Programs Show Strong Growth

The mission of SNRE is to develop knowledge to address the environmental and natural resource issues facing Florida, the nation and the world. Our vision is to be a pre-eminent program that provides a stream of interdisciplinary thinkers, integrative research, and applications for the public to address major environmental, economic and social concerns. We think we are on the right track in the School of Natural Resources and Environment to achieve our mission, fulfill our vision, and position the University of Florida to increase its effectiveness in guiding our state’s future, and in serving our students, agencies, organizations, industries and citizens.

We are excited that our enrollment in both the undergraduate and graduate degree programs continues to increase. For fall 2006, 101 students chose the undergraduate Environmental Science degree as their major. This is the second year in a row that enrollment in the program has increased. Graduate enrollment in the MS/PhD Interdisciplinary Ecology degree program also increased to 133 in fall 2006. We now have more PhD (56%) than MS (44%) students for the first time. About one-fourth of our graduate students are international students.

Steve Humphrey is now receiving and evaluating graduate applications for fall 2007, and we continue to be impressed with the high quality of the students this degree program is attracting. Since the graduate program is now maturing (it only began in 1999-00), the number of students graduating each year is catching up with the number being admitted. For example, five master’s and five doctoral students graduated in fall 2006. We have also about reached the limit regarding the number of students we can financially support without new resources. We fund research assistantships and fellowships for about 40% of the students, 40% are funded by extramural grants received by the affiliate faculty and 20% are self-funded. The maturation of the program and the level of funding we currently have will cause our graduate enrollment to level off at about the current level during the next few years.

We also have made excellent progress in developing our research and outreach/Extension programs. Stephen Mulkey and Nancy Peterson have provided excellent leadership for the mini-grants program and in assisting the leaders of the Natural Areas Training Academy (NATA), the Natural Resources Leadership Institute (NRLI) and the Program for Resource Efficient Communities (PREC) as these groups have provided excellent training and assistance to their participants. All these programs are conducted in partnership with many other organizations both on and off-campus. However, all of them are underfunded and operating below full capacity. Stephen Mulkey provided excellent leadership in organizing a campus-wide response to a request by the Century Commission to provide 16 issue papers on environmental, social and economic concepts for sustainable development in Florida (click HERE to view the report). Stephen has also provided excellent leadership in organizing faculty workgroups on land use (People and Land Use Strategies), climate change, and provided administrative leadership to the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) group to assist them in responding to a request for information to the National Science Foundation. The overall goal is to position UF to capitalize on its breadth and depth and obtain funding to work in all these areas as opportunities become available.

The Century Commission was created by the 2005 legislature. Its mission is to create a vision for the future of Florida and to develop a plan to achieve that vision at 25 and 50 year time frames (http://www.centurycommission.org). The Century Commission strongly recognizes the role of science, education and outreach and Florida's universities in this process. By agreement with SNRE, CLAS and the Department of Botany, Stephen Mulkey will be under contract with the Century Commission for the first six months of 2007. Stephen will assist the Commission with planning science initiatives in land use, water supply and quality and energy and in seeking funding for those initiatives. Stephen will continue to assist SNRE in developing research groups in climate change and land use, and work with other UF organizations (for example, Water Institute), to position UF to play a significant role in planning the future of Florida through funding for work in these areas.