Forestry and Wildland Resources Annual Newsletter (2020)
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Forestry and Wildland Resources Annual Newsletter (2020) Introduction I apologize for not producing a newsletter in August like normal . but it has not been a normal year! On March 11 as the NBA suspended its season, HSU was already switching to completely online classes. Students scrambled to figure out where they would live, while faculty scrambled to learn how to use zoom and work at home. Wherever they ended up, everybody had to carve out quiet spaces with an adequate internet connection. Field trips were canceled; inter-university competitions and our Awards Banquet were all canceled. It was as difficult an experience as one would expect from such a massive, unplanned dislocation. But you had to be proud of how everyone, both students and faculty, stepped up to make these transitions, without much complaining, showing remarkable grit and resilience, pushing through all of it to get their work done —as you would have when you were a student here. But this is not surprising: range and forestry attract realists. As we geared up for an online fall semester we wondered how many students would return. To our pleasant surprise, transfers, perhaps because they can see they already have a sunk cost, returned to HSU in the same numbers as always. However, freshmen enrollment (not just here; this was nation- wide) dropped by a quarter. But this is likely simply a delay of studies, and we expect enrollment to rebound. Because we are a rural location, we remain a place with (relatively) very little incidence of the virus. Thus, in the fall of 2020, we were permitted to run face-to-face field trips into the adjacent Community Forest. (Packing students in vans or buses, for trips further afield, was forbidden.) The students were very happy to have these excursions. This spring semester will be more of the same, although one good piece of news is that HSU has not seen a big enrollment decline in January compared to last September. It is assumed that, by next fall, the vaccines will have made a sufficient impact that we can return to face-to-face instruction (perhaps with masks). Prior to March, our inter-collegiate teams were busy. The range Plant ID Team traveled to Denver for the Annual Society of Range Management meeting. There they placed eight in the international competition. As for the Soil Judging team, on November 2, 2019, they hosted the Annual Region 6 Competition (along with Cal Poly SLO, CSU Fresno, CSU Chico, and New Mexico State). They placed second in each of two different types of competition. HSU hosted this regional contest on November 2, 2019. Earlier, at the National Collegiate contest in the Spring of 2019, HSU placed 19th, but was best in the west. A more academic kind of competition occurs at the Fundamental of Soils Exam. Note how well FWR students have acquitted themselves over the last few years. The faculty continued to earn grants, take on graduate and undergraduate students for research projects, and publish like mad. In the year 2020 (check out the list at the back of the newsletter), the tenure-track faculty alone published 30. This was our most productive year so far (3.0 refereed publications per faculty member), and it included papers in the top-rated science journals such as Nature (twice!) and PNAS. An unexpected development Here is some potentially wonderful news from this annus horribilis, announced last month. The President of HSU and the Chancellor of the State University system have come to an agreement whereby HSU is invited to submit a proposal to officially become a Polytechnic, joining Pomona and San Luis Obispo. It is likely this will lead to a reorganization of the three colleges here, but in what way is not at all clear yet (steering committees for the proposal have yet to be formed). The one thing that must happen however if the proposal will be acceptable is some transfer of resources towards the science college from the other two. In particular, the engineering program must broaden. Speculative ideas for new programs in an expanded science college include Cannabis Studies (in Chemistry perhaps), Data Science, a much more expansive fire program. If any alumni have ideas for reorganization or for new programs, send them to David Greene or the FWR email address, and he will pass them on to the proper steering committee once it has been formed. Perhaps more important, the cachet of a Polytechnic to a prospective undergraduate is expected to increase enrollments at HSU. As I have talked about in a previous newsletter, most rural universities have seen over the last few years sharper declines in applications than have urban institutions. While forestry is in good shape, many other programs here have become quite small, and thus costly. It is hoped that Polytechnic branding will reverse this trend. (In a way, it is surprising HSU was never included as a third campus. If we do not count engineering, we have by far the largest fraction of a campus budget devoted to science in the entire CSU system. Include engineering, and we are third, not far behind the other two, out of 23.) The aim is to attain Polytechnic status by 2023. Arrivals and departures. As mentioned, George Pease retired, and he has been sorely missed. When the SAF accreditation team came here in 2014, they said our stockroom was the most efficient operation in the country. Harold Zald, our remote sensing expert and forest ecologist, moved to a job with the Forest Service in Corvallis as a researcher. Luckily, we have Aaron Hohl to ably take over as our measurements instructor, but nonetheless Harold will also be missed. We are happy to have Christa Dagley and Pascal Berrill returning from a year-long sojourn in the forestry department at the University of Maine. They are again teaching our management and silviculture offerings. Joe Seney, who taught our wetland soils class for several years (and also Watershed Management and the general education course on California forests), has retired both from the National Park Service and from his instructional role with us. As his evaluations attest, he was a fine professor, well regarded by students. Last year, Gillian Black, a professional adviser who has been working over in Wildlife and Fisheries, expanded her role to include our sophomores and newly arriving freshmen. Given her skill, we do not doubt she will greatly raise the level of student success. Erin Kelly is taking over as Chair for the Spring of 2021 while David Greene is on sabbatical, working on a book about the regeneration of trees. Jacoby Creek Given that our new property at nearby Jacoby Creek lies on ancestral Wiyot land, the President of HSU offered the Wiyot the opportunity to co-manage the land along with us, an offer they accepted. Active use of the property has however been delayed pending completion of the archeological survey. The pandemic has greatly slowed that work by the archeologists in the Anthropology Department. Tribal forestry program. In September we launched our sixth concentration: tribal forestry. We are attempting to fill a need expressed by Native American leaders as well as by Bureau of Indian Affairs personnel: tribes have an exceedingly hard time finding natural resource managers who (1) will stay, and (2) understand the broad array of non-timber products that these communities seek to extract from their forests in addition to more conventional commodities. Students in this new concentration will receive the forestry courses they need to graduate from an accredited program as well as a large number of classes over in the Native American Studies department. We hope that this program will serve as a magnet for Native American science students and non-Native students alike. There is only one other 4-year program like this in the country—at Salish-Kootenay in western Montana—but it graduates only a few students per year and they tend to stay in the region. Below I offer profiles of an undergraduate, a graduate student, and a faculty member. Covid has our minds on other issues at present, but let us not forget that 2020 was an extraordinary year for burning in California, and so all three profiles will be associated with our fire program. David Greene, Chair, FWR Focus on an undergraduate student: Wiyaka Privete. Wiyaka is a first-generation college student, and a Native American from the Karuk tribe on the Klamath River. Her desire to be a forester began, she says, when she was young, and no matter where they lived, there was always a forest as a backyard to explore. Currently a junior with a concentration in wildland fire, she began her career at HSU in 2016 after her youngest daughter started kindergarten. “I am thankful my passion fell in line with one of the country’s best Forestry programs.” In summer 2018, she completed an internship with the Rroulou'sik program. This is a program offers research experience for Native American undergraduate students from across the United States. During her 10-week internship she worked with Dr. Frank Lake, a fire researcher with the Six Rivers National Forest. Under his mentorship, she “created an in-depth project that looked at the effect of wildfire on plants that were culturally significant to the Karuk People.” She then shared her research in 2019 at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) conference in Hawaii. “After attaining my degree, I will work towards restoring historical forest management practices using an array of strategies, including prescribed fire.