in-chief of Boulder-Arrowhead Little League and co-treasurer for Mayflower Congregational Church. Facilitating philanthropy is an important facet of Hansen’s profession.

Half-century graduate Carolyn Hamilton was also honored. (For more on Carolyn, see “Focus on Alumni.”)

Music at RMC’s Commencement was performed by both the RMC College Choir and Band. Baccalaureate was celebrated on May 3, following a reception for graduates and their families in Pescott Hall.

RMC STUDENTS COMMIT TO HUMANITARIAN MISSION F OC U S ON STUD ENTS Jaw dropping.

Jayde Hair uses those two words to best express her experience working with a humanitarian medical mission in Uganda.

This summer will be her second trip to villages where homes are mud huts without electricity or running water. In Mibiko, where she will assist her mother, Syd, prostitution is rampant, as are poor hygiene, infant mortality, and disease.

Jayde, who will be a junior next year, will be accompanied by another RMC student, Jared Bradford, who will be a senior.

Both Jayde and Jared will be teaching hygiene clinics, including proper hydration to alleviate death from certain illnesses.

Both are planning for careers in the medical field.

Syd Hair began working with the schools in the area five years ago and recruited Randall Fowler, an ER doctor from Idaho, to assist with health issues.

A pension plan and benefits administrator with deep religious convictions, Syd is on the board of Hands 4 Uganda and helped orchestrate relief efforts at Rock of Ages School in Mobiko and Jinja. Dr. Fowler has practiced global medicine in Honduras, Ecuador, and Uganda on medical mission trips.

“Jayde and Jared will help Dr. Fowler with medical checkups of over 150 children to begin a tracking system developed by the World Health Organization to determine which children are malnourished so follow-up steps may be taken to alleviate long term health risks,” according to Syd. They will also visit hospitals in the region to help with training health care workers.

“They both will get extreme hands-on experience, as well as a chance to take part with a local clinic that will conduct AIDS testing,” Syd explained.

The children suffer from lack of basic necessities. Shoes, blankets, and baby formula topped the list, but the mission also provided coloring books and educational materials. And, sometimes, lollipops.

“Just walking through the streets handing out simple things, like suckers, melts your heart because they have so little and are so excited over gifts that are so small,” Jayde 3

Jayde Hair will join her mother, Syd, and Randall Fowler, an ER doctor from Idaho, on a humanitarian mission to Uganda.

Jared Bradford is a Battlin’ Bear football player and pre-med student who will be joining a humanitarian mission to Uganda this summer.

color blindness, according to Dr. Fowler.

“I’m hoping to hold a health fair with booths to collect medical data, dispense medicine, and treat patients. There’s so much to do,” he said. “I’d like to run electricity to the school. Maybe do some painting. Finish ear piercings. We’ll try to visit homes, see what other conditions we need to address. My to-do list is pretty exhaustive.”

The Ugandan experience will begin in July for Jayde and Jared, which gives them about a month to raise the $2,500 they each need to pay for the trip.

“I am thrilled to have Jared and Jayde join us on our mission trip to Uganda this summer. Their enthusiasm and energy will be such an asset to our team. It is unusual for two young people to be able to look beyond their own immediate needs and situations to a country half a world away and ask ‘what can we do to make a difference?’ I am sure that they will return to campus in the fall with a host of wonderful stories and experiences; that will be how we change the world: one student at a time,” he said.

said. “People over there have nothing, literally nothing, and are the happiest people you’ll ever meet. It is very humbling to spend time with these people.”

Syd and Jayde introduced Jared, a premed major, to Dr. Fowler over spring break.

“Dr. Fowler was impressed with his aspiration to become a physician assistant and thought he would be a perfect complement to the humanitarian outreach project,” Syd said.

According to Jared, the mission promised to be a life-changing experience.

“For what I want to do, this will help cement my choice of career,” Jared said.

Ear piercings.

Those are two more words Jayde uses to describe what she and Jared will be doing.

“Child sacrifice is, unfortunately, still practiced in Uganda and young girls are often abducted and used in child sacrifice. If they are blemished in any way, they will be abandoned and not killed. Ear piercing is considered a blemish, rendering these young girls unworthy of sacrifice and saving their lives,” Jayde explained.

