Cheryl Regehr

Office of the Vice President & Provost

Cc: Robert Wright

Dean, Faculty of Forestry

Dear Provost Regehr,

We are writing to you to express the position of the forestry graduate student body with
regards to the Proposal for the Academic Restructuring of the Faculty of Forestry. The
Forestry Graduate Students’ Association (FGSA) and the student body have been actively
participating in the consultation process since the publication of the Proposal in December
2018, including meetings with Dean Wright, the forestry faculty, and the administrative
members. Following a series of structured consultations with the graduate student body,
we have developed the following consensus position. We believe the merger of the Faculty
of Forestry with the Daniels Faculty of Architecture has the potential to promote positive
change and benefit both fields. However, we are not confident that the current proposal
sufficiently addresses concerns raised by the student body about autonomy, the forestry
brand, accreditation, and endowments. We believe that these concerns must be addressed to
allow the new interdisciplinary faculty to excel in our shared goal of research and teaching
excellence.

The excellence of Forestry at the University of Toronto was highlighted in a 2016 external
review of the Faculty by external experts from McGill University, University of California,
Berkeley, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences1 . The review was extremely
positive, stressing the importance of forestry in today’s society as well as the Faculty’s
ability to produce high-quality graduates with local knowledge of Ontario’s forest industry.
Reviewers also noted that there are few institutions in Canada that provide such professionals
to Ontario’s forest industry, making the contributions of University of Toronto Forestry
students and alumni all the more important at present and in the future. Students are
concerned that, under the current terms of the proposal, it may be difficult for Ontario’s
forest industry to thrive and meet the University of Toronto’s mission to provide high-
quality education and research without such graduates. As a result, we are seeking written
assurances that forestry’s identity, autonomy, and the forestry brand at the University of
Toronto be maintained. Specifically, we recommend that the language in the proposal be
changed to address the following:
1
Geitmann, A; Gilless J.K; Forsse, L,S; External Review Report, May 2016 University of Toronto -
Faculty of Forestry (2016)
http://forestry.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/UofT-Forestry-2016-Review-002.pdf?
fbclid=IwAR0H157AvcXpIe1qL0LvzfmWhOvSxIS_c36jzHXkeG7DSVgpd8gbyHgp6eU

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1. Establish a distinct Forestry unit under Daniels

In order to uphold the Faculty’s excellent international reputation, to maintain visibility, and
to continue to attract talents to our doctoral and masters’ programs, it is crucial that Forestry
remains as a clearly defined entity under Daniels. Specifically, we suggest establishing a de-
partment or an extra departmental unit (EDU): A, which will ensure the independence,
visibility, and promotion of a multidisciplinary unit to foster and encourage research and
teaching in Forestry. The ability to administer research funds and hold budgetary appoint-
ments as are possible within EDU: As will be essential to allow for our continued research
excellence. We feel that establishing forestry as an EDU: C or D (or the lack of any discrete
forestry unit) would severely limit forestry’s autonomy, ability to conduct cutting edge re-
search, and ability to offer courses. Since the current restructuring proposal already must be
approved by the Governing Council, there is an opportunity now to create an EDU: A that
can be approved alongside the proposal for restructuring. This opportunity may not exist if
Forestry joins Daniels without specific language as to its future status in the proposal.

2. Maintain accreditation and foster growth of the programs

A major draw of both the Daniels Faculty and the Faculty of Forestry is the accreditation
of the Master of Architecture and the Master of Landscape Architecture programs, and
the Master of Forest Conservation (MFC) program, respectively. The MFC program is
currently accredited by the Canadian Forestry Accreditation Board (CFAB), which allows
graduating students to article as a Registered Professional Forester (RPF)—a vital step in
building a professional forestry career. The MFC program is the only accredited Masters
program in Ontario. This creates graduates that are well-versed in research, operational
forestry, and policy that enables them to immediately pursue high-level positions unavailable
to graduates from an undergraduate program. This is a major draw for prospective students
and attracts graduate students from around the world. It is therefore important to ensure
that accreditation is maintained in the long-term after the program is transferred to the
Daniels Faculty of Architecture.

In order to maintain CFAB accreditation, the program must include content from a range
of fields. Currently, our program accomplishes this by offering course content in economics,
entomology, wildlife biology, silviculture, wood and biomaterials science, and fire science.
Our current accreditation serves as a testament to our highly recognized professors. CFAB
holds faculty members to a high standard based on their education, diversity, publication
history and society membership (CFAB Criteria 3.5.4). Our Faculty members have worked
extremely hard to achieve these standards despite their limited numbers. Additional faculty
members, as recommended by the external review, would serve to strengthen the program
and would allow the core content to be provided entirely by permanent faculty members
rather than sessional lecturers. The 2016 review recommended that accredited programs

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such as ours should involve 8-10 faculty members. As an additional point of reference, the
Society of American Foresters requires a minimum of 8 full-time faculty. Additionally, some
of the current faculty members are nearing retirement and there are already a limited number
of forestry supervisors for the MFC capstone projects and research projects.

