School Notes: School of the Environment
March/April 2007

Index ranks Yale forestry program best in research productivity

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has the best forestry program in the United States based on the research productivity of its faculty, according to a recently released index. The 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and produced by Academic Analytics, a for-profit company based in Pennsylvania, rates faculty members' scholarly output at 7,294 doctoral programs around the country and provides data on 177,816 faculty members at 354 institutions. Based on data from 2005, the report was released in January 2007.

The index ranks the top ten programs in 104 disciplines (Yale's immunobiology and neuroscience programs are also ranked highest), and examines the number of book and journal articles published by each program's faculty, as well as journal citations, awards, honors, and grants received.

Chad Oliver ’70MFS, ’75PhD, Pinchot Professor of Environmental Studies, is not surprised by the ranking. "Because of its organization and tradition," he said, "the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has always been an innovator in research, constantly exploring new concepts rather than dominating targeted areas of expertise."

Global forests focus of executive education program

F&ES has started a new executive education program concentrating on the condition and dynamics of global forests. The program is aimed at providing executives in forestry and forest-related companies, industry, and the financial community, as well as members of the media, with the latest research in forest science and management, issues, and trends. The courses are designed for professionals who don't have the time for a graduate-degree program, but need the background to understand and meet the challenges of conserving and managing the world's forests.

The program, offered this spring by the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, consists of two week-long courses at Yale: "Executives Learning About Forestry" and "Foresters Becoming Executives." They are taught by senior F&ES faculty and cover a wide range of subjects, including forestry and biotechnology, illegal logging, forest health and invasive exotic pests, and the future of cities and their effect on forests.

New F&ES structure to redefine the green-building concept

A new facility at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies will be a model of the school's dedication to sustainable design. Named for the environmental philanthropist Richard Kroon ’64, the building will provide office space for 75 faculty and staff, along with classrooms, a 175-seat auditorium, and an environment center named for donors Emily and Carl Knobloch ’51. Completion of the Kroon building is expected by 2009.

"It will be Yale's most green building, a symbol of the school's ideals and values, and a powerful expression in beautiful form of our relationship to the environment," said Gus Speth, dean of the Forestry School. "It will be an inspirational and instructional model of sustainable design."

The Kroon building will be a long, four-story structure with a rounded roofline running east to west, which will provide maximal southern exposure to increase solar heat gain in winter and natural lighting year-round. The use of geothermal energy and energy-efficient structural elements will eliminate the need for steam and chilled water for heating and cooling. Photovoltaics on the roof will supply a portion of the building's electricity requirements, complemented by alternative sources such as wind. Rainwater runoff will collect in holding tanks and be filtered naturally for use in flush toilets. The building will prominently feature timber harvested from sustainably managed forests, including the 7,880-acre Yale-Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut.