Faculty position - Silviculture

[John Vona]

Joseph Zorzin wrote:


>Not picking on you here of course, but this short field requirement
>thing really shows how the forestry "intelligentsia" trully has no
>respect for forestry field work. I've seen this over the years - >working as a "mud" forester

Being a transplant to California I thoroughly enjoyed the rivalary
between Humboldt State and Berkeley foresters, the former the premier
mud forester program and the latter a ivy league theoretical program.
Humbodlt doesn't even have a summer program, they simply don't need it
because apparently most of the curriculum is in the woods; while at
Berkeley the field work is in then computer lab. Where I worked the
humboldt alumni would quip that the Berkeley guys couldn't read a map or
compass, but then again the resource manager was a Berkeley grad and so
the debate raged on.  

It's good to be proud of mud forestry, it's essential but we can't
disparage theory out of hand.  A colleague of mine is a graduate of
German forestry grad and the system of forestry education is officially
split there having Forest Technology program equivalent to a B.S. or
alternatively, a 5 year program that produced students with an
equivalent to a MS degree that is theoretically more rigorous.  We have
a similar situation in the states although many would argue that
Humboldt like programs offer sufficient theory and that might be true as
well.