A newsletter of the Division of Forestry, Natural Resources, and Recreation at Paul Smith’s College

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BRANCHING OUT Spring/Summer 2009

Greetings from Paul Smith’s!

IN THIS ISSUe:

FNRR field notes 2

Sustainability program considered 2

New sawmill 3

Faculty updates 3

Scenes from the field 4

Fisheries & Wildlife update 4

This is the first in a series of pe-riodic newsletters that will up-

date our alums and others about what we’re up to in the Division of Forestry, Natural Resources, and Recreation. I’ve been asked to provide a few words about my background, so here goes: I’m back at Paul Smith’s College as dean after finishing a Ph.D. in 1993 and having most recently been a tenured forest science

faculty at the University of Maine and then at Laval University in Quebec. I was a forestry instruc-tor here at Paul Smith’s from 1985-1990, before which I was a full-time logger and forester in New Hampshire and Vermont for several years. In 2004, I was a Senior Fulbright Scholar posted at Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Forestry in Pokhara, Nepal, where I taught and conducted

research in community forestry and silviculture.

I hope that you find this newsletter informative.

All the best,

Andrew Egan, Ph.D. (aegan@paulsmiths.edu)

New Center for Adirondack Biodiversity

Paul Smith’s College has launched the Center for Adirondack Biodiversity, an

umbrella organization for environmental and social research being done across the park. Dr. David Patrick, a wildlife ecologist, has been named the center’s executive director. The center will collaborate on research into the breadth of plant and animal life in the Adirondacks, as well as help the many groups focusing on ecological and social sustainabil-

ity in the park understand what each is doing. Before arriving at Paul Smith’s, Patrick had

done postdoctoral research at the State University of New York College of Environ-mental Science & Forestry. He earned a doctorate in wildlife ecology from the University of Maine in 2007. Patrick’s research interests include conservation and population biology and community-based approaches to conservation.

Dr. David Patrick

FNRR students get to the CORe of renewable energy and community outreach

Working with the Town of Brighton Food Pantry to identify needy families, the Timber Harvesting class, under FNRR’s Community Outreach through Renewable Energy (CORE) Project, fells, skids, splits and delivers firewood to help heat local homes. Timber Harvesting students helped several needy families last fall and look forward to continuing their relationship with the Brighton Food Pantry to become a more meaningful part of the local community.

The Fisheries and Wildlife Science program hosted a visit by the president of The Wildlife Society, Dan Svedarsky. FWS students

took Dr. Svedarsky on a tour of Smitty Creek and an old growth stand, benefited from his seminar, and enjoyed dinner with him. The rest of the Fisheries and Wildlife Science seminars were filled by candidates for candi-dates for the new FWS faculty position. The college’s student chapter of The Wildlife Society was busy during fall 2009. They assisted the New York State Deparment of Environmental Conservation with the deer survey in northern Franklin County, and Vermont Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the moose check station in Vermont. They attended the national meeting of The Wildlife Society where they presented a paper on their activities, competed in the quiz bowl, and participated in activities such as the professional/student mixer.

Fisheries and Wildlife – what’s new?

Scenes from the field

? Forest Tech students loading firewood for the FNRR CORE outreach program

. Surveying students

> Boiling in spring 2008

. Prof. Joe Dadey (kneeling, front) with students at the summit of Mt. Washington earlier this year.

. Arboriculture students with Dan Groves

In February 2008, the sawmill and adjacent pole structure sustained

damage to their roofs as a result of heavy ice and snow load and were condemned by the fire marshal. Sub-sequent evaluations of the mill works and the electrical system, as well as the nearby welding shop, by independent contractors forced me to recommend that those areas be closed until they could be upgraded and made safe for occupancy.

We looked at this as an opportunity to modernize the mill. Contracting with McCormick and Sons Inc. (Ohio) and Frick Co. (Ohio), we committed nearly $200,000 to automate the carriage, setworks, and deck; install a sawyer’s

booth large enough for student instruc-tion; and upgrade the electrical system and mill structure. Work was completed in July. Thanks to President John Mills and the administration for recognizing the importance of the sawmill to our forestry students and the importance of forestry and hands-on education to Paul Smith’s.

