We anticipate that the Advisory Board will be able to demonstrate greater competencies and higher placement rates for students as a direct result of the proposed program. The Advisory Board will conduct an annual assessment of student progress and placement, comparing results to an assessment of concurrent graduate students outside of the proposed program. As a capstone experience, students will be responsible for organizing one of the annual "Restoring the West" conferences for regional natural resource managers, through Utah State University Forestry Extension. Student mentoring will be centered on a list of defined core competencies and experiences related to forest health/resilience. Students will be recruited by the Advisory Board for involvement in a complementary set of funded projects. By comparison to other graduate students at USU, this cohort of students will benefit from coordinated mentoring by an Advisory Board of faculty members who have active research programs in dynamic forested landscapes. The proposed program will create a cohort of students and faculty mentors focused on forest resources, within an already successful graduate program in natural resources. This training program is directly related to USDA Strategic Goal 6.3.
In response to this need, we propose an integrated graduate training program, initiated with two PhD and two MS students, focused on the TESA of Forest Resources, with emphasis on Conservation and Renewable Natural Resources (code C). This situation creates an acute need for a new generation of forest resource managers and scientists skilled in a variety of emerging technologies, able to incorporate rapidly changing research and data into forest management decisions, and able to communicate effectively with a variety of stakeholders. In the Interior West, forests appear to be at or near tipping points with respect to ecological integrity, with manifestations such as large scale insect outbreaks, rapid aspen die-offs, and geographically and temporally synchronized severe fires. Non Technical Summary Natural resource professionals face ecological changes occurring at unprecedented scales and rates due to a combination of historical extraction/management activities and climate change.
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