Hello, to all our forestry friends and alumni. I hope that everyone is doing well during this challenging time. Of course the coronavirus hit universities particularly hard and UK is no exception. In the middle of the semester UK sent all the students home and switched to online classes. We were in the middle of our spring field classes (for old-timers, summer camp) and had to finish on-line. We will be installing a fall semester forest operations course to provide the students with some of the hands-on that they missed this spring. See “Spring Field Semester 2020” below to see what spring camp students did before and after covid-19 hit. Also, our seniors conducted their capstone presentations virtually and all went well. However, we are very disappointed that the seniors will not get a recognition dinner and traditional graduation ceremony. If possible, we are going to attempt to provide a recognition event at the appropriate time. See the short video of the senior class in “UK Forestry Seniors”.
As I write this, we just finished submitting a budget revision trimming 9.5% from our state budget. While this may seem small to many, there is very little in our budget that is not spoken for in salaries, graduate student stipends, and other critical allocations. We will lose, at the minimum, one faculty line that was open when the virus hit. There will be other repercussions as well. Stay tuned and let’s hope we get through this with our ability to address all of our mission areas, instruction, research and extension. Thank you for your continued interest and engagement with our (your) department.
