BOZEMAN — Montana State University will mark the opening of its updated student memorial with a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, Oct. 5. The event begins at 11 a.m. and is free and open to the public.
The student memorial honors students who have died while enrolled at the university and contains names dating back as far as 1990. The outdoor space is located south of the west entrance of the Centennial Mall near the Duck Pond. As part of its redesign and renovation, the student memorial now includes a visible memorial featuring the names of deceased students, outdoor seating, new trees and landscaping.
The event will include brief remarks from ASMSU President Lucas Oelkers, MSU President Waded Cruzado and MSU Dean of Students Matt Caires. A reception will follow.
“The student memorial is the culmination of six years of student-driven support,” said Oelkers. “This memorial is a public space to remember and honor students’ lives and contributions on MSU’s campus.”
The original student memorial was built in 1990 after the deaths of two students in Langford Hall. But it was surrounded by a wall and was visually closed off and not well-known on campus, Caires said. Also, there was no clearly established process for ensuring that the memorial was regularly updated, he said.
Then, in 2016, the mother of an MSU student who died in a car crash that year visited the memorial. Caires recalled that after her visit, she gently told the university that she thought the space could be better, and she made the first gift to help.
That year, MSU’s student government decided to research and review options to find “the best possible ways to honor the students who have passed away as well as their parents,” according to its resolution.
As part of their research, members of student government surveyed dozens of students and found that the majority wanted the student memorial kept in the same location but made more open and visible. Students surveyed also said they wanted it to be a space where students could come together, rather than a space for individuals to privately grieve.
In 2019, ASMSU voted to commit $75,000 to update the student memorial, and in 2020, project organizers participated in MSU Giving Day, a 29-hour online fundraising event, and drew more than 150 donors. MSU’s dean of students office, president’s office and administration and finance office also contributed. In all, $300,000 was contributed for the student memorial’s redesign and renovation.
The result, Caires said, is a lasting student legacy that will not only honor MSU students but also provide an important new space for the campus community.
“I am so proud of what the university has done with this project in order to remember the students we have lost over the years,” said Caires. “The student memorial reminds us all that ‘Once a bobcat, always a bobcat.’”