The University of Montana Western
University of Montana Western is a small, comprehensive university with an integrated two- and four-year mission, offering certificate, associate, and baccalaureate degrees in education, business, and the liberal arts. It is the only public university in the United States that utilizes the program Experience One where students take one 4-credit course, three hours a day for 18 days (2 ½ weeks) then have a four-day break before moving on to the next subject. Taking four courses or “blocks” during the semester, they earn the same amount of credit as traditional multiple class systems.
The quality of the university’s faculty has been nationally recognized and UMW is highly ranked in national surveys for educational value, affordability, and student success. Small class sizes and the continuity of the block system allow faculty to address the variables that hinder students’ progress.
Besides competitive rodeo, football, basketball, track, volleyball, and cross-country teams, a plethora of intramural sports and activities such as basketball, kickball, soccer, flag football, ultimate frisbee, golf days, ski days, and many other sports are available for student participation.
Located close to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the area features incredible skiing, some of the world’s best fly fishing, hunting, climbing, hiking, and numerous outdoor activities. Surrounded by seven mountain ranges and vast tracts of public land, lakes, forests and rivers, southwest Montana is a recreation paradise.
The University of Montana Western
Professor Rob Thomas's Working Habitat
Founded in 1893 as Montana State Normal School, the University of Montana Western didn’t always work the way it does today. Professor Rob Thomas and a group of faculty and staff had a big part to play in that change.
When Thomas was hired to teach geology in 1993, the college was struggling.
“I saw this really cool little campus with a phenomenal setting, and I thought here we had an opportunity to make something unique in public education,” he said. “In my past experience, I had found that a month-long geology field camp enhanced student’s learning and retention. I wanted to be able to get my students out in the field working on things that are firsthand and direct. For Western, I envisioned we could adopt the Colorado College immersion block schedule program where students take one four-credit course, three hours a day for 18 days (3 ½ weeks) then have a four-day break before moving on to the next subject. Taking four courses or “blocks” during the semester, they earn the same amount of credit as traditional multiple class systems.”
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Thomas, along with a “small nucleus of support,” fought to make the block schedule happen.
Rob Thomas on the summit of Torrey Peak in the East Pioneer Mountains.
First, they modified the scheduling of science classes from three days a week with a lab to longer sessions two days a week. “Immediately I could go out in the field and start working on projects with students,” Thomas said. He conducted stream studies at Blacktail Deer Creek, which runs through Dillon, and got students out in the field working on projects in his other geology courses as well.
This hybrid form of teaching eventually led to a push for a complete switch to the Colorado College block schedule. However, many in the community and on campus resisted the idea. It took a lot of hard work, but the idea gathered support, especially after a successful pilot program supported by a grant from the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE).
Against the odds, the proposal was accepted.
“That was the first FIPSE proposal ever funded in the state of Montana,” Thomas said. “They support only the most significant and important changes in public higher education, and they are incredibly competitive.”
Western launched its pilot program as three groups of 25 students took their general education courses one at a time to test the block system’s effectiveness.
“It was incredibly successful,” Thomas said. “We retained 98 percent of students after the first year of the pilot. Nobody had those numbers. It was astonishing.” Western was the first and is the only, public university in the US that utilizes this form of immersion scheduling.
By 2005, Western switched all of its courses to the block format. A 10-year study in 2015 showed that the University of Montana Western had the highest course completion, graduation, and job placement rates in the state. Thomas received the Carnegie Foundation CASE US Professor of the Year Award.
But more than accolades, Thomas was excited about what this meant for his students.
The format allows students to put their education to practical use from the very start, conducting fieldwork and then creating real-world products such as environmental reports and booklets on the local geology for public consumption.
“It’s authentic practice in the discipline, because we have freedom from scheduling,” Thomas said. “I think people evolved to learn from experience. There are some things you have to memorize; they’re part of working knowledge, but for students to truly learn and begin the journey to becoming a professional, they must get into the field and work on real problems.”
Many of Thomas’ students in the Environmental Sciences Department have gone on to work with land and water management organizations such as the Beaverhead Water Committee, Trout Unlimited, the Big Hole Watershed Committee, and The Nature Conservancy.
In addition to providing concrete work experience for students, the block system also has benefits for instructors.
“Because we're all only teaching one class at a time, we're really a team,” Thomas said. “The benefit is that we can work with one another because I'm not grappling with three classes at the same time and neither are my colleagues. We can actually team teach.”
Thomas and his faculty colleagues have been able to use this freedom to teach in Nepal and to take students on many international study trips.
It took 11 years to get the block system established at Montana Western, but Thomas is very proud of the many ways the university has improved since he first joined its faculty.
“It was hard work by a lot of people that got it done,” he said.
Cretaceous folds overlain by tertiary basalt. Block Mountain north of Dillon. Photo by Rob Thomas.
Dillon and the University of Montana Western
Base Camp to Geology Field Camps
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By Rob Thomas, PhD Geology
Regents Professor Environmental Sciences Dept.
University of Montana Western
Summer geology field camps have been taught using facilities at the University of Montana Western since the 1960s, when Dr. Dave Alt brought the University of Montana-Missoula camps to Dillon. Today, the region is a mecca for up to thirty geology field camps from all over the world. The area attracts these universities because the geology is incredibly well exposed, covers all of the different rock types and structures that are important for students to see in the field, has easy access to public land with minimal elevation and is located in a university town that provides campus access to classrooms, computer facilities, food service and dorms, and town access to a first-rate hospital, business services, and several tire shops! Some of the camps also stay at the Montana Western Birch Creek Field Station, located at the historical Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in the shadow of Torrey Mountain in the Pioneer Range west of Dillon.
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The geology camps start arriving in Dillon as early as mid-May and continue through the fall. Each camp has a different duration of time they spend in Dillon, but a typical geology field camp lasts for five weeks, with the students working in the field for a minimum of six days per week.
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What little time they have off can be spent shopping and relaxing in Dillon, going fishing on one of the several blue-ribbon trout streams in the area or hiking to a high mountain lake to escape the heat of summer. The camps are a source of renewable revenue for the Montana Western campus and the Dillon community, so it is critical to maintain our access to these public lands.
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Summer geology field camps have been taught using facilities at the University of Montana Western since the 1960s, when Dr. Dave Alt brought the University of Montana-Missoula camps to Dillon. Today, the region is a mecca for up to thirty geology field camps from all over the world. The area attracts these universities because the geology is incredibly well exposed, covers all of the different rock types and structures that are important for students to see in the field, has easy access to public land with minimal elevation and is located in a university town that provides campus access to classrooms, computer facilities, food service and dorms, and town access to a first-rate hospital, business services, and several tire shops! Some of the camps also stay at the Montana Western Birch Creek Field Station, located at the historical Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in the shadow of Torrey Mountain in the Pioneer Range west of Dillon.
The geology camps start arriving in Dillon as early as mid-May and continue through the fall. Each camp has a different duration of time they spend in Dillon, but a typical geology field camp lasts for five weeks, with the students working in the field for a minimum of six days per week. What little time they have off can be spent shopping and relaxing in Dillon, going fishing on one of the several blue-ribbon trout streams in the area or hiking to a high mountain lake to escape the heat of summer. The camps are a source of renewable revenue for the Montana Western campus and the Dillon community, so it is critical to maintain our access to these public lands.