The bottom line is that we intend to continue educating forestry students about sawmill productivity and efficien-cy. Our goal is to have a safe, modern sawmill complex back online this fall. In the meantime, we used our portable mill, visits to mills in the region, includ-ing Canada, and work at a local sawmill to fill the gap left by the temporary loss

of our mill. If you’d like to support our new sawmill, call Stephanie Colby in the Office of Institutional Advancement at (518) 327-6259.

The Division of Forestry, Natural Re-sources and Recreation has proposed

a new B.S. program in sustainability studies that will help prepare students to:

X Integrate the political, social, economic, technological, and ecological dimensions of conservation and resource sustainability to make appropri-ate decisions;

X Develop and apply practical knowl-edge, skills and tools to solve problems related to resource sustainability; and

X Manage institutions (e.g., grass roots movements, businesses, educa-tional institutions, agencies, governmen-tal and non-governmental organiza-

tions, communities) related to aspects of sustainability, including: green building, recycling and waste reduction, alterna-tive energy and energy efficiency, local and sustainable agriculture and forestry.

Proposed new courses include:

X Ecological foundations of sustainability

X Sustain-able commu-nity agriculture and forestry

X Green communities

X Green construction

X Alterna-tive energy and

energy efficiencyIf the proposal successfully negoti-

ates all hurdles, the first sustainability studies class could be accepted in the fall 2010.

Looking to the future – Proposed program in sustainability studies

Sawmill – Down but not out!

FNRR FIeLD NOTeS? Paul Smith’s forestry students

won the Quiz Bowl at the N.Y./New

England Society of American Foresters

meeting last spring.

? Arboriculture students Zach

Witkop and Hannah O’Connor

received Davey Grants for $1,000.

? Under the leadership of Dr. Karen

Boldis and Prof. Joe Dadey, our RATE

students have recently completed two

successful expeditions: to Siberia last

August and Belize/Guatemala

last January.

? Our 1,500-tap sugar bush is now

certified organic.

? The Urban Tree Management

(URTM) program has changed its

name to Arboriculture and

Landscape Management. In addition,

the program has just received a 1996

F600 Chip Truck, donated by the Davey

Tree Expert Company.

? We are now offering several

hard skill classes as part of the RATE

program, including whitewater

canoeing and kayaking, rock and ice

climbing, and free-heel skiing.

? Prof. Randall Swanson attended

the Empire State Green Industry

Conference held in January in

Rochester. Three current students

and six alumni of the program were

also in attendance.

FNRR FACULTy UPDATeS? Prof. Corey Laxson was an author

on the paper “Land use designation

and vegetation community structure

in the Adirondack uplands (New York,

USA),” published online in Applied

Vegetation Science.

? Prof. Randall Swanson received

the Scholar Award from the New York

State Arborists Association at the fall

meeting in Poughkeepsie.

? Prof. Brett McLeod served as the

technical consultant for author Carol

Smalley who is writing a children’s

book entitled One Acorn, Many Trees.

? Dr. Jeff Walton has published

several peer-reviewed papers in the

area of remote sensing and GIS over

the past few months, including three

in the same issue of Photogrammetric

Engineering and Remote Sensing.

? Dr. Jorie Favreau continues to re-

view manuscripts for journals, includ-

ing a manuscript for BioScience, and

books for the American Association for

the Advancement of Science.

? Dr. David Patrick has recently

published papers in peer review in

the journals Ecology and Biological

Conservation.

? Dr. Andy Egan presented a paper

on his research on the sustainability

of New England’s farms and farm

woodlots at an IUFRO meeting in

Gérardmer, France, in June 2008. He

also developed and presented a

webinar on soil and water quality for

Cornell University in June 2009. In

addition, he has had two manuscripts

recently accepted for publication

in the Northern Journal of Applied

Forestry.

Some of the offerings at the weekly farmers’ market. These notebooks, at top, made of waste paper, were designed by artist-in-residence Ellen Rogers.

Parts of the college’s new sawmill sit on a flatbed truck awaiting installation.

A welder prepares the operator’s cab at the college’s sawmill, which received a $200,000 makeover this summer.