Chad Baldwin, AVP of Marketing and Communications for the University of Wyoming, called into the Weekday Wake-Up on Wednesday, July 15 for his monthly report. Baldwin discussed the university being named Top 50 in the nation in student value, a study regarding ice glaciers in the Tetons, a stem-cell production center coming to Laramie and research regarding the diet of early Americans.

The following transcript of the above interview is AI generated. Minor spelling errors are likely to occur.

(0:00) Chad Baldwin joins me now live over the phone from Laramie at the campus of the (0:04) University of Wyoming for his monthly report today. Chad, good morning. How you (0:08) doing out in Laredyce today? Actually, Duke, I’m in on your side of the state.

(0:14) I’m in Evanston. The Board of Trustees is meeting here. You know, they (0:18) go out and have meetings and there’s a meeting in the summertime somewhere else (0:23) around the state and so it’s good to be back in Western Wyoming and (0:28) definitely cooler here than I think it is on the east side of the state.

(0:32) Absolutely. Well, welcome to Southwest Wyoming and always good to be over on (0:36) this side for sure. Well, Chad, a couple of things we can chat about what’s (0:40) happening with the university.

Congratulations are in order again. Some (0:44) more recognition. UW ranked in the top 50 best value public universities.

Yeah, (0:52) yeah, Duke, this smart asset is a consumer website and they crunched some (0:57) data. They looked at over 500 universities and they looked at our (1:01) graduation rates, our cost of attendance, and then maybe the most interesting one, (1:06) how much money are our graduates making 10 years after their first enrollment. (1:12) And based upon that calculation, we’re in the top 50 in the country and (1:16) matter of fact, we’re number 41 for best value public universities.

In other words, (1:21) it’s a return on investment thing for students, you know, because college does (1:26) cost money, but what do you get in return. And we’re really particularly proud (1:30) because in the whole Rocky Mountain West, there’s only three universities on (1:34) there. There’s none from Montana, none from Colorado, none from Utah.

The only (1:40) other one that’s kind of in our, would be a peer is the University of Idaho. They (1:45) ranked 45th and we’re ranked ahead of them at number 41. So yeah, I mean, these (1:51) rankings, you know, there’s lots of them.

We, you know, we, some of them are maybe (1:54) more meaningful than others, and maybe this might be the most meaningful of all (1:58) when you talk about students and families. (2:01) Yeah, no doubt. That’s another great recognition for the University of Wyoming.

(2:06) Chad Baldwin with UW on the Weekday Wakeup today. And Chad, as we talk about (2:10) quite often, there’s things that happen all across the state from UW that impacts (2:14) the whole state. And again, over here on the Western side, a researcher from UW (2:19) has been part of a team that’s been researching ice in the Tetons that made (2:23) kind of a cool discovery, if you will.

(2:26) Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. You know, so there’s glaciers up there in the (2:31) Tetons, as there are in the Wind Rivers, you know, up high, and they’re an (2:34) important source of water, especially in the late summer, especially in a summer (2:39) like this. And we do know that those glaciers have been getting smaller.

But (2:43) there is another type of glacier besides the one we think of, it’s called a rock (2:48) glacier. And they’re kind of they’re protected a little bit under under rock. (2:53) And, and what the research is, is Dr. Tronstad from, from the university, (2:58) spending time up there, I found that these rock glaciers, they’re, they’re (3:02) actually holding up pretty well.

So the more exposed glaciers, they’re, they are (3:06) shrinking, but the these rock glaciers are not. And so that’s, that’s an (3:11) important, you know, these, these water sources are precious in our state, you (3:16) know, and it’s kind of nice to know that at least that, that, that category of (3:22) glacier is actually holding up pretty well. (3:25) Yeah, and of course, part of that study done by a UW researcher, part of the team (3:29) that was with that.

Chad, speaking of research, it sounds like a really cool (3:36) thing coming to Laramie, in conjunction with the University of Wyoming, tell us (3:40) about this UW spin out cell drop biosciences, that’s going to be building (3:45) a center in Laramie. (3:48) Yeah, Duke, this is pretty dang cool. You know, we don’t have a medical school in (3:51) Wyoming.

We know that, but that doesn’t mean we’re not doing some really cool (3:55) biomedical type of projects. And Ben Norin, he’s a, he’s one of our faculty (4:01) members. But he also, they do these things called spin outs, where if they (4:05) have technology that can have commercial application, we help try to set them up (4:10) to, to, you know, to make some, make some money and be a successful enterprise (4:16) that then benefits the state of Wyoming through jobs and taxes and that kind of (4:20) thing.

And so, so his cell drop biosciences is, they’re doing cell (4:25) processing technologies. And the new thing is, they’re going to have this (4:30) another spin out called Juniper Biosystems. It’s going to build a stem (4:33) cell manufacturing center.

And what’s that do you say? Well, stem cells are, you (4:39) know, in the things that basically help us heal, like from wounds and that sort (4:44) of thing. And they’ve, they’ve got a technology that’s going to help, help in (4:49) the healing process through, through stem cells, manufacturing those things. So (4:56) it’s, it’s, it’s called regenerative medicine, you know, and, and we’ve got a (5:01) new company basically in Wyoming, that’s going to do this work.

Pretty high tech (5:07) stuff and, but very relevant to the, you know, healthcare field and, and another (5:12) addition to the state’s economy. Yeah, very great. That’s Chad Baldwin this (5:15) morning, University of Wyoming.

And Chad, just a final note here on some other UW (5:21) researchers working with other researchers on the early American primary (5:26) diet with some, some pretty large mammals. Yeah, I personally love this (5:33) stuff. When we talk, start talking about stuff 11, 12, 13,000 years ago, what was (5:37) Wyoming like back then? You know, when the first humans came, came here and we (5:42) know there, we had mammoths in Wyoming, among other big, big old mammals.

And (5:48) what they’ve just, what they’ve been able to document is that these, these (5:54) early humans, they weren’t just going around grabbing rabbits or whatever, not (5:58) to say they didn’t eat a lot of things, but they, where they really made their, (6:03) made hay was with these big mammals. They’d hunt them in groups. They had (6:08) these finely tuned, tuned to things like Clovis points.

And they were able to, to (6:12) kill these things and then get, get their nutrition off of them. And they’re (6:17) relatively high fat kind of animals compared to say, you know, rabbits or (6:22) whatever. And, and, you know, we, we’ve got sites in Wyoming, archaeological (6:26) sites where we can document and show that human beings either call either killed (6:31) or, or scavenged mammoths.

And, and this went clear across the whole North and (6:37) South America and South America. They, they, these giant ground sloths, they’re (6:41) called, but anyway, pretty, pretty darn cool that, that you have researchers able (6:46) to piece this together and, and very, very, very interesting research they do. (6:53) And of course, UW has mentioned part of that research team, Chad, as always, (6:56) thank you for your time.

Some great stuff coming out of the University of (6:59) Wyoming. Anything we missed you’d like to touch on today? (7:03) Duke, I know you really appreciate it. We’ve got our new president on board now (7:06) and we’ll try to get him maybe, maybe on your show next month or something.

(7:09) Absolutely. We’d love to have him. Thank you.

That’s Chad Baldwin, University of (7:13) Wyoming. It’s all part of the weekday wake up this morning on SBI radio.