Fundraising complete for $20 million Indian center in Montana

Thursday, December 13, 2018  

By MSU News Service
montana.edu/news

BOZEMAN – Gifts from two prominent Montana families have completed the fundraising for a $20 million American Indian Hall on the campus of Montana State University.

Jim and Chris Scott of Billings and the Terry and Patt Payne Family of Missoula each gave $1 million respectively to finish off the campaign, which started 13 years ago but received new life in October when the Kendeda Fund gave $12 million and the Associated Students of MSU pledged another $2 million. Sixteen donors have also committed $1.1 million to the American Indian Hall since October.

“The generosity of the Scotts and the Paynes will be felt by generations of students and will help build a stronger Montana for all of us,” said MSU President Waded Cruzado.

The American Indian Hall was first proposed in 2005 under the administration of MSU President Geoff Gamble, but securing funds for the project over the years proved challenging. Now, the university plans to break ground during the last week of March and have the building open by 2021.

“Our American Indian students and their families deserve a place of their own in which they can feel pride,” said Jim Scott. “This beautiful building will be that place, as well as a place where non-native students will feel comfortable and can learn from and about their American Indian peers. Many native students return to their communities to work after graduating, and so the benefits of this hall will travel home with them.”

The Scott family founded First Interstate Bank 50 years ago in Sheridan, Wyoming, and Jim Scott is currently chairman of its board. First Interstate Bank offers banking services in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.

Terry Payne is chairman of the board of PayneWest Insurance, Inc., of Missoula. The firm is the largest independent, employee-owned insurance agency in the western United States. Payne was the lead donor behind the University of Montana’s Payne Family Native American Center, which opened in 2010.

“Our family is pleased to be able to help the American Indian Hall come to fruition. We were excited and gratified to see the remarkable donation from the Kendeda Fund and proud to join it, the Scott family and others in following President Cruzado’s leadership in bringing this project into reality for the benefit of American Indians and all students as well as the entire campus, community and state,” Payne said.

December 31 is the conclusion of MSU’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign, which kicked off in 2015 with a goal of raising $300 million, including funding for the American Indian Hall. Full funding of the hall was the last major piece of the campaign.

“As a university, we promised in 2005 to build an American Indian Hall. Our students and our American Indian communities were very patient these past 13 years. Now that promise has been kept and a dream fulfilled. For all of us at MSU, our hearts are moved by the donors who helped make this a reality,” Cruzado said.

To date, more than 60 individuals and organizations have donated to the project.

“My first reaction to this news is gratitude as we realize that this long-held dream will now move to reality,” said Walter Fleming, head of the Department of Native American Studies in the College of Letters and Science. Fleming has been at MSU for more than 40 years as first a graduate student and then a professor and administrator. He said for much of that time, a center for American Indian students has been a dream.

“I also have hope. For, as much good as we have been able to do for our students, with this new building we will be able to do so much more for them. The American Indian Hall allows us to better assist students, not just in the several years to come, but also for those who will be attending MSU 40 or 50 years from now.”

The building is sorely needed. MSU’s American Indian Student Center is currently located in a heavily used 1,100-square-foot room in the basement of Wilson Hall, the same place since it’s been since Wilson Hall opened in 1974, when there were fewer than 25 students who identified as American Indian. This fall, 776 American Indian students are enrolled at MSU.

The new facility will house the offices of the MSU Department of Native American Studies, which are currently in Wilson Hall. The building will hold numerous classrooms for use by all students, as well as an auditorium for lectures. Also planned are rooms for tutoring, counseling and advising.

The American Indian Hall will also include culturally relevant elements, including a room that can be used for ceremonies and as a dance studio. While focused on the needs of MSU’s growing American Indian community, which includes students from all 12 of Montana’s tribes as well as 41 additional tribal nations from 15 states, the building will also be a place welcoming to all students and a bridge between cultures.

The building’s structure will be based on a feather design created by MSU architecture graduate Dennis Sun Rhodes in 2005. That is when Sun Rhodes, an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe from Ethete, Wyoming, and his friend, well-known artist Jim Dolan, first proposed their vision for a freestanding MSU American Indian student building to Gamble.

MSU dedicated the land next to Hannon Hall for the building shortly after and a Dolan tepee sculpture has stood on the spot as a reminder of that promise as the university worked to find funds for the project. Cruzado said Sun Rhodes and his Great Horse Group of St. Paul, Minnesota, will serve as a consultant on the project, working with ThinkOne architects of Bozeman and TSP architects in Rapid City, South Dakota.

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Montana State University lands grant for American Indian Hall (October 8, 2018)