Discovery Seminar & Brown Bag Lunch Series

Proposal 2002-2003

Sustainable Forestry Partnership

Summary of the 2001-2002 Series

The Sustainable Forestry Partnership (SFP) Discovery Seminar and Brown Bag lunch series is unique in the topics that it addresses and in the way in which it is organized. The working group for the series is comprised of graduate students from within the four departments of the College of Forestry: Wood Science and Engineering, Forest Science, and Forest Resources and Forest EngineeringDepartments. The working group meets regularly to plan and manage the lecture series activities. Members of the SFP core team oversee and offer organizational guidance to the working group. The series lectures encourage dialogue among OSU students, faculty, staff, and community members. This year the series included 6 brown bag lunches fall term, 5 discovery seminars and 2 brown bag lunches winter term, and 4 brown bag lunches and 2 discovery seminars spring term. The series reached a total of 417 people (83 fall term, 58 winter term, and 276 spring term).

Sustainable Forestry Seminar Course

In a continued effort to integrate the research and outreach agendas of the Sustainable Forestry Partnership with the academic agenda of the College of Forestry at OSU, the SFP offered a one-credit seminar in conjunction with the spring Discovery Seminar and Brown Bag lunch series. Fifteen undergraduate and seven graduate students were enrolled in the course offered through the department of Forest Resources. Students attended series seminars as well as a portion of the Forest Stewards Guild National Conference that was held in Wilsonville, Oregon. Students were required to write two position papers on topics that had been discussed during the course. The following excerpts demonstrate the opportunities for learning and reflection that the series offers:

I strongly believe that landowners must become aware of any Native American people that are utilizing the land for practicing traditional beliefs. I propose that there should be a collaborative effort by the forest service, the Oregon Department of Forestry, and large Industrial forest owners to establish a means of communication to Native American people in there area. This communication will serve as a foundation to educate each other and to protect the welfare of these people against any harm that may be inflicted by forest management practices, particularly the use of herbicides and pesticides.

-From undergraduate student position paper on Margaret Mathewson lecture April 29th 2002.

Without the demands of consumerism, forest fiber would not be so intensely marketed. This creates a conundrum. Is it possible to change an entire society whose identity is based on conspicuous consumption? We as Americans identify ourselves based primarily on the things we own. Therefore if we are to create less demand on forest products we must therefore consume less forest products. The question then becomes, as was posed during the lecture on intelligent consumption, “is it un-American to consume less?” Should wealth be equated to high consumption of resources or can we recognize the value of culture and environment in our definition of wealth?

-From graduate student position paper on Viviane Simon-Brown lecture April 8th 2002.

Building from the College of Forestry Strategic Plan

The College of Forestry strategic plan identified seven issues that will influence the future of the COF. These are “globalization, demographic change and urbanization, rising resource demands and conflicts, technological revolutions, dynamic career prospects for faculty, staff and graduate students, changing public perceptions of forestry, increased diversity in society, competition for funding, and the aspirations of the larger University in which we exist.” The topics selected for the 2001-2002 seminar series addressed many of these issues. A schedule for the past years schedule is included in the addendum.

Advertising

This year we made a concerted effort to reach out across campus to announce our seminar series. We posted flyers around campus, sent email announcements to our email lists (including off-campus people), announced the events in the Barometer and OSU This Week online calendar, and sent email letters and attached flyers to professors teaching 30 courses in 14 departments. In this letter we described the seminar series, asked professors to announce the events during their class sessions, and invited them to contact us if they would like to bring our speakers into their courses while the speakers were on campus.

As a result, we saw many new faculty members and students at the events this year. A few professors responded to our email thanking us for the letter and letting us know that they made the announcements in their classes.

Collaboration

During winter term, Professor Loren Kellogg collaborated with us to bring a speaker to campus for an International Forestry Seminar at noon and a Discovery Seminar later that afternoon. From an organizational perspective this seemed to work well. In this way, guest speakers that visit campus from far afield have the opportunity to present to multiple audiences. The working group would like to encourage this type of collaboration in the future both within the college and with other departments across campus.

Plan for 2002-2003 academic year

For the upcoming academic year the working group plans to maintain and build on the series’ reputation for innovation and professionalism that have been established in previous years. There will be a total of nine events in the series this year. We have scheduled fewer events than last year to avoid conflicts with other lecture series such as the Starker Series in the fall and the International Forestry Series in winter. Having fewer events will also allow us to bring more prestigious speakers from further afield. We plan to have one campus-wide Discovery Lecture in the fall, though the speaker has not yet been determined. The overarching theme for this years lecture series will be “integration”.

