National Capacity in Forestry Research (2002)

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Reductionism remains the more common research approach, and most forest scientists believe that the greatest gains in knowledge come from a strong disciplinary focus. According to Ross Whaley, our failure to integrate might not be so much an inability to conduct interdisciplinary research as an inability to integrate and synthesize the results of our research (unpublished presentation provided during the National Research Council's workshop on National Capacity in Forestry Research). In other words, it is more a thinking problem than a doing problem (unpublished paper presented to the National Research Council's Workshop on National Capacity in Forestry Research, July 15, 1999, Washington, DC). As Whaley recognized, the “ability to integrate vast amounts of information from many disciplines and a broad array of viewpoints has not been adequately honed in their formal education or their apprenticeship. This is not easy. It takes a special kind of formal education that must be refined through experience.”

Successful implementation of a broader, more integrative approach to resource management necessitates higher levels of interaction between researchers and managers than has been the norm. The relevance of research information to resource problems and environmental issues needs to be clearly identified and communicated. Research information should continue to be subjected to peer review to ensure the quality of the research enterprise, but it should also be communicated in forms that are useful to resource managers, planners, and policymakers once it has passed the test of peer review. To judge from public reactions to land management, there is much room for improvement in communicating science to a broad audience.

The successful management of any complex system—biologic, social, or physical—requires first the knowledge of the fundamental concepts and laws that govern the operation of the system. Too much attention has been paid in forest science to the collection of data and facts; too little effort has been invested in developing the theoretic framework for the social and biologic sciences that are commonly applied to resource management. Without a framework, we are limited to an endless litany of empirical studies whose results have predictive value for a narrow range of conditions. Without an organizing structure or theory, information is merely a collection of observations and unrelated fragments of data. Without structure, it is difficult to learn from experience or to extrapolate into the future. A continuing challenge facing forest scientists (and those in other parts of the biologic and social sciences) is to develop an explanatory and predictive system of concepts, theories, and laws. Meeting that challenge is a major issue for forestry education.

Discussions about the need for a focused education in natural-resources management and for interdisciplinary systems thinking generally center on how to achieve an appropriate balance between breadth and depth in the curricula. There seem to be two competing needs—more opportunities to build interdisciplinary perspectives and a need to provide greater depth in some fields. Breadth is needed at both the knowledge level (e.g., a student of forest management understands something about social systems) and the process level (e.g., students understand problem-solving approaches). A challenge is to design opportunities for breadth-building without diminishing the capacity for building the depth needed for students to become successful professionals.

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There are practical and sometimes legal limits to the number of credit-hours that can be required for a baccalaureate degree. Each course added to the curriculum should be evaluated relative to its contribution to the faculty's vision of an education necessary for a professional forester and to the stated mission of the school. The primary need is to identify a general educational and professional core of courses essential for student development and then supplement the courses with transdisciplinary, quantitative, and holistic educational experiences. The increased breadth of forestry education does not need to fragment forestry curricula.

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Natural resources programs accounted for a larger share of the undergraduate and master's enrollment (20 percent and 24 percent, respectively) but only 15 percent of Ph.D. enrollment.

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and teaching methods that should be used to respond to them have been subjected to intense debate among forestry educators and professionals in the United States for a century, and longer in some other places. The story continues to unfold, but trends are apparent.

In examining trends, it is important to remember that the central notion of curriculum is that if the specified subjects in the specified amounts are learned successfully, an effective professional education has been offered and received. A given curriculum is assumed to be a set of input specifications, like a recipe for a stew. Unlike the stew, however, the product is probably as much a result of other factors, inside and outside the formal educational experience, as it is of the curriculum. Many think, for example, that the intrinsic capability of the student is the major determining factor in professional success (in Iowa it is called the “Grinnell effect”; that is, if you let only smart ones in, you usually let only smart ones out). Others believe that exposure to people and situations that inspire students and cause them to think is more important for a high-quality professional education than curricular specifications. Still others believe that the emphasis should be on the overall quality and subject mix of the whole faculty; if students are allowed to choose from an array of subjects and teachers that are all important, relevant, and professionally useful, there is no need for further specification. These important disagreements probably mean that there will never be a single, “received” forestry curriculum. Given the diversity of forests and people's views and values related to them, that is probably good.

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institutions, these institutions continue to serve as opinion leaders on directions for forest science. Indeed, their expansion beyond narrow forestry curricula was emulated by, or at least occurred in parallel with, that at many other institutions.

