A West Virginia University Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design alumnus will return to campus on Nov. 13 to discuss the importance of increasing gender and minority diversity in the natural resources profession.
Terry Sharik, dean of the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science and Robbins Professor of Sustainable Resources at Michigan Technological University, will present a lecture entitled “Gender and Race/Ethnicity Diversity in the Natural Resources Profession,” at 10 a.m. in 316 Percival Hall on WVU’s Evansdale Campus.
Sharik will discuss current trends in undergraduate enrollment in natural resources majors, reasons for sharp declines in enrollment numbers for forestry related majors, key questions regarding gender and minority diversity issues, as well as strategies for increasing both, in the natural resources profession.
“Among the fifteen major disciplines recognized by the federal government, the natural resources profession ranks second only to engineering in the lowest percent of females in the workforce and is at the very bottom in percent minorities,” Sharik said. “Thus, the composition of the natural resources profession is not reflective of society as a whole, which in turn makes it difficult to serve the needs of society.”
Sharik received a bachelor’s degree in forestry and wildlife management from WVU in 1964. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in forest recreation and a doctoral degree in forest botany from the University of Michigan in 1966 and 1970, respectively.
Prior to becoming dean of SFRES, he held faculty positions at Oberlin College, Virginia Tech, Michigan Tech, University of Michigan Biological Station, and Utah State University. During his tenure at Utah State, Sharik served as head of the Department of Forest Resources and the Department of Environment and Society, both in the College of Natural Resources.
Nationally and internationally known for his contributions to teaching, research and outreach in the natural resources profession, Sharik is the co-founder of the Biennial Conferences on University Education in Natural Resources and the North American Forest Ecology Workshops. He also serves as the Education Chair for the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs, where he co-authored a strategic plan for enhancement in undergraduate education in forestry and related areas of natural resources and continues to analyze enrollment trends in these fields.
He is the author of over a hundred publications in more than thirty journals in the areas of forest ecology and educational reform in natural resources and the environment.
The presentation is free and open to the public. A live webcast will also be available at http://tlcommons.wvu.edu/Webcasts.
-WVU-
law/11/6/15
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