Northern is failing the Hi-Line

If your daughter decides she wants to be a high school math teacher, don't bother to send her to Montana State University-Northern because Northern no longer offers the degree. If your son is good at English and history and wants to go to college to study to become a high school teacher, you will have to tell him that he will have to leave Havre because Northern no longer offers the degree.

In fact, Chancellor Jim Limbaugh has made the decision to terminate all secondary education degrees at Northern. The chancellor has made this decision despite the opposition of the faculty, and despite the fact that secondary education majors constitute 10 percent of the bachelor degrees Northern awards and without consulting either the students or the local educational leadership.

Indeed, there are more than 50 students currently majoring in secondary education. For the past 75 years Northern has done a fine job training high school teachers who then stay on the Hi-Line and in Montana and teach in communities like Malta, Havre, Rocky Boy, Box Elder, Hayes, Choteau, Conrad and dozens of other towns. These teachers often teach several different subject in our vast state. Sadly, Chancellor Limbaugh knows his only job is to make certain that Northern does not stand in the way of Waded Cruzado's plan to increase the enrollment and funding for her "One University" in Bozeman.

For the past 24 years I have had the privilege of teaching the hard-working students of Montana in this dusty little corner of the world, and I have seen the state higher educational leadership fail these same students again and again. I urge the local Chamber of Commerce, as well as the business community, to let the Board of Regents know that this is one decision that cannot stand. The time has come to turn the lights back on at Northern. The folks of this area deserve better.