“Integration” has become a popular turn of phrase in both the forestry profession and in forestry education. However, despite its common usage, it is rarely defined and even less often successfully demonstrated. What do we mean when we say “integration” and how do we go about doing it? Who is doing it successfully and what kind of lessons can be learned from them? The SFP working group hopes to explore these issues during the 2002-2003 lecture series.

Fall 1 discovery seminar (large event at LaSells Center)

Winter 2 discovery seminars

Spring 2 discovery seminars

4 brown bag lunches

FR 407/507 Sustainable Forestry Seminar (including field trip)

Potential Speakers

Paul HawkenThe Natural Step

William McDonoughgreen architect

Al SamplePinchot Institute

Louise FortmannUCB ESPM

Kate HeatonNRDC

Charles GeislerCornell University

Robert ShapiroMonsanto

Spencer BeebeEcoTrust

Addendum: Schedule of events from 2001-2002 academic year.

Fall Term Brown Bag Lunches

Theme: “Local Perspectives on Sustainability”

Hosted from 12-1, Marketplace West Small East Conference Room

Oct. 8“The Global Economy: Before and After the Sept. 11 Attack” Steve Lawton, College of Business

Oct. 15“Making Forest Sustainability Work on the Ground”

Sarah Deumling, Forest Stewardship Guild

Oct. 29“Oregon’s Efforts to Capture Carbon”

Jim Cathcart, Oregon Department of Forestry

Nov. 5“The Coming Age of Thought-Intensive Forestry”

Steve Radosevich, Bill Emmingham, and Loren Kellogg, College of Forestry

Nov. 12“Environmental Ethics and Sustainable Forestry”

Peter List, Department of Philosophy

Nov. 26 “A Comparison of Certification Systems and the Oregon Forest Practice Acts” – Rick Fletcher, Paul Adams and Steve Radosevich, College of Forestry.

Winter Term Discovery Seminars and Brown Bag Lunches

Theme: “Non-traditional Forest Products”

Discovery Seminars hosted from 3-5pm, in Richardson Hall 107

Brown Bag Lunches hosted from 12:30-1:30, Marketplace West

Jan. 22International Forestry Seminar with Tim King

Discovery Seminar (Peavy 272, 3-5 pm)

“Global Perspectives on Carbon Sequestration”

Tim King, Carbon Technology Transfer Center (Spokane, WA) and Jim Cathcart, Oregon Dept. of Forestry (Salem, OR)

Jan. 28Discovery Seminar: “Rural Community Viability: Changing Economies in Forest-Dependent Communities”

Diane Snyder, Wallowa Resources (Joseph, OR)

Maia Enzer, Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities (Portland, OR)

Wendy Gerlitz, Nationall Network of Forest Practicioners (Portland, OR)

Feb. 11Brown Bag and Discovery Seminar

“Sustainable Forest Management: A Holistic Approach”

Dominick Dellasala, World Wildlife Fund (Ashland, OR)

Feb. 18Discovery Seminar: “Bio-Fuel Production Possibilities”

Valentino Tiangco, California Energy Commission (Sacramento, CA)

Mar. 4Brown Bag Lunch: “The Truth about Hemp,” with Al Wong

Discovery Seminar: “Wood and Its Alternatives”

Al Wong, Abrokem (BC, Canada) and

Maureen Putmann, College of Forestry

Spring Term Discovery Seminars and Brown Bag Lunches

Theme: “Global Challenges to Sustainability”

Hosted from 12-1 or 1:30 in Richardson Hall 107 and Peavy 272

Apr. 8“Intelligent Consumption”

Viviane Simon-Brown, OSU Forestry Extension

and John Bliss, Dept. of Forest Resources

Apr. 15“Forest Certification”

Jason Grant, Certified Forest Products Council

Apr. 22“Incentives for Sustainability in Oregon”

Sara Vickerman, Director, West Coast Office, Defenders of Wildlife

Apr. 29“Ethnobotany”

Margaret Mathewson, Ancient Arts and Technology Field School

(Vale, OR)

May 6“Hybrid Poplar Management and SFI Certification”

Jake Eaton, Plant Materials Manager, Potlatch Corporation

May 20“America’s Private Forests: Status and Stewardship”

Laurie Wayburn, Co-founder and President, Pacific Forest Trust.