Introduction 



Fifty years ago the Society of 

 American Foresters conducted its 

 first evaluation and accreditation of 

 professional forestry educational 

 programs in the United States. 

 Programs at 20 universities and 

 colleges were rated. Only three of 

 these were in the South — at the 

 University of Georgia, Louisiana 

 State University, and North 

 Carolina State College of 

 Agriculture and Engineering (now 

 North Carolina State University). 



The Society evaluated each 

 institution's program on seven 

 criteria, giving a numerical rating 

 for each. A minimum score of 70 

 was required for the program to 

 fall in the Society's "approved" 

 category. Graduates of approved 

 programs were eligible 

 automatically for junior 

 membership status in the Society; 

 graduates of other programs had to 

 prove that they had equivalent 

 knowledge in order to qualify. 



In 1935, a total of 14 programs 

 qualified for the "approved" list. 

 None were in the South (Chapman 

 1935). 



At that time the Society did not 

 examine programs for the training 

 of forest technicians. In fact, no 

 such programs were operating in 

 the Southern States in 1935, 

 although one was started in that 

 year at the University of Florida 

 (Dana and Johnson 1963). 



As of 1985, there are 46 accredited 

 professional forestry educational 

 programs in the Nation. Fifteen are 

 in southern universities: each of 



the 12 Southern States has at least 

 one such program, and 3 of them 

 have two (Elliott 1985). As a 

 region, the South not only has 

 more than its numerical share of 

 such programs, but two recent 

 rankings of program quality and 

 productivity indicate respectable 

 ratings in these characteristics as 

 well. An unpublished comparison 

 of 44 accredited professional 

 forestry degree programs (the total 

 number in 1984), which was based 

 on opinions by the administrators 

 of such programs, placed 6 

 southern programs in the top 19. 

 Three were placed in the top five 

 (Thomson and Koenig [n.d.], post 

 1982). 



In 1982, the USDA Cooperative 

 State Research Service produced a 

 research productivity analysis of 60 

 land-grant institutions, other public 

 universities, and State agricultural 

 experiment stations receiving 

 Federal funds for forestry research 

 under the Mclntire-Stennis 

 Cooperative Forestry Research Act 

 of 1962. The rating for each 

 institution was based on a 

 combined ratio of the 5-year 

 averages of publications per 

 scientist and graduate students 

 directed per scientist. Of the 19 

 institutions with 5-year combined 

 ratios of at least 2.0, four were 

 southern land-grant universities 

 (USDA Cooperative State 

 Research Service 1982 unpubl.). 



Thus in forestry and forest 

 technology higher education, over 

 the past 50 years the South truly 

 has risen again. 



