Letter from the Department Head - Summer 2023

Department Head Jeremy James alongside students from the NRES Student Advisory Committee, lead a hike up Poly Cayon for newly admitted students during Cal Poly Open House. 

Dear Friends,

It is an honor and a joy to write to you and share some of the exciting work our students, staff and faculty in the Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences (NRES) Department have accomplished this year.  

We are fortunate to have some of the best educators in the world in our department. As you will see through this newsletter, our faculty members continue to excel in teaching while also attracting important research and professional development opportunities for our students. Out-of-class opportunities are a critical element of the polytechnic mission that underpins a Cal Poly education. Some of the ways our faculty facilitate these valuable experiences are by advising our many professional student clubs, supporting intercollegiate professional competitions such as soil judging and timber sports, and organizing class field trips. NRES faculty organized more than 250 field trips over the past academic year. Students are also involved in faculty’s cutting-edge, applied research on topics such as assessing impacts of catastrophic wildfire, exploring organic fertilizer alternatives and looking at the ecological impacts of solar facilities as California strives to achieve carbon neutrality. 

Students college data within the Oak Fire Scar,
Mariposa County, California, as part of the digital soil
mapping coursework with Assistant Professor Stewart
Wilson. This was one of more than 250 field trips
conducted within the department in the 2022-23
academic year. 

Additionally, our faculty have worked hard to broaden our students’ professional network and breadth of understanding by inviting nationally recognized specialists to campus. These special guests meet with our students and discuss contemporary issues in areas such as cooperate sustainability, wildland fire management, and Indigenous methods to manage lands and oceans. This is an important part of students’ professional development, and we’re always eager to hear from partners and alumni who are interested in helping expand these opportunities. 

The numerous Learn by Doing prospects are part of what makes a Cal Poly education special, and the demand for a Cal Poly education only continues to increase. In fall 2022, Cal Poly had over 74,000 students apply — a university record. In the NRES Department alone, more than 1,800 students competed for fewer than 230 seats. These students represent our future environmental scientists, natural resource managers, foresters, wildland and municipal firefighters and many other experts charged with addressing some of our most serious environmental and natural resource challenges. The future is very bright for NRES students, and our society needs them now more than ever.   

Strong support from our alumni and industry continues to be another element that makes Cal Poly education special. With well over 800 students in the NRES program, our alumni are critical in helping our students develop professional networks. You can read about the significant impact of one such alumna, Lauren Layne, in this newsletter and see how our great alumni, like Lauren, continue to give back and help the next generation prepare and navigate their next steps after Cal Poly. 

Our alumni have helped establish a new program, the NRES L.E.A.D (Leadership, Education, Application and Discovery) program, for our current students. It aims to enhance the diversity of leaders prepared to tackle our most serious environmental challenges. While the benefits and needs of diverse leadership are clear, many graduates within the natural resource and environmental sciences field lack the diversity in leadership needed to move forward. This program is aimed at addressing that deficiency. Students involved receive a generous professional development stipend and an opportunity to work with a cohort of students and faculty advisors over a four-year period on a range of leadership and project development activities. Alumni across the state have given generously to start this program, and we can use all the support we can gather to expand this program since student demand to participate far exceeds our current capacity.   

It continues to be a joy and a privilege to work with such great students, faculty, staff, alumni and industry partners. We know the work ahead is substantial and challenging, but because of you, I know the future is bright. Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

Jeremy James
Department Head

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Read more stories in the Summer 2023 Newsletter