UM President Stepping down
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2026 10:53 am
UM would be wise to give that a serious consideration. It would be over the moon hilarious if they find someone who’s first official acts would be canning the AD and Head Football coach.
Whichever party he belongs to as a potential candidate needs to distance themselves from this guy after the dumpster fire he started and increased in Missoula.HelenaCat95 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 11:07 amThere is speculation that he may be running for the US Senate.
I actually thought he did a decent job of steadying the ship after Royce Engstrom tried to sink it. He's no Waded Cruzado....PapaG wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 2:45 pmWhichever party he belongs to as a potential candidate needs to distance themselves from this guy after the dumpster fire he started and increased in Missoula.HelenaCat95 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 11:07 amThere is speculation that he may be running for the US Senate.
Edit - looks like he’s running as an “Independent” with Tester’s support.
I don’t have any um inside knowledge, but outside looking in he always seemed more like a politician than someone who was actually interested in properly fixing a higher ed institution.wbtfg wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 3:09 pmI actually thought he did a decent job of steadying the ship after Royce Engstrom tried to sink it. He's no Waded Cruzado....PapaG wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 2:45 pmWhichever party he belongs to as a potential candidate needs to distance themselves from this guy after the dumpster fire he started and increased in Missoula.HelenaCat95 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 11:07 amThere is speculation that he may be running for the US Senate.
Edit - looks like he’s running as an “Independent” with Tester’s support.
Edit: This was a comment on Egriz that seemed pretty well informed on Bodner's successes and shortcomings.
Low bar. Royce was awful. A crisis happened and his leadership inability lead to disaster. Maybe the worst president in UM history.
So we then had declining enrollment. Cuts are hard at UM due to tenure, the faculty union and senate, and Montana not being an at-will state. This means terminating faculty is almost impossible.
But you can make cuts due to fiscal decisions. We had programs with one or two students.
Enter Stearns for a year. She does the heavy lifting, organizes the departments by need, and sets it up for the next president to make program cuts as needed to grow a healthy University with the potential to thrive. She was a leader!
Enter Bodnar. His leadership is putting out fires, not moving us forward. He flushes Stearns University-wide report because he can't do the hard but right thing, and instead cuts nearly all support staff and office supplies. This watered down the good programs (future) to save the dying ones (past). If you've dealt with the U during his tenure, you may have had bad service (delays in acceptance, etc etc). Not the staff's fault - they are overwhelmed.
We eventually had to stabilize and show some signs of not declining. We have. The reality is we are drifting.
Bodnar is meant for politics. He is good at glad-handing and speeches. He also makes sure to take public credit for ANYTHING positive - if you've ever had the pleasure of working with him on something.
Thank you, but I look forward to finding a new president.
His main “accomplishment” at UM was getting steamrolled by Kent Haslam and Bobby Hauck IMO. Football is the primary focus there for revenue and it’s just weird to me.
I mean, I agree that he was a doormat for Hauck and Haslam but I don’t think that’s a fireable offense. I will say the fainted enrollment increases seem to have plateaued though. With the staffing cuts Bodnar did I’ll be interested to see how the next president fixes that.PapaG wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 5:06 pmHis main “accomplishment” at UM was getting steamrolled by Kent Haslam and Bobby Hauck IMO. Football is the primary focus there for revenue and it’s just weird to me.
MSU is excelling in academics and the accomplishments of the sports’ programs seems more organic and less stressful looking at it. Might be totally wrong about the latter.
I picked up on that too. It's delusional/hysterical/pathetic that UM grads (I assume the person who wrote this piece is a UM journalism grad) still insist on referring to UM as the "flagship institution" even though MSU has surpassed UM in every conceivable way, and has been the true flagship university in Montana for many years now.
The BOR were not pleased with mistake prone tenure at missoula, he was on the hot seat.Bobcat4Ever wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 10:54 pmRunning for Senate as an Independent is just a very convenient side-step to avoid a public termination.
Then please don't elect this mistake prone idiot to the US Senate.Bobcatsinmso wrote: ↑Thu Jan 22, 2026 6:55 pmThe BOR were not pleased with mistake prone tenure at missoula, he was on the hot seat.Bobcat4Ever wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 10:54 pmRunning for Senate as an Independent is just a very convenient side-step to avoid a public termination.
Yes, if you can’t successfully run a small university…Montanabob wrote: ↑Thu Jan 22, 2026 8:37 pmThen please don't elect this mistake prone idiot to the US Senate.Bobcatsinmso wrote: ↑Thu Jan 22, 2026 6:55 pmThe BOR were not pleased with mistake prone tenure at missoula, he was on the hot seat.Bobcat4Ever wrote: ↑Wed Jan 21, 2026 10:54 pmRunning for Senate as an Independent is just a very convenient side-step to avoid a public termination.