The evolution of both undergraduate and graduate models has been similar in many respects. From an early emphasis on the biologic and physical aspects of forests, the social sciences (first economics and then the others) have slowly found a place in the curriculum. Forestry departments and schools were ambivalent about the emergence of modern ecology for a long time. Silviculture and ecology, like silviculture and economics, were for a long time, and to some degree still are, uneasy academic partners.

There has been a similar broad agreement between the models on what subjects were important to study. The initial emphasis on trees and wood as the major components of forests, from both biologic and economic points of view, has continually been modified by increased emphasis on other forest components and disciplines related to them. Both models accepted relatively uncritically a utilitarian view of forests; that is, forests are important because of what they can do for people.

But the differences between the models are profound and will probably determine the future of forestry education. The “graduate professional” model has as a basic tenet that a wide variety of undergraduate programs are suitable as a starting point for a forestry education but also that an undergraduate course of study is necessary before beginning a forestry education. The “undergraduate professional” model says that a forestry professional can be created through four years or more of relatively highly specified study at the undergraduate level strengthened with basic liberal arts components meeting university core education requirements and that further formal study, although probably beneficial, is not necessary. The undergraduate model has much to recommend it. It is less expensive in time and money for the student. There are benefits to society at large: the United States has many forests, and large numbers of foresters are needed to manage them; the efficiency of the undergraduate curriculum; and the vast capacity of (particularly) land-grant universities in supplying the numbers needed. The graduate model, in contrast, offers more liberal breadth and scientific depth. It requires a higher caliber student, as demonstrated by the requirements for excellent undergraduate degree grade point averages and good Graduate Record Examination scores to enter a graduate degree program.

Numerically, undergraduate programs dominate, as indicated in Table 4–1. In fact, their share of professional forest science enrollment has actually increased over the last decade. The focus of the undergraduate forestry programs has probably diverged from traditional land management that was typical of forestry programs. All retain the core biology, measurement, management, and policy courses, as required by the SAF (1998) accreditation procedures. But more offer specialization, such as in business, forestry operations, urban forestry, or environmental science (e.g., Bentley, 1999). A greater share of graduates with B.S. degrees are obtaining employment in wood procurement and forestry consulting in the South, and environmental consulting and planning elsewhere. Employment in land management positions has actually declined at the B.S. level (Cubbage et al., 1999). These trends are probably duplicated at the graduate level.

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Is basic science adequately represented in forestry schools and curricula in an increasingly results-focused era and society? Will the foresters of tomorrow be able to understand the value of basic knowledge, or will they regard its production as someone else's business?

Are important disciplines being lost because of “market” trends? Questions about forest protection (such as the results of long suppression of fire in the West and the growing importance of “invasive alien species”, such as the longhorn beetle) seem to be increasing, but the supplies of entomologists, pathologists, and fire scientists seem to be stable or decreasing.

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are few, but they provide an important curricular path if forestry science is to inform management effectively.

With those ideas and trends as background, one might ask, How are we doing in developing capacity for research in forestry? Are we producing the diverse cadre of scientists necessary to meet the needs of a changing forestry profession?

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Tables 4–1 and 4–2 summarized enrollment and graduation trends for forestry programs and enrollment for broader natural-resources and agriculture programs. Table 4–3summarizes university forest science program enrollment from fall 1993 to fall 1999 (FAEIS, 1999a). These data should help to inform discussions of university capacity. The forest science categories are fairly broad, but some observations seem worthwhile. At the doctoral level, probably the most interesting finding is the relative stability in the number of students enrolled over the last five years in each of the 15 identified categories. General forestry had the largest enrollments, about 119 to 183 students nationally; forest management had the second largest enrollment, at 141 to 183; forest biology had the third largest enrollment with 128 to 153; forest sciences had 79 to 145; forest mensuration, 17 to 23; urban forestry, 2 to 5; and wood science, 53 to 71. Most other disciplines had fewer than 10 doctoral students. The variation in the number of master's students was greater, with sustained increases in the number of students in forest-products technology, forest biology, and urban forestry. Sustained enrollment decreases occurred in forest engineering and forest management.

