The University of Idaho has awarded more than $25 million in scholarship support for 2017-18 to over 6,800 undergraduate students from 49 states, including more than 4,700 scholarship recipients from Idaho receiving over $12.8 million in support. The scholarships are a combination of merit, need-based and outstanding achievement awards. Many of the scholarships are funded privately by the University of Idaho Foundation Inc., through the generosity of donors and alumni. UI students will receive an additional $100 million in financial assistance through state and federal programs. Through a combination of scholarships, state and federal financial assistance, UI will provide over $125 million to students and families to help pay for college during 2017-18. | | | A UI project led by physics professor Marty Ytreberg examining changes in the amino acids that are the building blocks of life and how they lead to changes in living things was awarded a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Funded by a $3.4 million USDA grant, a research team led by UI soil scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard will help wheat farmers adapt to changing conditions by exploring the use of winter legumes and cover crops with cattle grazing. Understanding how genetic mutations improve antibiotic resistance is the subject of a paper by lead author Eva Top, UI biology professor, in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution; such understanding may help prevent mutation and sustain the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment. And professor Ryan Long, fish and wildlife sciences, received a $700,000 grant to study how body size impacts behavior and survival of native antelope in Mozambique, useful insight for understanding North American species of varying sizes, such as deer, elk and moose. | | | This fall, the University of Idaho continued to stand out in prominent publications. In the recently released annual U.S. News and World Report rankings, UI was ranked the No. 90 “Top Public School” in the country and No. 171 among national universities, with business and engineering programs singled out on national lists. In the Washington Monthly’s annual rankings, UI moved up 17 spots to No. 67 among national universities based on educational quality, graduation success and outcomes such as alumni earnings. UI is also one of Money’s “Best Colleges for Your Money 2017” and its “Best College” in Idaho based on “educational quality, affordability and alumni success.” Released in September, PayScale’s 2017 College Salary Report named UI the “Best 4-Year College” in Idaho. UI graduates earned higher mid-career salaries than graduates of any other Idaho institution. | | | The University of Idaho College of Law welcomed its first class of first-year law students to its Boise location this August. Previously, all students completed their first-year in Moscow and then could transition to Boise, if desired, for their second and third year. The addition of first-year classes in Boise makes a Juris Doctor degree fully available at either location. Classes in Boise are held in the Idaho Law and Justice Learning Center (ILJLC), in the renovated historic Ada County Courthouse in the heart of downtown Boise. The ILJLC also houses the Idaho State Law Library and the Idaho Supreme Court’s judicial education offices. It is adjacent to the Idaho Supreme Court, Idaho State Bar and the Capitol Building. | | | A class of 40 medical students began their educational experience this August in Moscow; UI hosts 80 Idaho WWAMI students per year in Moscow. Through the partnership with the University of Washington School of Medicine, Idahoans gain affordable access to the No. 1-ranked medical school for primary care, family medicine and rural medicine. More than half of all Idaho WWAMI graduates are practicing or have practiced in Idaho, a return rate 10 percent above the national average. To accommodate the students and deliver educational excellence, UI has invested in expanded clinical and anatomy laboratories, equipment, and classroom space at the new Gritman Medical Center facility and has received $2.4 million in Permanent Building Fund support in addition to private funding for renovation of the Idaho WWAMI building on campus. | | | Now a second-year student in the University of Idaho’s College of Engineering, Bethany Kersten is spearheading an ambitious student-led research project, the results of which may be used by NASA to prepare for a human Mars mission in the 2030s. The group — known as Training in Advanced Technology and Exploration Research to Optimize Teamwork in Space, or TATERTOTS for short — is working on projects that address big questions: Is colonization possible in the red planet’s lava tubes? Is there a way to create a positioning system to keep track of Martian-based astronauts? Does life exist on Mars? READ MORE | | | From the Bonner County Daily Bee: Career-ending Achilles tendon tears in professional athletes. A decline in an aging population’s quality of life due to injured rotator cuffs. Outdoors enthusiasts made immobile because of tendon tears in their knees. In the near future, the debilitating nature of these injuries could be a thing of the past, as a team of faculty and students in the University of Idaho’s Department of Biological Engineering is focusing on revolutionary research to engineer regenerative tendon tissue. READ MORE | | | Two University of Idaho students, nuclear engineering majors Stephen Hancock and Emma Redfoot, have been selected among 11 fellows in the new Idaho National Laboratory Graduate Fellowship Program. Recipients of the competitive fellowships have their tuition and fees covered by their university during their first years of graduate school (years one to three) and their tuition and fees plus a $60,000 annual salary paid by INL during the last two years of their doctoral research performed at the lab. Graduate fellows were selected in degree fields that closely tie to INL’s three mission areas of innovative nuclear energy solutions, other clean energy options and critical infrastructure. | | | In front of 4,171 fans, the largest-ever crowd for an NCAA women’s soccer game played indoors, UI earned an exciting 1-1 draw with in-state rival Boise State. The Vandals needed every single second of the game clock to level the score, netting the game-tying goal with 0.4 seconds to play. The record-setting game was a kickoff to the academic year for Vandals, as UI built a new tradition in incorporating the “Kibbie Kickoff” into its Welcome Week activities for new and returning students and employees. Back-to-back Big Sky Conference regular season champions, Vandal soccer moved into the Dome full-time this season; new turf in the Dome accommodates football and soccer. | | | | | |