Graduation 2013 - College of Forestry and Conservation - University ...

Celebrating
COMMENCEMENT 2013

College of Forestry and Conservation Commencement
May 18, 2013 • 2:00 p.m.
Procession
Welcome and Introduction of Faculty
Jim Burchfield, Dean of the College of Forestry and Conservation
Remarks to Graduates
Jill Belsky, Professor of Rural and Environmental Sociology
Presentation of Graduate Students
Steve Siebert, Professor of Tropical Forest Conservation and Management
Presentation of Degrees
Beth Dodson, Forestry Program Director
Norma Nickerson, Parks, Tourism and Recreation Management Program Director
Laurie Yung, Resource Conservation Program Director
Cara Nelson, Wildland Restoration Program Director
Dan Pletscher, Wildlife Biology Program Director
Closing Remarks
Jim Burchfield
Recession
Please join us after the ceremony
for a light reception on the Forestry Building’s north lawn
Join us in celebrating our centennial this year • www.cfc.umt.edu/centennial

college of forestry and conservation
Building understanding
among present and future
conservation leaders to
use, restore, and sustain
valued social and
ecological systems across
montana, the nation, and
the world
undergrad degree programs
forestry
Parks, Tourism & Recreation Mgmt.
Resource Conservation
Wildland Restoration
Wildlife Biology
Climate Change Studies minor
Wilderness Studies minor
Wildland Fire Sciences & Mgmt. minor
Wildland Restoration minor
Wildlife Biology minor
graduate degree programs
forestry
Recreation Management
Resource Conservation
Systems Ecology
Wildlife Biology
Fish & Wildlife Biology
The College of Forestry and Conservation at The
University of Montana-Missoula was founded in
1913 to educate and train the nation’s finest natural
resource leaders. We have nearly 1,000 undergraduate
and graduate students, 19 degree program
options, and more than 45 faculty members.
CFC students develop solutions to natural resource
challenges and conduct field-based research locally
and internationally. These students are from varying
backgrounds, including rural Montana, tribal
communities, and abroad.
Today we honor all graduates from the College of Forestry and
Conservation and highlight a few students from each program

forestry
Helping students gain practical skills and advanced knowledge to address the complex challenges
of natural resource management. Students can get a B.S. in Forestry with options in
Forest Resources Management and Forest Operations & Applied Restoration, and an M.S. or
PhD in Forestry
Spencer Maki is getting a B.S. in Forestry,
Forest Resources Management option.
He is a native of New Orleans and spent
a good deal of his childhood growing up
in Southeast Missouri. In his senior year
of high school he moved to Vancouver
Island and attended a lutherie school,
learning about the construction and repair
of musical stringed instruments. He did
an apprenticeship in Northern Sweden
and spent five years in Europe. Then, after
working for several years in a San Francisco
musical instrument repair shop he
decided to study forestry. He started at a
college in northern California and then, seeking a stronger, reputable program, he transferred
to UM in January, 2011. At UM Spencer has excelled academically and led his classes in the
search for knowledge and professional understanding. Spencer received the 2013 Mortar
Board Outstanding Senior Award.
Spencer’s future plans will first take him back to Northern California for a job with the Shasta-Trinity
National Forest. Then after a break from studying, he plans to look into options on
furthering his education within the field of forest management.
• Student forestry clubs successfully organized many activities such as: the 96th Foresters’
Ball with the addition of two day-time events; a timber sale on Section 13, the
student-managed plot at Lubrecht Experimental Forest; the student fire club hosted
several networking events with fire professionals.
• Forestry students participated in field trips and field courses throughout Montana,
including to Seeley Lake, the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Lubrecht Experimental Forest.
The prescribed fire practicum spent its sixth wintersession in Georgia with students
running prescribed burns for longleaf pine restoration; a new forestry field skills course
at Lubrecht Experimental Forest taught students skills like forest inventory and timber
marking.