The forestry and natural-resource schools are quite limited in their capacity for production of forestry doctorates beyond these levels. The FAEIS statistics for fall 1999 indicate that only 12 forestry graduate programs had 20 or more doctoral students enrolled, and the students in these 12 schools made up 69 percent of the 764 Ph.D. students enrolled in forest sciences nationally. The 12 schools are well distributed geographically with three in the Northeast, three in the North Central U.S., two in the South, and four in the West (FAEIS, 2000).

If one considers the forestry and natural-resources doctoral programs combined, over twice as many (29) schools enrolled at least 30 forestry/natural resource Ph.D. students in fall 1999. The students in these 29 schools comprise 90 percent of the 2256 forestry and natural resource Ph.D. students enrolled nationally. Six of these schools are in the Northeastern, six in the North Central, eight in the Southern, and nine in the Western regions (FAEIS, 2000).

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number of students competing for the grants. These include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR (Science to Achieve Results) Fellowships, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Climate Change Fellowships, and the Morris K.Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation Fellowships, among others. Many graduate students spend a great deal of time securing funding for research.

The statistics show that the production of doctorates is fairly stable, but the distribution over fields is uneven. For example, over the three-year period 1996 to 1998, the production of doctorates nationally was 206, 232, and 248 in natural-resource fields and 130, 116, and 143 in the forest sciences (FAEIS; 1997b, 1998b, and 1999b, 2000 respectively). In the natural-resource fields, environmental studies and sciences, wildlife, and renewable natural resources are consistently the fields with highest production of doctorates. In the forest sciences group, general forestry, forest management, and forest biology consistently have the most graduates. Timber harvesting, forest harvesting and production, forest engineering, forest hydrology, forest soils, forest mensuration, and urban forestry have had few or no graduates. Some graduates with expertise in the fields in which there were few or no recorded graduates probably are in the general forestry and forest management categories (forest soils and mensuration might be good examples), but the numbers of such graduates are probably small.

The number of doctoral students in the nation's forestry and natural resource schools generally mirrors the graduation statistics. For the 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 academic years the fall enrollments were: 1434, 1289, 1390, and 1492 doctoral students in natural resource programs, respectively, and 736, 730, 741, and 764 in forest science programs, respectively (FAEIS, 2000). The natural-resource fields with the largest numbers of students were wildlife and environmental studies and sciences. The forest science categories with the largest numbers of students were general forestry and forest management. The categories with consistently few or no students were timber harvesting, forest harvesting and production, urban forestry, and forest soils.

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Enrollment figures suggest that the proportion of female doctoral graduates will increase. For the same 3 years noted above, enrollments of women in natural-resource fields were 483, 485, and 524 (34, 35, and 37 percent); in forest-science fields, the comparable enrollments were 191, 199, and 220 (26, 28, and 29 percent) (FAEIS; 1997a, 1998a, and 1999a, respectively).

Minority-group participation was considerably lower over the same three-year period with 12, 11, and 21 (6, 5, and 8 percent) natural-resources program graduates and 20, 14, and 10 (15, 12, and 7 percent) forest-science program graduates being members of identified minority groups. The number and proportion of minority group students enrolled in programs suggest improvement for natural-resource programs (114, 117, and 128; 8, 9, and 9 percent), but not for forest-science programs (73, 77, and 60; 10, 11, and 8 percent) (FAEIS; 1997b, 1998b, and 1999b, respectively).

In the statistics for both women and minority groups, it is clear that distribution across the various natural-resources and forest-science categories is highly skewed. Women graduates were most heavily represented in wildlife, environmental science and studies, and general forestry, and they were generally scarce in forest engineering, wood and paper products, forest soils, and mensuration and biometrics. Women students were most heavily represented in natural-resource conservation, environmental science and studies, wildlife, forest biology, and general forestry; and there were none in doctoral programs in harvesting and engineering or in hydrology. Minority group doctoral graduates were absent in most categories; the largest numbers were in forest management and environmental science and studies. Minority group students were represented best in natural-resource conservation, forest management, wildlife, and general forestry, but they were not represented at all in harvesting and engineering, forest hydrology, pulp and paper, and forest soils.

The statistics suggest an increasing proportion of women doctoral graduates entering the scientific workforce and a relatively static, and quite low, proportion of minority group graduates.

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One example of such a success is the National Science Foundation (NSF) established Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. The LTER Network was started in 1980 to support research on long-term ecological phenomena in the United States and has been extremely successful in its effort to facilitate collaboration among researchers. Over 1200 scientists and students investigating ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial scales conduct research at LTER sites. Researchers are often associated with universities, but research teams also include members from the USDA Forest Service and other federal agencies. The LTER Network provides over 2000 ecological datasets available from LTER sites over the internet. The sites are models for how ecological research on forests can be conducted in a collaborative manner to improve understanding of ecological phenomenon ( Box 4–4).