The addition of 5 new faculty members is a key aspect of this proposal and will ensure the
MFC program is able to keep accreditation if the positions are filled by people with a forestry
background. This will also build up new course material to broaden the scope of forestry
education at the University of Toronto, including social sciences and Indigenous studies, as
was suggested in an external review of the Faculty of Forestry in 2016. Furthermore, raising
the number of forestry faculty to 10 will also allow for the accreditation of a new Urban
forestry program, which was suggested as a future direction for the faculty in the proposal.

In addition, one of the many requirements set out by the CFAB to remain accredited is
to have a Faculty Council or equivalent that has effective control over the program (CFAB
Criteria 3.5.5). Any senior administrators governing the program are expected to have ”a
background which allows effective leadership in forestry education and to have achieved a
high standing in the Canadian forestry community” (CFAB Criteria 3.5.3). We, therefore,
feel that it will be important for accreditation purposes to include a forestry director (the
head of the proposed department or EDU: A) with adequate forestry education to oversee the
program in the long-term in the proposal. It will also be important that the program director
play a significant role in decisions pertaining to forestry programming such as new faculty
hires, financial allocations, and curriculum planning in order to ensure that accreditation is
maintained.

3. Protect Forestry’s endowment funds

The proposed restructuring will require the terms of endowment funds to be revised. In
order to secure the success of future students in Forestry’s research and professional stream
programs, we recommend stronger security measures to honor the wishes of endowment fund
donors. Specifically, we are seeking unequivocal written confirmation that endowment funds
and any donations in the Faculty of Forestry’s name continue to exclusively benefit students
in a forestry degree program. This will allow the endowments to continue to play a key role
in fostering the success of Forestry. The proposal states the endowment funds will remain as
close as possible to the original terms. However this statement is ambiguous and the original
terms may be interpreted in many ways. We suggest rewriting these statements to be more
clear and concise in the original proposal.

In conclusion, we warmly welcome the exciting opportunities offered by new collaborative

programs, but are deeply concerned that the University maintains its existing strengths in
areas of forestry that do not have obvious overlaps with the skills, interests, and direction

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of the Daniel’s Faculty. In their entirety, the modifications we have proposed constitute a
baseline we believe must be met in order for forestry education and research to continue in
a meaningful way at the University of Toronto. We intend to continue our role as forestry
student representatives until restructuring is complete, and we look forward to working with
you through the governance process.

Respectfully yours,

The Forestry Graduate Students Association:

Nicole Tratnik (Chair, PhD Candidate)

Juliana Vantellingen (Vice-Chair, PhD Candidate)
Md. Abdul Halim (Research Stream Rep. and Alumni Liaison, PhD Candidate)
Emmett Snyder (MFC Rep. and Undergraduate Liaison, MFC student)
Julian Alvarez-Barkham (Treasurer, MFC student)
Amélie Lapointe (Sports Rep., MFC student)

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With support from:

Janani Sivarajah (MFC 2011, PhD Candidate)

Lingling Qiu (PhD student; 2018 Connaught Scholar)
Ben Filewod (M.F.Sc. 2011; PhD Candidate & 2018 Vanier Scholar)
Katherine Baird (MScF student)
Ambika Tenneti (PhD Candidate)
María Toledo (PhD Candidate; 2015-2019 CONACYT scholarship, 2018 IDRC Doctoral
Research Award, 2018 C40 Cities Women for Climate)
Zhe Dai (PhD student)
Adam Gorgolewski (MScF Graduate; PhD Candidate)
Jonathan Stellato (MScF Candidate, 2018 Queen Elizabeth II/ Buell Graduate Scholarship
in Science and Technology)
Yiwen Zhang (PhD candidate)
Heyu Chen (PhD candidate)
Janice Lam (MFC Student)
Jishan Liao (PhD student)
Pedro Ríos Guayasamín (PhD candidate; 2016 Connaught Scholar)
Susan Frye (MFC 2011, PhD Candidate)
Omri Menashe (PhD. Student)
Sossina Gezahegn (PhD Candidate)
Jamie Maloney (MScF Candidate, 2018 Queen Elizabeth II/ Adam Zimmerman Graduate
Scholarship in Science and Technology)
Peter Kuitenbrouwer (MFC candidate)
Melanie Sifton (PhD Student, 2018 Ontario Graduate Scholar)
Maria Semeniuk (Ph.D Student)
Qianli Yu (MFC 2017)
Ritikaa Gupta (MFC Graduate 2019)
Oscar Martinez (PhD Candidate)
Madeline Baroli (MFC Candidate)
Matthew Shakespeare (MFC Candidate)
Nazmus Saadat (PhD Student)
Shannon MacDonald (MscF Candidate)
Nicolas Tanguy (PhD Candidate)
Shreshta Roy Goswani (PhD Candidate)
Jacqueline De Santis (MFC Candidate)
Jennika Hunsinger (MFC Candidate)
Muhammed Taha Syed (MFC Candidate)
Janèle Tétreault (MFC Candidate)

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