parks, tourism & recreation
management
Nature-based degree programs preparing students as stewards and managers of natural
and cultural heritage. Students can get a B.S. in Recreation Resources Management or Nature-based
Tourism and an M.S. in Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management.
Raised on the banks of the Mississippi river in Quincy,
Illinois, and later inspired by the foothills of Colorado,
Clinton Begley grew up with an appreciation for the
outdoors and the many ways to enjoy it. He came to
UM to pursue his B.S. in Parks, Tourism, and Recreation
Management. With the thoughtful guidance of
CFC professor Dr. Elizabeth Metcalf, Clinton crafted an
independent research project that sought to examine
the relationship between intrinsic personality traits and
recreation activity preferences among UM students.
Clinton was awarded the Irene Evers Undergraduate
Research scholarship from the CFC to complete this
research and was invited to present his findings at the
University of Montana Conference for Undergraduate
Research this spring. Clinton received the 2013 Mortar
Board Outstanding Senior Award.
After graduation, Clinton will spend his perfect Montana
summer leading youth activities for the Glacier
Institute’s Big Creek Camp near Polebridge, while
fall will bring promise of kokanee runs and big game
throughout northwest Montana. In January, he begins
an assistantship in the M.S. Recreation Management
and Policy program at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
• This year students in Recreation Planning wrote master plans for Milltown State Park, a
new local park space created when the Milltown Dam was removed from the Clark Fork
River.
• PTRM students participated in field trips around Montana including a five-day trip in
Yellowstone, biking the Hiawatha Trail, assisting with management plans in Glacier
National Park, interpretative designs at Lubrecht Forest, and assisting with the Montana-Idaho
Parks and Recreation annual conference.

esource conservation
Integrating natural and social sciences to address real world environmental challenges.
Students can get a B.S. in Resource Conservation with a variety of emphases.
Elena Louder is graduating with a B.S. in Resource
Conservation and minors in Wilderness Studies
and Spanish. She is an avid kayaker and river guide
initially drawn to Missoula for its nearby wild rivers.
Little did she know her addiction to recreating on
Montana’s whitewater would spark a more academic
quest to understand how and why societies interact
with the natural resources that sustain them.
In her time at UM, Elena has focused on the social
aspects of resource management and conservation,
and plans to eventually continue her studies at the
graduate level. This summer she will return for her
7th season as a raft guide on the Middle Fork of the
Salmon River. In the fall she’ll travel to southern
Chile. Elena received the 2013 Mortar Board Outstanding
Senior Award and is graduating with high honors.
Monica Lomahukluh is graduating with a B.S. in
Resource Conservation and a minor in Wildland
Restoration. She was born in Tuba City, Arizona,
and raised in Helena, Montana. She is an enrolled
member of the Hopi Nation who has worked since
age 16 to attend college. While at UM, she traveled to
Vietnam with the Climate Change Studies Program
to study climate change vulnerability and adaptability
there. She’s also worked in the research labs
of professors Paul Alaback – working in Prince of
Wales, Alaska – and Cara Nelson. Monica has also
served as an intern for two summers in Yellowstone
National Park and will return there this summer as a
full-time temporary employee. First she’s traveling to
Guatemala to study forest restoration.
• 62 Resource Conservation students graduate this year (39% with a GPA of 3.4 or higher)
• 12 students participated in the new field course in the Swan Valley this spring
• Since 2003, one Truman Scholar and three Udall Scholars have graduated with Resource
Conservation degrees.

wildland restoration
Preparing students to solve the complex challenges of repairing aquatic and terrestrial
ecosystems. Students can get a B.S. in Wildland Restoration in either a Terrestrial or Aquatic
option and add a Wildland Restoration minor to a CFC major.
Hannah Riedl is graduating with a B.S. in Wildland
Restoration Aquatic option. As a freshman,
Hannah worked as an undergraduate researcher
in Dr. Laurie Marzcak’s aquatic invertebrate
ecology lab. Under Dr. Marzcak’s tutelage, she
conducted two independent research projects
studying the effects of climate change and invasive
species on leaf litter decomposition rates.
Funding for these projects came from awards and
grants received, totaling $12,000. Hannah and
Laurie published the results of her undergraduate
research in Riparian Ecology and Conservation,
and Hannah presented a poster at the 2011 North
American Benthological Society conference.
Although she is graduating with an aquatic
emphasis, Hannah also gained experience in
terrestrial ecology and management. Along with
a team of student collaborators, Hannah developed
a plan for the US Forest Service to monitor
revegetation in the Petty Creek project area. She
also gained experience in testing the efficacy and
effects of terrestrial restoration through field and
lab work in Dr. Cara Nelson’s lab. In addition to her major in restoration, Hannah is receiving
a minor in Chemistry.
Academics aside, Hannah served as Vice President of the University’s chapter of the Society
for Ecological Restoration, helping organize Mount Sentinel Earth Day events. She also served
as President of the UM Triathlon club for two years and maintained a three-year streak as fastest
UM student female triathlete.
• In the last academic year, the Wildland Restoration Program saw a 47% increase in
enrollment in the major.
• In addition to stellar academic achievements, this year 26% of students in the program
entered a pie into the annual pie-bake-off and 100% of students who attended left with
stomach aches.

