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MESSAGE FROM THE DEANWelcome to the College of Forest Resources! As you read through our web pages I hope you find what you are seeking. If you don’t, please email me at cfruw@u.washington.edu. These are exciting and challenging times for students, faculty, and staff at the College. Gaining a better understanding of our world’s environment and its natural resources has never been more important. Our society’s focus on resource sustainability continues to prompt healthy scholarly debate in our College and across the planet. Our efforts promise to improve the lives of future generations while satisfying the needs of people today. Our vision is to provide world-class, international leadership for environmental and natural resources issues. Centered on the concept of sustainability, this vision is supported by two themes: sustainable land and ecosystem management in an urbanizing world and sustainable forest enterprises. The integrating concept of sustainability guides our teaching, research, and outreach. We all know that natural resource management is complex, contentious, and of great interest to most Americans. Institutions and individuals responsible for these resources need a new kind of professional for the demanding challenges they face. The multiple dimensions involved in resource stewardship require a shift away from traditional, single-discipline approaches to one that integrates knowledge from the ecological, economic and social sciences. Natural resource scientists and managers need more flexible and more complex skill sets. They need to work effectively on teams and they need to use the knowledge and skills of interdisciplinary analysis and creative problem solving. Our high quality–high impact programs focus on the sustainability and functionality of complex natural resource and environmental systems using an integrated, interdisciplinary approach across multiple scales involving our urban-to-wildland world-class laboratory. Our programs serve society generally and natural resource professions in particular. Our graduates are well equipped to contribute to solutions to resource problems facing the region and the world. Our restructured undergraduate programs offer two curricula leading to a Bachelor of Science in Forest Resources. The new environmental science and resource management curriculum is anchored by an innovative junior-level sequence of courses emphasizing real-world problems, integrating knowledge areas of the physical, biological, and social sciences and using the remarkable array of biological-social interactions in the Pacific Northwest as a learning environment for problem-based, interdisciplinary inquiry. Students can easily transfer into the program and through a large array of elective courses can choose specialized areas of concentrations such as forestry, horticulture, and wildlife. Our paper science and engineering curriculum provides students with training, tools, and experience for success in the paper and allied professions. Graduate programs include professional fifth-year master's programs in forest management (Master of Forestry) and horticulture (Master of Environmental Horticulture), as well as opportunities for advanced scientific and professional specializations in Master of Science and PhD interest areas. Our students benefit from the competitive advantage that comes from study at a major research university. UW undergraduates share in our cutting-edge research and scientific discovery through independent projects lead by our faculty. Our graduate students benefit from the opportunity to study with faculty creating new knowledge through collaborative and innovative research. In this climate of ever-shrinking state budgets, the College is greatly encouraged by the generous support of our donors — alumni, friends, foundations, and corporations. In the upcoming development campaign our goals center on support to maintain our world-class research and teaching institution: enhancing student learning opportunities, promoting faculty research and development activities, improving facilities and associated infrastructure, funding new initiatives in sustainable forestry and forest enterprises, sustaining urban ecosystems and funding to support programs in our existing interdisciplinary centers. Our transformed programs will enhance collaboration with other disciplines across the UW campuses and continue vital partnerships in the private and public sectors. With natural resources at the heart of many pressing technological and social issues, I am excited by this opportunity and challenge to contribute to a successful future for the University of Washington and to enhance knowledge and service for our constituents. February 1, 2005 |
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