200 Montana High School Students Visit UM for ‘Innovation Day'

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - On Wednesday, over 200 high school students from five schools in the area will descend on the University of Montana for a program called Innovate High School with a special guest journalist sponsored by the Mansfield Center on campus.

UM Director of Strategic Communications Dave Kuntz told me that exposing high school kids to UM is one of their greatest recruitment tools.

“One of the goals here at the University of Montana is to get as many high school students on campus as possible through all sorts of different lenses with the hopes that they then choose to continue their academic pursuits and become a grizzly,” began Kuntz. “What we have here going on this week is where the Mansfield Center is going to host an Innovation Day featuring a journalist by the name of Peter Hessler who is going to be on campus.”

Kuntz said the high school students will be busy working on important issues, including creating and drafting what is called a ‘Care Constitution’.

“Not only will they go sit and learn from speakers and do some networking themselves, but they'll also work, spending the day on innovating and engaging in creative problem solving with some of our young employees as they start to create what we're calling a Care Constitution, which is a set of recommendations that they can use to uphold and enhance safe policies and practices for students,” he said.

Kuntz said this program, ‘Innovate High School’ will help to foster ‘innovation, dialogue and leadership’ skills.

He said such programs also help students and their parents discover what an educational bargain in-state college can be.

“In-state students are spending between $7,000 and $8,000 a year at the University of Montana, which might sound like a lot on the surface, but it's about 26 percent lower than other in state students of our regional peers,” he said. In comparison, students who want to stay in the Dakotas or Wyoming or Idaho, and so the educational opportunities we provide here in Montana, are at such a discounted rate, that it's really a steal for in-state students, and for those students who do want an ‘honors college’ course or something that might be offered at big coastal universities, we have that too with the Davis's Honors College.”

The program will be for one day only on Wednesday, April 3.