Alberta’s only accredited forestry programs were both recently re-accredited for the maximum amount of time possible.

The University of Alberta’s forestry and the forest business management programs received re-accreditation for six years by the Canadian Forestry Accreditation Board.

“It’s wonderful news. It gives us credibility and stability for the next six years,” said Vic Lieffers, chair of the Department of Renewable Resources. The department delivers the programs with substantial support from the Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology.

In its decision, the board noted that “clearly, the Faculty has continued its tradition of a corps of highly experienced, quality instructors and dedication to producing well-trained and educated graduates through a well-considered set of aims and objectives for the forestry programs.”

Uldis Silins, who as chair of the forestry program oversaw the process for the U of A, said it took the better part of a year to complete the 589-page program review and accreditation, which was reviewed by a four-member CFAB audit team composed of industry, government and external academic members from Canadian universities. The team also conducted a three-day site visit.

“It’s the same process any other professional program, like medicine or law or engineering, goes through periodically,” explained Silins who added the report included information on faculty members, the programs and all facets of their administration. The bulk of the report was a review of the 34 undergraduate core courses the programs offer.

The review was distinct from those conducted in the past: the U of A was the first post-secondary institution to be evaluated fully by the new accreditation system developed by the CFAB.

The new system examined seven standards: tree and stand dynamics, forest to landscapes: structure, function and dynamics, forest management, economics and administration of forestry, leadership skills: communication and critical reasoning, information acquisition and analysis, and professionalism and ethics.

Within each of those standards, several performance indicators were examined course by course. Overall, there were 127 performance indicators that were looked at.

“It was certainly exhaustive,” said Silins.

The renewed accreditation enables the U of A, one of only seven post-secondary institutions in the country that offer forestry programs, to graduate foresters who can then join the Forester-In-Training program which leads to the professional designation of Registered Professional Forester (RPF). Students graduating from non-accredited forestry programs cannot become registered professional foresters.

“More and more companies require candidates to be RPFs,” explains Silins. “And what we’re seeing increasingly is foresters being hired by utility companies and the oil and gas sector because these companies have forests to manage and that’s what foresters do.

The face of forestry has changed.”

That’s an issue both Lieffers and Silins are quick to point out and insist that while the programs are accredited for six years, they still need to constantly evolve to remain current, relevant and responsive to the needs of the organizations that hire foresters.

“We’ll modify our programs to stay current as we always have and we’ll now focus more fully on growing the enrolment in our programs,” said Lieffers. “There are an awful lot of jobs for foresters and it’s anticipated there will be a tremendous shortfall in the years to come. We plan to work hard to help fill that gap.”