[Iesaf_selkirk] FW: IFOA Meeting Tonight

[John Ferris]

TO: THE FORESTRY community and the Idaho Land Board

See attached 4 letters concerning the proposed changes in the Idaho CNR.
This is background for our Farm Bureau tour of the college 3/24 and the SAF
meeting at Moscow's Best Western 3/25. In the forestry community some are
concerned Re: the curriculum and effects on a future generation of forest
professionals in our state and the surrounding states on the Eastside of the
Cascades.

Sincerely,

John J. Ferris CF, EA 

 

  _____  

I wanted to send you some documents/memos that we received that pertain to
the recent changes made at the UI College of Natural Resources.

 

Attached is a FAQ document put out by the college, and below is a letter
sent by Jo Ellen Force (Forest Resources Department Chair) in response to
letters that John Bruna and I had sent to Dean McLaughlin, expressing our
specific concerns with the (then proposed) program consolidations. (John's
memo is below; my letter is attached.)

 

I hope these documents will assist all of you in understanding these changes
better.

 

 

 

Ara

 

 

 

 

 

From: Force, Jo Ellen [mailto:JOELLEN at uidaho.edu] 



 

 

Hello John,

 

First, I have copied everyone that was included in your letter to Dean
McLaughlin as well as others copied in Ara Andrea's letter and UI folks who
have been involved in recent discussions about the Notice of Intent in CNR.
I hope this is OK with you, as I am drowning in e-mails after being out of
the country for a couple of weeks.

 

Thank you for sending the "Minimum Criteria:  Land Resource Manager, Sr. -
Forest" to me.  It will be helpful to the faculty when we are advising our
students.  I plan to share it with the students in FOR 102 Introduction to
Forest Management next spring.  

 

I have carefully reviewed it and have attached it with my comments listing
the courses in the SAF-accredited BS Forest Resources degree program that
address each of the minimum criteria.  Students take courses covering all
the IDL criteria, except the first two on contract preparation and
administration.  I hope that the list of courses will help you and others in
IDL who may be hiring our graduates as you evaluate their transcripts and
relate their university education with your criteria.  

 

I have also added a comment related to #23 with respect to requiring an
SAF-accredited degree for the Forester level positions.  This is a
particularly sensitive issue with me and the faculty because we have had
several students in recent years who cannot achieve a "C" average or better
in a number of the forestry courses required to graduate in our program.
This is especially true of courses that require quantitative skills.  These
students usually switch to "General Studies" and graduate from UI, but often
do not tell employers that they did not graduate with an accredited forestry
degree.  Unfortunately, many employers do not request the official
university transcript verifying the degree.  These students usually have
several forestry courses and have had summer work experience with the
employer.  Many employers do not call faculty for references.  When one of
these students is not performing well or is lacking some skills the employer
expected them have, we hear that "your program is not preparing forestry
students for the job market any more".  When the employer is willing to tell
us the name of the person, it is often not a graduate of the SAF-accredited
(or SWST for Forest Operations majors) degree program - yet they are
graduates of the University of Idaho and their employers assumed it was from
the accredited forestry degree program.  This has also happened with
students who are actually in the Ecology and Conservation Biology or the
Wildlife or other CNR degree programs - none of which are accredited
forestry degrees.

 

The Notice of Intent that CNR is putting forward, does not change the name
of the BS Forest Resources program.  This program has been significantly
strengthened this fall in several ways: (1) the number of credits the
students will earn in forest measurements and inventory, dendrology,
ecosystem processes, forest regeneration, and forest dynamics and management
have increased by 50% -- from 12 credits to 18 credits.  These increases are
due to the expanded material that has been added to these courses as we've
hired new faculty, the knowledge and skills we believe are needed by the
foresters of the future, and the amount of time students are spending in the
field and in labs; and (2)  the BS Forest Products--Forest Operations Option
degree has been merged with the BS Forest Resources degree.  Courses in wood
anatomy and primary wood products manufacturing along with two more
harvesting courses are now included in the Restricted Electives of the
SAF-accredited Forest Resources degree.  This allows students to follow a
forest operations career track and with a couple other courses, they can get
a Forest Operations Minor.  The students who are already at the UI in the BS
Forest Products-Operations Option will still receive that degree unless they
choose to switch to the merged degree in next year's catalog.  The increase
in credits for the courses I listed above will take place immediately and
the Forest Operations Minor is available now.  Not all of the BS Forest
Resources students will take the "forest operations" career track.  Some
will chose a "fire" track; some plan on graduate school and will take
courses from the Restricted Electives that will better prepare them for
graduate school; some may emphasize a more "multiple use" career track and
take some wildlife, fisheries or recreation-oriented courses.  That is why
it is important to review transcripts when hiring as the Forest Resources
degree allows considerable flexibility in a determining a career track.

 

The Department of Forest Resources has always been a diverse,
interdisciplinary group of faculty - most of whom conduct research, have
graduate students, and do outreach in a wide variety of disciplines, but
usually associated with forest ecosystems.  With the proposed merger due to
budget realities, the faculty will become more diverse and expand to include
work on grasslands, steppe and other ecosystems.  The faculty tried to find
a name for the new department (sometimes called the "mega-department") that
would serve as an "umbrella" name for the three undergraduate degree
programs (forestry, fire and range) as well as the broad span of research
programs we are involved with, including work that involves many disciplines
(and external funding) outside of traditional "forestry."  Because many
faculty and students in recent years have been attending the American
Geophysical Union Biogeosciences section and presenting their research at
these meetings, this seems like a good name to represent the 21st century
directions that research related to forests seems to be heading.  Although
Jim Moore never used the word Biogeosciences, much of his work on "good
rocks/bad rocks" and forest nutrition is very consistent with the
orientation of this new field.  

 

We have also tried to find a name that wasn't a paragraph long and was
inclusive of all the different types of work we do - so we left any
modifiers off of "Ecology".  This is also very controversial - and painful
for many of us.  "Forestry" was lost in the College name in 2000 and in the
Master of Science name last year - and there were no objections last year
and few in 1999-2000.  We expect to have an accredited BS Forest Resources
(or Forestry) degree program far into the future.   I have also attached an
information piece that many of the faculty have worked on regarding the name
that was selected after a voting process that included three rounds (and
started with ~30 possible names) and the name "Ecology and Biogeosciences"
was eventually selected by a vote of 14 to 9.  I hope you will read this
attachment and ask questions and/or provide comments.  

 

I am sure there will be more discussion of the NOI - re-organization, names,
programs, etc.  in the weeks ahead.  I will encourage the Dean to set up a
meeting with you and other IDL folks - hopefully, before the Holidays.

 

Jo Ellen

 

Jo Ellen Force

Department Head and Professor

Department of Forest Resources

University of Idaho

P.O. Box 441133

Moscow, ID 83844-1133

Phone:  208-885-7311

 

From: John Bruna [mailto:jbruna at idl.idaho.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:58 AM
To: McLaughlin, William
Cc: O'Laughlin, Jay; Force, Jo Ellen
Subject: Notice of Intent

 

Dear Dean McLaughlin,

 

The Idaho Department of Lands (IDL), Bureau of Forest Management has been
notified of the College of Natural Resources proposal to change the existing
organizational structure of the college by combining five academic
departments into three, and a name change for the Department.  While we can
understand the need for consolidating and realigning departments based on
current budget realities and student enrollments, we are very concerned
about the proposed name change.  The proposed new department's name of
"Department of Ecology and Biogeosciences" does not adequately or
appropriately describe the programs represented by that department. 

 

Idaho Department of Lands has a long history of hiring U of I forestry
graduates.  Given our active forest management program on endowment lands,
we expect the need to hire well trained four-year forestry graduates to
continue.  We need students who have the basic skills, knowledge and
experience in the following areas: forest silviculture, forest plant
ecology, forest statistics and mensuration, forest engineering and
harvesting, forest economics, and forest management and finance, geology and
forest soils, cadastral land surveying and strong communication skills.
Attached is the Minimum Criteria: Lands Resource Manager, Sr. - Forest for
new foresters working for the Idaho Department of Lands to achieve the
Senior Resource Manger - Forester level.  These individuals are expected to
reach this goal in two years.

 

Before consolidating these programs and changing the name, please consider
meeting with representatives from the Department of Lands to discuss
potential impacts and alternatives.  

 

 

Sincerely,

 

John A. Bruna

Program Manager, Forest Planning  & Silviculture

Idaho Department of Lands

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho  83815  

 

 

 

 

 

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