Hammer and Pick

In the early 1990s, I traveled to Germany to complete research begun years before during my year abroad as a doctoral graduate candidate. As a proud Montana Tech professor, I wore a traditional “School of Mines” lapel pin given to me one year at graduation by our Dean of Engineering, Pete Knudsen. It is in the form of the Tech shield, including our motto and emblem, the hammer and pick. These are the same crossed implements that adorn the cover page of The Technocrat.

The pin fascinated my German colleagues. As historians of science and technology, they knew immediately what “De Re Metallica” referred to, but the symbol of the crossed hammer and pick puzzled them. Germany had only recently reunited, and the emblem of the former East Germany had been a hammer and compass (see illustration), itself derived from the hammer and sickle emblem of the Soviet Union. Some of my German colleagues assumed that the Montana Tech emblem meant that my college was a communist institution!

Origins of "De Re Metallica"

Ask most college students about “de re metallica” and they’ll probably mutter something about a heavy metal band. Montana Tech students, of course, know better. Tech’s motto, “de re metallica,” is a good fit for what began as The Montana School of Mines—a college that originally focused on degree programs such a Mining Engineering and Mineral Processing, and that today offers a diversity of programs including Technical Communication. 

Contract Changes For Tech Faculty

The majority of Tech’s full-time instructional faculty – 64 of approximately 110 total – are represented by a union, the Montana Tech Faculty Association (MTFA). Among those represented by the MTFA, a high proportion – more than 75% – are dues paying members. Non-members who are represented must still pay a required representation fee. When a majority of faculty first approved MTFA representation, professional engineers and nursing faculty were excluded from the bargaining unit and thus pay no fees.

Opinion Letter - Pat Munday

Having worked as an engineer at an oil refinery, I appreciated Rachel Walla's article ("Contractors and Engineers") about the ways in which engineering plans must sometimes be modified in order to "git 'er done" on the actual job.

Dances with Alpine Ecology

Pat Munday
When most people think of scientific research, they think of esoteric work performed in a sterile laboratory. For Dr. Martha Apple, however, that’s not how it works. As an Assistant Professor of Biology who studies the effect of climate change on Alpine ecology, Dr. Apple’s “laboratories” are the remote, beautiful places that many Montanans consider heaven.