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faculty, support staff, and their facilities in such fundamental fields as genetics, physiology, pathology, and entomology have been allowed to decline in universities and natural resource agencies. The intellectual capital in many of these fundamental fields is dangerously low, and this lack of capacity will affect the nation's ability to implement new programs of research and development.

We need to consider developing curricula that include more mixing of students from various disciplines through seminars, capstone courses and experiences, and the use of multidisciplinary teams in teaching. In the future, teams of scientists from multiple disciplines will carry out much of forestry research, and this requires team behavior. The primary implementation problem is to capture enough time in already crowded curricula and teaching schedules for “mixing” activities. If school-wide or department-wide cores can be designated to include these activities for all students, with specialties viewed as additions to the common core, the “room” problem is solved by reducing the time allocated to specialization.

At the same time, all students need to be introduced to the methods and processes of science. Multidisciplinary teams work best if all members have a strong foundation in science. Thus, “research methods” classes cutting across disciplines should introduce students in various disciplines to specific approaches to science and should enhance disciplinary “cross pollination” among students. Implementation here requires “only” the addition of a course designed for all specialties. The usual research methods course focuses on the preparation of written study plans. This can double as doctoral dissertation or master's thesis prospectuses, or they can be research- grant applications.

The body of skills developed in scientific education would not be complete without enhancing communication skills as a core professional attribute for doctoral students. The “mixing” activities mentioned above help students to improve their communication skills by requiring them to explain, in a reduced-jargon environment, what they are doing and why they are doing it. In addition, specific communication courses might be offered for graduate and research students. Often, these can be integrated with, or parallel to, research methods courses. All courses should stress communication that allows spanning disciplines in writing and speech.

Students need to be exposed to a formal “systems” approach that can be useful in organizing graduate curricula and research. In addition to the offering of formal systems courses, such as ecology, “systems thinking” should be embodied in teaching and learning through the use of examples in which the description and integration of systems components are demonstrated. The systems approach can be enhanced if we ensure that all future researchers have a core of science method, a specialization in which they have competent depth, and an appreciation of a wide array of other disciplines, including enough of their specialized languages to communicate effectively with people working in them. Thus, breadth and depth should be considered compatible in graduate programs. That principle suggests three universal curricular components: (1) core knowledge of science and its processes; (2) a specialization that confers complete currency in a field; and (3) experience through courses and other interactions that confers an awareness level of competence in several fields of natural-resources research.

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Success in meeting those needs can be reduced by increased faculty specialization and intensified competition in subfields for money and recognition. Managers of academic programs must be aware of the time and resources necessary to support synthesis and cooperative efforts by faculty and students. Students must be presented with observable evidence that a core knowledge of science and work among disciplines “pays off” and that these must be added to, rather than replace, a specialty. Students will do this only in so far as their role models on the faculty are seen to pursue this course successfully and that will likely require retraining many faculty members.

Recommendation 4–2

Universities should develop joint programming in geographic regions to ensure a “critical mass” of faculty and mentoring expertise in fields where expertise might be dispersed among the universities.

There are a wide variety of subfields in forestry and natural resources, and few institutions can produce doctoral graduates in many subfields. Regional cooperation might be viewed as a way to expand capacity by pooling resources in important areas. The building of regional coalitions among universities for the purpose of graduate education could enhance the education of students and lead to cost-effective expansion of the capacity to develop forest and natural-resource scientists.

Universities, government, industry, and private groups should work toward innovative and creative partnerships to a much greater extent than in the past to ensure that the spectrum of forestry education, research, and development interests is covered ( Box 4–2). Each organization should play a unique role. The unique opportunities offered by each research entity should be better identified, and mechanisms for coordinating across institutional niches should be better developed. Furthermore, each institution, or consortium of institutions, should concentrate its research capital in specific (and perhaps limited) fields of forestry research where it operates best or has some recognized institutional advantage. One of the ways to increase cooperation is to bring federal, state, and private sector scientists into the academic fabric where needed to augment the expertise of university faculty in preparing future scientists. Collaboration of non-university scientists in the academic fabric could expand the critical mass of scientists and educators preparing future scientists.