Michael Peter Malone (April 18, 1940 – December 21, 1999) was an American historian who served from 1991 to 1999 as the 10th president of Montana State University.
One of Montana's preeminent historians and writers, he was named by both The Missoulian and the Great Falls Tribune newspapers as one of the 100 most influential Montanans of the 20th century.
Malone's father managed McKeirnan Hardware and Implement in Pomeroy, and attended Holy Rosary Catholic Church.
[4] John Malone died in 1972,[4] and Michael believed that he lost a great deal from losing his father at an early age.
[6] By 1990, he was working on a biography of James J. Hill, the late 19th and early 20th century railroad executive whose Great Northern Railway played a critical role in the economic expansion of Montana.
"[8] In 1987, Malone pressed the United States Congress to make "tuition-remission" scholarships tax-exempt, so that more students would be encouraged to seek graduate education.
MSU's chief lobbyist, Cathy Conover, also noted that Malone sought to provide the legislature with the right information and an honest assessment, which earned him a great deal of personal respect.
[5] During Malone's presidency, Montana State University witnessed "one of the greatest expansions in campus history", as a large number of new buildings were constructed.
[5] The stadium renovation included new public-area seating, three tiers of skyboxes, and a camera deck to permit televising of games.
[5] Two minor scandals hit Montana State University during Malone's tenure: The College National Finals Rodeo declined to return to MSU, and two women's basketball coaches were fired for violating NCAA rules.
Malone's consensus-building governance style was apparent in both cases, according to vice president for student affairs Allen Yarnell.
[17] During that year, Malone held meetings during which it was decided that, should the rodeo finals return, smokeless tobacco products could no longer be distributed on campus.
[19] But in late August 1998, the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) voted unanimously to not return to Bozeman due to the no-tobacco-handouts rule.
[19] MSU rodeo coach John Larick public voiced his opposition to Malone's decision, which he called "disgusting".
[17] MSU and Bozeman business leaders attempted to compromise with the NIRA by offering to permit distribution of coupons for free or discounted tobacco products.
[18] Despite local business opposition to the university's decision, Malone said he had received 20 positive and 13 negative comments from the public, and would stand firm.
In 2009, MSU chief legislative lobbyist Cathy Conover said that relations with the state legislature had been somewhat poor under Malone (although she did not name him explicitly).
She believed that Malone's successor, Geoffrey Gamble, had a far more positive style that was "a sea change" and which led the Republican-dominated state legislature to rave about him.
One of the first financial rules Gamble laid down when his presidency began was to pledge that the university would not initiate projects without having the money to complete them.
Some faculty criticized his willingness to construct new buildings while declining to pay for teaching equipment (copiers and projectors) and maintenance (such as fixing broken or defective thermostats).
[5] He exited the airport parking lot in his own vehicle, and suffered sudden cardiac death after driving just a few yards.
[1][5] He was regularly interviewed in print and on television on various history subjects, including a lengthy segment for the PBS documentary series, The Irish in America.
[25] In 2011, Malone was named as one of Montana State's most important presidents—following in the footsteps of William Tietz—by MSU historians Jeffrey Safford, Pierce Mullen, and Robert Rydell in an interview with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
[26] Montana State University Archives and Special Collections holds the Michael P. Malone Papers, which consists of correspondence and research materials.
Lang, professor of history at Portland State University, called it "[o]ne of Malone's most important books" because it focused less on biography and parochially on Butte and analyzed the broader trends and pressures being exerted by emerging national corporations and economic consolidation.
[6] When he died, Malone had a contract with Yale University Press to write a new book re-conceptualizing the history of the American West.
Retired MSU professor of history Jeffrey Safford noted that Malone tended to synthesize the work of others with his own research, and was much more interested in the exercise of power than mere "who" and "where".
Malone argued for a return to source materials such as diaries and memoirs of the time, which neither treated settlers and Native Americans as if they were in a John Wayne movie nor made them out to be homogeneous outcasts.
Original source materials, he argued, showed the West to be diverse and much more interesting than the more common depiction of white hard-scrabble farmers made it out to be.
Although he did not have as much time to conduct research and write as he was promoted,[34] Safford characterized Malone's professional output as a university president as "absolutely extraordinary.