Buisness with a Bang

The host of the podcast, Carson Crary, introduces himself and his co-hosts, Brenna Kelly and Joe Stroop. They are joined by Kurt Stedman, a business professor at the University of Montana. They discuss the unique aspects of the university, such as the block schedule and the emphasis on soft skills. They also highlight the outdoor opportunities in Dillon and the affordability of the institution. Overall, they believe that the block schedule and the small class sizes are the main draw for new students. So we, like, have to do some sort of social media thing. Oh, okay. Yeah. Welcome to Business in a Bang. I'm your host, Carson Crary. I'm a Montana native, born and raised in Choteau, and I'm going to school down here at the University of Montana, Western. I'm joined with Joe Stroop and Brenna Kelly. Guys, I want you to share a little something about yourselves and what your degree is. My name is Brenna Kelly, and I'm from Fyler, Idaho. I'm here to get a degree in National Horsemanship and Business Administration. So I'm Joe Stroop. I'm from Palmer, Alaska, and I'm majoring in business with a minor in farm and ranch management. We're joined with a special guest today, Kurt Stedman, who's actually one of the business professors here at UMW. Kurt, why don't you give us some insight on Western and kind of what brought you here to Dillon? Yeah, not a problem. So I've actually lived in Dillon for 21 years. I came here to practice law at a law firm, so I have a law background. And about 12 years ago, I came up here to the University of Montana, Western as an adjunct. Well, first of all, I was asked to come up and fill in for a class for a couple weeks. One of the professors had to leave town, and so I did that. And then I adjuncted a few classes, and then the full-time position came open, and I applied for it. And I've been up here at Western for about 12 years teaching, and I really like it. It's a great institution. What does UMW offer that other schools don't? That's a great question. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately as we're looking at new possible degrees, new ways to reach different students and things like that. But I think one of the biggest things that Western offers, well, we have the block schedule, so we meet for 18 days for three hours a day. But I think the social interaction that Western offers is huge compared to other institutions. And I just had a conversation yesterday with another professor about soft skills and how important that is in the workplace going forward. And how well Western can capitalize on that. Because when you're in class for three hours, there's a lot of interaction that takes place. So that's something that makes us very different than most other institutions. Yeah, in the classroom right now, business communications, that was kind of one of our prompts, was soft skills and how to implement that more into the workplace. And how that's something that's not really taught but learned, I guess. Yeah, and if you think about it, you know, in my mind, and obviously I'm probably biased because I teach an institution, I have my own business, and I've worked in industry for quite a while. But soft skills are huge. People that have good soft skills typically do very, very well in the workplace. And so, anyway, I think that's something that's really cool about Western is that we can capitalize on that. You mentioned the block schedule. Do you want to elaborate on that a little more? Yeah, so in the block schedule, so we have four blocks per semester. So in a traditional college atmosphere that I think most people, or university atmosphere, that most people are familiar with is the semester system. You start four or five classes at the beginning of the semester. You do those classes all the way through the end of the semester. And then you have final exams, like a finals week or something like that. But here at Western, we have four blocks per semester. And so each block goes approximately three and a half weeks. For example, you may take business law in block one and finish that class in three and a half weeks. And then you start an entirely different class the next three and a half weeks. And so you just work through it that way. And so in a typical year, students will have eight different courses, but they're only chunked up in three and a half week blocks. No, that's definitely something that brought me to Western was the block system, the experimental learning. I really like the small class size. You get in touch with your professors easily and you know everybody more. It's kind of like going to a small town and really growing up there. Yeah, and I agree with Carson. I think being able to have class for only three hours makes it to where you can have an outside life, have a job, but also be going to school full-time and not having to focus on five classes at a time. Definitely, and probably one of the biggest things I like about this schedule, because I thought, would I ever want to teach on the other type of schedule? You mentioned some of the flexibility. Then also, usually in three and a half weeks, if the students at least want to engage somewhat, which most students do here at Western because you have to. You're in that classroom for that long. But I get to know the students very well during that time, much more than if I just stood up and talked for 50 minutes a few times a week. Me personally, I remember more about a student, where they're from, what they want to do, than their names. But by the end of the block, you know their names and you know a lot more about them and their interests. Yeah, it's definitely a huge part. I think newcomers and the job opportunity with the three-hour block schedule. I don't have a job or didn't have a job my freshman year, but I know lots of freshmen this year that have worked that into their schedule, maintaining a job and full-time student. That's pretty big compared to other campuses