Colleagues,

As we prepare to negotiate many serious academic and administrative issues with the interim dean of the COE (assuming the Regents approve the pending proposal on June 12), it is a good time to pause and reflect on several items.

The Provost has indicated that her proposal to the Regents will be to create a new college as a shell without any academic units or FTE included. If approved by the Regents, over the coming months, we will have many occasions to meet with the interim dean of the COE to discuss the many issues already identified by our Issues Committee. When we have completed our negotiations, we will take a formal faculty vote in order to signal the Provost that we are either ready to join the new COE as a core unit or that we wish to participate as a collaborating unit.

If we vote to participate with the new College as a core unit, the Provost will initiate the RCEP process to eliminate our College. The plan is that we would be reconfigured as a School of Forest Resources in the newly formed COE and that all faculty and staff resources, curricula, degrees, centers, cooperatives, gifts, endowments, space, etc. would move with us. All of this has to be clarified and finalized with the interim dean in the coming months before we can vote.

We will also seek assurances that our College will be afforded the resources it needs to continue to be a pre-eminent School of Forest Resources.

Following our negotiations, if we vote not to participate in the new COE as a core unit, we will continue to strengthen our collaborative relationships with the new COE. We will continue to participate in improved environmental literacy experiences and any new Institute of Advanced Environmental Sciences that may be created. Joint faculty appointments and cross-course listings will also be explored between CFR and COE under this scenario.

Thus, under either of the two outcomes, I fully expect that our College will continue to fully participate in a variety of programs and initiatives dealing with the environment and natural resources. We also will continue to focus on achieving the vision and goals we all share and continually refine.

B. Bruce Bare, Dean