They may also help build desks for the school and distribute soccer balls, jump ropes, and bubble kits to children. Pitching in to teach CPR, wound care, tooth brushing, and RX Courtesy: Jayde Hair worming could be other chores. They Shown last summer working with Ugandan children, Jayde Hair, left, is a may also demonstrate healthy Battlin’ Bear volleyball player and an honor student. Jayde said she and her recipes, screen for HIV/AIDS, and friend, Samantha, were teaching the children to sing the “Frog Song.” assist with clinics screening for

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RMC DEGREE LED TO FULFILLING CAREER WITH YWCA FOCU S O N A LUM N I

When Carolyn “Lyn” Hamnors in recreation and religion. ilton was saluted as a 50-year She sought every opportunity graduate at the 131st RMC she could get to participate in Commencement, she felt like athletics. There wasn’t much for the Lone Ranger, she laughs. women, but “I was the campus She was the only one of her class intramural badminton champ,” of 43 to return. It was a role she she laughed. was accustomed to early in her Because finances were tight, life, growing up in a small PennLyn focused on her studies and sylvania town. Her prospects graduated in three years. She were pretty small, almost as if forged a lifelong friendship the town she lived in defined her with Margaret, whose support future, she remembers. of her helped her earn the col“My brother went to college lege degree that allowed her to and became a pastor, but that get professional positions with wasn’t expected of me,” she said. the YWCA. She went back to She got lucky, however, landBoston to head up the camp ing a camp counselor job at a programs. summer camp in Maine run by “That sounds like summer the Boston YWCA. She was camps, but it was a whole array of lucky because it was there she yearlong camps,” she said. met Margaret Ping, the camp Later she became executive director. It is almost impossible director of the YWCA in Lawto write about Lyn without inrence, Mass. For more than 20 cluding Margaret, who had a lifeyears she served the YWCA, changing influence on Lyn’s life. which had meant as much to her Margaret got to know Lyn as it had to Margaret. Subsebetter when they would “hover quently, she moved to California over bean holes,” which was how to be close to family. She then they cooked Boston baked beans became manager of Silverado – in a bean pot in the ground Orchards, a retirement comLyn Hamilton acknowledged applause at RMC Commencement when she was honored as a 50 covered with hot coals, Margaret Year Graduate. munity. said.

Throughout her professional They would be up at the crack of dawn career, Lyn helped RMC with financial YWCA director, closer to where she grew to dig the holes, start burning wood to get contributions. When there was an RMC up in Hardin. She was familiar with Rocky the coals hot, and preparing the beans. phonathon, she answered. When the Mountain College, even though she had They baked Boston brown bread to go 50-year graduates were invited back, she earned her degree at Oberlin College with the beans, also baked in Dutch ovens showed up. She has been a steadfast friend in Ohio. Her parents were supporters of in the holes covered with coals. That was with Margaret for 58 years. She comes RMC when it was Billings Polytechnic Instiwhen Margaret and Lyn visited and Margaback to Montana every May to celebrate tute. Both teachers in a tiny Missouri town, ret learned of Lyn’s aspirations.

Margaret’s birthday – as she did this year they headed West during the homestead Lyn hoped to go to college, but doubted when Margaret celebrated her 101st. era and settled in Hardin. Instead of teachit would ever be possible.

Lyn learned valuable lessons from Maring, they opened Ping’s Store, where the “If I did, my expectations were to snare a garet’s mentorship, which included helping motto was “Ping’s Prices Please the Purse.” husband, have children, and have a family,” others. Lyn has done what Margaret did, “Margaret made me an offer I could not she said. “None of that happened, but I helping support the next generation of refuse,” Lyn recalled. “Room and board and have had a full life nevertheless.”

RMC students. her friendship and encouragement.”

Margaret wanted Lyn to have a chance, “I’m hoping I am helping to make a difAs a student living off-campus Lyn said and she encouraged her to consider colference in others’ lives as Margaret made a she didn’t get as involved with college life lege. As it happened, Margaret was going difference in mine,” she said. as much as she wanted, but she studied to be moving to Billings to become the hard. She majored in sociology with mi4

UNDERGRAD RESEARCH PROGRAM SPAWNED BY PROFS F O CUS O N FACULT Y

Students who major in biology at Rocky Mountain College quickly learn an important difference between science students and scientists: science students learn what others have discovered, and scientists do the discovering. Because of a new research program, students at RMC experience both sides.

The program was started in 2010 by two biology professors, Drs. Phil Jensen and Mark Osterlund, as a way to engage students in inquiry-based research as freshmen.

The results from the program have been striking: students from the program have been accepted to graduate school, won statewide science awards, and received research grants.

The program aims to teach students about science and scientific discovery by giving them freedom in the laboratory beyond their regular coursework.

For Kayla Baisch, an RMC junior who recently received a research grant from the Montana Academy of Sciences, the distinction between student and scientist became clear quickly after joining the research program.

“Research has taught me to ask unique questions and go about answering them in different ways than I normally would have,” she noted. “I look at my work in my classes in new ways because of it. Research is shaping me into a critically thinking person.”

Britney Cheff, an RMC senior who will enroll in a Ph.D. program in molecular biology after graduation, reported a similar experience.

“Research made me think about my classes differently,” she said. “Because of research I am more interested in understanding the material rather than just memorizing it.”

Dr. Jensen, who is also involved in statewide research efforts as president of the Montana Academy of Sciences, attributes some of the success of RMC’s research program to the size of the school.

