Two great courses taught by nationally recognized scholars
Graduate credit through University of Wyoming or Montana State University
2 semester hours graduate credit per course
Continuing Education Credits
Limited number of tuition and housing scholarships available
Class content enhanced by access to the art and artifacts of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s collections
Field trips

Session I, June 13 – 17, 2005

The Magic of Bears
Dr. James C. Halfpenny, A Naturalist’s World, and James Garry, Great Plains Lore and Natural History, Inc.

Jim Garry and Jim Halfpenny, world-known ursophiles, will explain all about the Bear of North America and even a word about world-wide bears. Garry will cover the mythological knowledge base while Halfpenny will cover taxonomy, evolution, biology, ecology, and management of bears. Experience bears through the eyes of two who have sought the bear in the far corners of the world including black, Spirit (Kermode), Blue (Glacier), interior grizzly, coastal grizzly, coast brown, Kodiak brown, and polar bears. These men have been on-the-ground, up-close and personal with all these bears, and on a regular basis! The course will include a field trip to study bears in Yellowstone National Park (June 18).

Jim Halfpenny owns A Naturalist’s World, a company dedicated to providing educational programs, books, slide shows, and videos about ecologically important subjects. Topics include rare mammalian species, tracking, winter and alpine ecology, and special ecosystems: Artic, mountain, and African. Since 1961, Jim has taught outdoor education and environmental programs for state, federal, and private organizations including, among others, Aspen Center for Environmental Sciences, Audubon, Colorado Outward Bound School, Defenders of Wildlife, National Outdoor Leadership School, National Wildlife Wilderness Society, Yellowstone Institute, and various universities. He is a research affiliate of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado, and is past field director of the Mountain Research Station (alpine branch of INSTAAR). Jim is also a Fellow of the Explorer’s Club and has led expeditions in Antarctica, China, Greenland, Kenya, Tanzania, and the United States. He is author of A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America: an Ecological Handbook and numerous scientific and popular articles. Jim is listed in Who’s Who in the West and the World. He resides in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where he spends as much time in the field as is possible, especially on his cross country skis.

Jim Garry is the founder of Great Plains Lore and Natural History, Inc. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, and disseminate the lore of the Great Plains. He received his M.S. from the University of Michigan (School of Natural Resources). He has been on the Wyoming Humanities Council Speakers Bureau and has served as an artist-in-residence for both the Montana and Wyoming Arts Councils. He has worked through the years as wilderness guide, teacher, cowboy, horse wrangler, camp cook, folklore collector, and storyteller. He is the author of two story collections, This Old Drought Ain’t Broke Us Yet and The First Liar Never Has a Chance.

Session II, June 20 – 24, 2005

The Art of Yellowstone
Dr. Joni L. Kinsey, Associate Professor of American Art History, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

This seminar will explore the fascinating history of Yellowstone's visual culture in conjunction with the exhibition, Drawn to Yellowstone, at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. Ranging from modest wood engravings that were first published in the early 1870s in magazines, guidebooks, and government reports to photographs and monumental oil paintings that have been created to the present day, we will study the works in social, political, and aesthetic contexts to better understand artistic responses to the area's remarkable geology and transformations in attitudes toward the region over the past century and a half. Sessions in the galleries as well as slide lectures, discussions, student presentations, and a field trip to Yellowstone (June 25) will be included in the course activities.

Joni Kinsey is an associate professor at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century American landscape painting and American western art. She received her Ph.D. from Washington University in 1989. She is the author of four books, Thomas Moran and the Surveying of the American West, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992; Plain Pictures: Images of the American Prairie, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996; The Majestic Grand Canyon: 150 Years in Art, First Glance Books, 1998, and most recently Wonderlands in Stone: Thomas Moran's Western Chromolithographs (forthcoming 2005 from the University Press of Kansas). It will accompany an exhibition of the same name that will open in October 2005 at Omaha's Joslyn Museum of Art.