like Montana State or even the University of Montana. So I think that's a big attraction for new students. Yeah, definitely. It just allocates their time. You know, if you have a morning class, you can work in the afternoon. If you have an afternoon class, you can typically work in the morning or that type of thing. So you've lived in Dillon for 20-plus years, you said. What are some of the amenities that Dillon offers? Well, I don't know if we want to talk about that because we don't want to get them out. Oh, yeah. I'm just teasing. No, we love Dillon. I've looked at other places, looked at other, you know, I have a family and it's a great family community. But more than anything is the outdoor opportunities. I look at Dillon. Yes, it gets cold in the winter. Yep. But it's not a, you know, it's typically not very long and it's manageable. This winter was cold. Yeah. But the outdoor opportunities, it almost doesn't matter what you want to do in the outdoors. You can find it around here. If you want to go float the rivers and fish. If you don't want to float the rivers, you can still fish. We have a lake. We have all these high mountain lakes up in the Pioneers and all the surround. We're just surrounded by millions of acres of public land. And if you want to ski, well, there's a ski resort right here, 45 minutes away. Or if you want a bigger one, they're within a few hours. If you want a mountain bike, if you want to hike. So me personally, probably our favorite things to do is to hike. I love to hike into high mountain lakes or even ride a four-wheeler up to some of them and get into the high mountain lakes. I love to go out and boat on the lake. And so it's just endless opportunities. If you want to ride a horse, there's all sorts of areas nearby you can ride a horse. And so I can't think of, I can't think of a, there's not many recreational outdoor activities that are not available in this area to do. Well, that was something that intrigued me was the outdoor life here. Coming from a small town, a little smaller than Dillon, but having a ski hill close. I'm a big skier, so that was important. I like fishing. Lots of public land for hunting. And just a lot of area to explore. And if you do need that big city fix, Bozeman, Rexburg, Missoula, they're all within two-hour drive. And each of those have bigger ski hills and more adventure for new students that are trying to plan out their next four years of their life, what they want to do. Yeah, and I think for me, as far as the agriculture goes, I'm really big into agriculture, so having that outdoor life where I know I could get a job in the outdoors working with cattle, working with horses. I could bring my horse up here and know that, you know, I'd have good hay and just have lots of help as far as agriculture goes. That was a really big thing that got me here. I'd actually like to emphasize on that as well. The amount of opportunity in agriculture there is here is, there's a lot of it. Like, especially with the block schedule, I'm able to work a full 40 to 50 hours a week on a local farm and still have time to go to school every day and get all my homework done. And there's a lot of local farms and ranches around here. Yeah, lots of day work for cowboy hands, if you want to say. What do you think is the number one draw for new students to come to Western? Probably the biggest draw that I have, as I meet with advisees, as I meet with students, the students are here, probably the initial draw, I would say, is the block schedule. Where it's so unique, it's something different, it gives them the opportunity to focus on that one class. That's probably the initial draw, but then I think once they're here, I think there's some other factors that come into play. Because it's a small institution, there's not, you don't get lost in the crowd, so to say. I mean, if you want to, you probably could. It'd be very difficult, but it's a smaller institution, people are super friendly, just like we were talking about, all the amenities. One of the big things, I think, for students, too, is the cost. It's a very value, fairly value-oriented tuition cost, but not only the cost of the educational, you know, the institution, but the living cost, compared to some of the other Montana universities. I mean, we all talk about Bozeman and how much it costs to live in Bozeman, housing and things like that. It's ridiculous, yeah. And so I think that's, I think some, there's probably a totality of that, but I think the initial is probably the block schedule. And with tuition, being able to get the WUE scholarship, that helps a lot if you're coming out of state, or even if you are in state, the scholarships are endless. What's like an average class size, and how many students are on campus, registered students? So I don't have the exact number of the FTE, but my understanding, I've always kept in the back of my head, it's probably around 1,200 mid-time equivalent students. We are getting more of an online presence in the education, where some of those degrees are strictly online, and so we are building out that way. But the average class size, I would say, depending on the level of class, but mine have typically, like my entrepreneurship class, is typically around 25, is the biggest. Sometimes I'll get them up to 30, 32, depending on which students need a class, and so I'll allow students to come into that. But typically the courses are capped at 25, and so I would say the average enrollment is probably 20 students. All right. Well, thanks for joining us today, Kurt, and we'll see you next time on Business with a Bang. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's great to be here. Thanks for the invite. Thank you for coming. Hopefully this opens up the door for some new students, and to broaden their search, and kind of puts us in the back of their head for an idea. So, yeah. Thanks again for taking some time out of your day. Yep. You're welcome. Thank you.