THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE

 

FACULTY SENATE

 

Senate Document Number     5605S

 

Date of Senate Approval      04/07/05  

 

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Statement of Faculty Senate Action:

 

APC Document  48:                              Proposal to Terminate Joint Program with the

NCSU School of Forest Resources

 

Effective date: Fall 2005

 

 

1. Delete:         On pg. 49 of the 2004-05 catalog, the entire entry for the Joint Program with the

North Carolina State University School of Forest Resources

(please refer to pg 48 of the 2003-04 catalog for the relevant entry which was inadvertently deleted from the 2004-05 catalog)

 

Impact statement:

The Pre-Forestry program was created by Senate document #44 in 1981-1982.  Interested students completed two years of work at UNCA, then transferred to NC State to complete the requirements for a B.S. in Forestry.  In the 20 or so years that this program has existed, only 2 or 3 students ever completed the transfer to NC State.  The contact department for the program at UNCA has traditionally been the BIOL Department.  However, inquiries have occasionally been received by ENVR Department, and both departments teach courses that have been appropriate for the program.  Terminating the program will have no virtually no effect on UNCA students, programs, or faculty, or on NC State students, programs, or faculty.  Students interested in studying forests can pursue forest ecology course work through the ENVR Department, and any student interested in transferring to NC State could still do so, on their own.

 

Rationale:

Because so few students were ever interested in the program, the curriculum was not kept up-to-date.  Both the BIOL and ENVR Departments at UNCA have changed their curricula in recent years to the point that the curriculum once recommended for the Pre-Forestry program no longer works. 

 

Specifically:

 

  1. Senate Document #44 created several courses specifically for this program that were rarely taught and have since been sunsetted from the UNCA catalogue (BIOL 150 Introduction to Forestry, BIOL 251 Basic Mensuration, and BIOL 252 Wood Structure and Properties).

 

  1. Senate Document #44 recommended that students in this program take two Drafting courses at ABTech as part of their coursework in Asheville.

 

  1. Both the BIOL and ENVR curricula have changed substantially in the last 20 years.  There have been changes in courses, in course prerequisites, and in how often courses are taught.

 

  1. UNCA’s General Education courses have been replaced by ILS requirements, making the transfer curriculum even harder to accomplish. 

 

 

Because interest in Pre-Forestry is virtually non-existent, it would not be worthwhile for faculty members at UNCA to update the curriculum, commit to keeping the curriculum active, and advise the few students who might ever decide to pursue this program.