“In our program students develop and lead their own projects,” he explained.

“That’s uncommon at bigger institutions.

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Dr. Phil Jensen

Dr. Mark Osterlund

Mark Osterlund, associate professor, biology, attended Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., where he earned a bachelor’s of science degree.

He earned his Ph.D. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology in 2000 from Yale University. Dr. Osterlund was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. In 2004, he began working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Quantico, Va., developing molecular techniques for their forensics and counterterrorism unit. Dr. Osterlund began teaching at Rocky Mountain College in 2008.

Phil Jensen, assistant professor, biology, came to RMC in 2009. He earned his bachelor’s of science and his Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. His current research focuses on a family of signals that cells use to communicate during development.

Dr. Jensen’s research blends molecular, development, and evolutionary biology in a way that is designed to be both accessible and productive for beginning researchers.

I went to a large university, and friends of mine in college did research in big labs where they rarely spoke to the professor.

They spent their time working with graduate students who were two years more advanced than they were. Here, students work with the professors directly and do the work themselves. This system has a lot of potential for helping students learn about science, and I think our performance at the state level shows that.”

The program has also had an impact beyond the classroom and laboratory. For Cheff, joining the research program as a freshman also changed her career plans.

“After spending time in the lab and doing science, I realized that I love research,” Cheff claimed. “As a freshman, I just wanted to get done with college so I could move on to physician assistant school and into the medical field. I still want to be a part of the medical field, but now I realize that many medical advances would not have been possible without research. The research program has opened my eyes.”

Cheff’s story mirrors Jensen’s career choices. Like Baisch and Cheff, Jensen grew up in a small town and was interested in medicine when he went to college.

Involvement in research changed his college experience and, ultimately, his career plans: despite being accepted to medical school, he decided to pursue a scientific career, which resulted in his coming to RMC. “I remember thinking as a small-town kid that my interest in biology meant I had to become a doctor or dentist,” he said. “I see many of our students thinking that way when they arrive on campus. In my case, I was fortunate to have three mentors in college who showed me what real science is. Following in their footsteps is part of why I’m here now.”

Current research students encourage younger students to get involved and get similar experience outside the classroom.

“I highly recommend that younger students do research – it is mentally challenging, but very rewarding,” said Baisch.

“Research is for students who aren’t satisfied with just knowing that something works, but want to know how something works.”

Because the National Science Foundation will fund the research program for the next three years, Drs. Jensen and Osterlund will keep working with students outside the classroom.

“Mark and I are excited about the research program and hope to expand it,” says Jensen. “If we can open doors for our students and help them become better thinkers in the process, then we’re doing our jobs, regardless of where the students end up.”

COMMENCEMENT 2013

RO CKY NOW

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SPONSORS THANKED AT RMC LUNCHEON Continued from Page 1

Brennan Zotovich said he was pursuing a dream of playing NCAA Division I volleyball at Grand Canyon University in Arizona when a coaching change resulted in the loss of his scholarship. “I was playing against Ohio State, USC, UCLA, and then I was adrift,� he recalled.

Grand Canyon’s loss was RMC’s gain. And, Zotovich said, his as well. “I thought I reached a Alicia Herron said scholarships were important to her pursuit to become a pilot. peak at Grand Canyon, but I couldn’t have been of scholarships in their collegiate careers. more wrong. At RMC, I have had onceAlicia Herron, who grew up in Los Angeles, in-a-lifetime opportunities placed in front Calif., attended the University of Washingof me: eat dinner with astronauts, receive ton before transferring to RMC to pursue a a grant from the Montana Space Grant degree in aeronautical science.

Consortium, work with Dr. John Jurist in “I want to pursue my dream of being a his biophysics research, be involved with pilot, and travel the world,� she told those the biology department with the biology assembled for the luncheon in the Great research, and give a presentation at the Room of Prescott Hall. “Thanks to the supMontana Academy of Sciences,� he said. port I’ve had and the wonderful program Seattle native LeeAnne Story told of we have here, I have little doubt I’ll realize moving back to Billings where her parents that dream.� had met as high school sweethearts and

where she would meet her husband, a fourth-generation Montanan. The mother of two small children, LeeAnne said her higher education aspirations were not thwarted by her parental obligations. “I’m a biology major with plans to apply to the RMC physician assistant program,� she said. “Scholarships have made it possible for me to keep moving forward.�

The keynote speaker was Lt. Gov. John Walsh, who spoke of the challenges and accomplishments of the administration of Gov. Steve Bullock, Montana’s new chief executive. “Higher education will always be a priority of this administration,� he said. He noted that Bullock is motivated by his own young children and his commitment to ensuring their generation’s opportunities for college.

PHOTOS

Credit

Photographs appearing in Rocky Now, unless otherwise noted, are by Dave M. Shumway, RMC staff photographer and web content manager.

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