Where Montana
learns together

Montana's university system stretches across a vast state — from Missoula to Billings, Bozeman to Butte, Havre to Dillon. Sixteen campuses, thousands of faculty and staff, and tens of thousands of students. Every one of them learning things every day that could help someone on another campus.

But that knowledge stays siloed. A librarian in Great Falls discovers a brilliant workflow and tells three colleagues. A student in Bozeman solves a problem that fifty students in Billings are struggling with right now. A professor in Butte develops a teaching method that could transform classrooms everywhere — but no one beyond their hallway ever hears about it.

Email is too slow. Meetings are too formal. Teams channels feel like walled gardens. There's no place where a first-year student and a seasoned department chair can stumble into the same conversation and both walk away better for it.

That's why we built Campfire. Think of it like a campfire in the middle of Montana — a place where anyone from any campus can sit down, share what they know, ask what they don't, and listen to what others have learned. No hierarchy. No prerequisites. Just people helping people figure things out.

Campfire is a community forum for the Montana University System. It's organized by topics — AI tools, teaching strategies, campus life, research methods — but the real magic is what happens between the lines: a staff member shares a tip, a student asks a question that sparks a whole new approach, a faculty member from three campuses away says "we tried that, here's what we learned."