Summary 



In early 1985, the South's higher 

 education system for forestry and 

 forest-products fields consisted of 

 15 public senior universities and 1 

 private senior university offering 

 professional degree programs, and 



14 public community, junior, or 

 technical colleges engaged in 

 educating technicians. 



With one exception, the senior 

 universities were involved not only 

 in resident teaching leading to 

 baccalaureate and advanced 

 degrees but also in continuing 

 education, research, and public 

 service consultation. Twelve of the 



15 public senior universities were 

 land-grant institutions and, as such, 

 had continuing responsibilities and 

 programs in extension forestry 

 and, in some cases, extension 

 forest products as well. 



The 14 colleges offering technician 

 education were involved primarily 

 in resident teaching. Only five 

 were also involved in continuing 

 education. 



By 1985, a substantial majority of 

 these programs met or exceeded 

 established national standards for 

 quality. Professional forestry 

 degree programs at 15 of the 16 

 senior universities met 

 accreditation standards of the 

 Society of American Foresters. In 

 addition to forestry, 10 offered 

 professional majors or options in 

 one or more forest-products fields 

 such as forest engineering, wood 

 utilization, wood science and 



technology, and, in one case, pulp 

 and paper science and technology. 

 In addition to baccalaureate 

 programs, 13 universities offered 

 graduate training at the master's 

 level, and 11 of these offered 

 Ph.D. degree or, in one case, the 

 doctor of forestry degree in 

 programs primarily to train 

 scientists. 



At the technician level, resident 

 teaching programs at 8 of the 14 

 colleges met or exceeded Society 

 of American Foresters minimum 

 standards for forest technology 

 programs. 



Programs at the senior universities 

 were characterized by extensive 

 multidisciplinary collaboration 

 across fields within the institution 

 and, beyond it, with public 

 resource-management and research 

 agencies, professional and 

 scientific societies, trade 

 associations, forest-industry 

 companies, private landowners, 

 and consultants. This was 

 particularly marked in the 

 research, extension, and 

 continuing-education functions. 



In research, beginning in the 

 mid-^O's, the southern senior 

 universities pioneered in the 

 establishment of university- 

 industry-public agency research, 

 development, and application 

 cooperatives. By 1985 there were 

 20 of these at 9 of the 16 

 institutions. The cooperatives have 

 proven highly effective in linking 



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