The faculty of forestry is exploring combining five of its degrees into one.
Unlike other departments at UBC, the faculty of forestry currently offers six different degree options. Each individual degree has varying majors, minors and specializations. Chiara Longhi, director of student services for the faculty of forestry, and Patrick Culbert, an associate professor of teaching, conducted a virtual town hall last month to consult with students on the proposal.
The “one-degree initiative” would change the current structure from five degrees to six majors under one degree. Under the one-degree initiative, the only degree remaining unchanged would be the bachelor of urban forestry.
If the proposal is supported, Culbert said the changes could take effect in fall 2023.
The one degree would be a bachelor of sciences in natural resources, which would include five majors. Those options would be wood products processing, forest bioeconomy sciences and technology, forest sciences, natural resources conservation and forest resources management.
Within its relatively small department, forestry students deal with a “complex arrangement of degrees,” Culbert said, which may be confusing for prospective students. One degree would simplify enrollment for prospective students by narrowing down degree options and streamlining the specialization process.
“If you're a high school student looking at the application materials … it might be hard to really get a sense of what these different degree programs are actually like before you get here. Yet you still need to make that decision beforehand,” Culbert said.
The initiative also would employ a common first-year schedule, which Culbert said could help strengthen the faculty's sense of community. The first-year schedule would include new mandatory courses, NRES 100 and NRES 101. The new classes would include similar material to Forestry 100 and Natural Resources Conservation 101.
“For many students, especially in the past, it's been possible to go your entire first year without having a class in the faculty of forestry building itself. So students haven't felt especially connected to the faculty and I know that … later year students … really appreciate the community of our faculty,” Culbert said.
The courses may be graded as Pass/Fail, which would allow students to further focus on their personal interests versus percentage grades.
Some students at the town hall expressed concern over this new grading system, saying that first years might do the bare minimum just to pass, counteracting the course’s purpose.
“Part of [these new courses] will be developing professional and academic skills [including] working on written communication, collaborative work, reflection and self-evaluation and working and learning in an academic community to help students adjust to university life and to be … members of our forestry community.”