Multiple uses of forests including timber, water, wildlife habitat, and recreation are embraced in the forest management curriculum. Courses in the forest and ecological engineering curriculum emphasize the scientific and engineering design principles that enable graduates to find technical solutions to problems facing forest-related enterprises and rural communities. Paper science and engineering courses provide students with the skills to work as technical and management professionals in the paper and allied industries. The goal of the forest management curriculum, which is accredited by the Society of American Foresters, is to educate undergraduate students to perform as professional forest land managers. Forest lands range from public bioreserves, wilderness, and parks where preservation issues are paramount, to extensively managed private tracts, watersheds, and commercial tree farms where utilization is the guiding paradigm.
Courses emphasize intensive management as well as multiple use of forest resources and forest lands.
The curriculum provides a firm grounding in the physical, natural, and social sciences at the lower-division level along with an introduction to forest resources management. At the upper division, a core of professional forestry courses emphasizes the integration of forest-resources biological sciences with the social and management sciences. Restricted electives are also required to enhance the understanding of business-management and economic principles. Students in forest management spend the spring quarter of their junior year at the College's Pack Forest where specialized field instruction is provided. Forest engineering is a profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study and experience is applied with judgment to design systems and processes to meet society's many demands from forested landscapes.