wildlife Biology
The Wildlife Biology Program at UM provides students with an extensive knowledge in ecology,
population biology, conservation biology, and critical thinking and quantitative skills. Students
receive a strong academic and scientific background along with hands-on, experiential
learning to conserve vertebrate populations, their habitats, and ecosystems. This interdisciplinary
program draws from faculty in both the College of Forestry and Conservation and
the Division of Biological Sciences as well as federal scientists in the Montana Cooperative
Wildlife Research Unit.
Morgan Sparks is graduating with a B.S. in Wildlife
Biology and a B.A. in Print Journalism. He started at
UM in 2009. After his freshman year, he was a fisheries
biology intern on Kodiak and Afognak Islands,
Alaska. For two summers he lived in remote field camp
collecting data on Pacific salmon and interacting with
Kodiak brown bears daily. While a freshman, he was
elected as president of the UM student subunit of the
American Fisheries Society. He’s served as president of
AFS for three years, leading the club to multiple state
and regional meetings and, in 2011, to host the Western
Division of the American Fisheries Society student
Colloquium at UM. For his work with the club, he won
the Wally McClure Scholarship from the Montana
Chapter of AFS.
Morgan is also completing a major in print journalism.
He was awarded the Dan Vichorek scholarship for environmental writing and won third place
in student feature writing for Region 10 of the Society of the Professional Journalists for a
story in the Montana Native News Project.
Morgan also worked on an undergraduate research project with Dr. Lisa Eby, investigating
the impact of whirling disease on trout populations in tributaries of the Blackfoot River. He
presented the results of his project at the UM Conference on Undergraduate Research and
will fit it into a larger manuscript on whirling disease and the Blackfoot River with coauthors.
Morgan plans to attend graduate school in fisheries biology.
Morgan received the 2013 Mortar Board Outstanding Senior Award, will graduate with high
honors in both his majors, and is a University Scholar in the Davidson Honors College.
This year the Wildlife Biology Program was designated a Program of National Distinction
by UM’s Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The designation celebrates
Wildlife Biology’s 75-year legacy of excellence in wildlife conservation, research,
and education.

climate change studies
Offering one of the nation’s first undergraduate degree programs devoted to the challenges
and opportunities presented by global climate change. Students from across campus can add
a Climate Change Studies minor to their undergraduate major.
Taylor Hopkins is getting a B.S. in Resource Conservation
with a minor in Climate Change Studies.
He grew up in both Anchorage, Alaska and Columbia
Falls, Montana. Seasonal work as a deep
emersion trail crewman for the US Forest Service in
the Bob Marshall Wilderness and for the Selway-Bitterroot
Frank Church Foundation has shaped his
thinking from the clouds to forest. For his senior
thesis, Taylor is conducting a comparative analysis
of tree spatial patterns, woody debris loads, and
tree regeneration in western larch forests following
wildfire and ecological restoration, respectively.
Taylor also completed the Wilderness and Civilization
program and completed an internship with the
Montana DNRC and Fuels for Schools program on
biomass.
• Students completed 21 internship and practicum projects this semester including
internships with Montana Audubon and the Montana Renewable Energy Association
and serving as EcoReps in the UM Dorms.
• Mara Menahan and Zach Brown are both recent Udall scholars and Becca Boslough is a
Truman Scholar; all are Climate Change Studies students.

wilderness studies
Exploring wildland conservation and wilderness topics through a field- and campus-based
program. Students from across campus can add a minor in Wilderness Studies to their
undergraduate major.
Jenner Harsha is getting a B.S. in Resource
Conservation with a minor in Wilderness
Studies. As a participant in UM’s Wilderness
and Civilization Program, she cultivated
both a strong sense of place and
community in western Montana. This year,
Jenner published two creative, nonfiction
works in Camas: The Nature of the West, a
biannual literary journal produced by UM’s
Environmental Studies graduate program.
She also learned in Missoula that scotch
ales and studying do mix. Jenner returns to
Grand Teton National Park this summer as
a backcountry ranger; the headwaters, she
says, for many more wild tales.
Andrew Hursh is getting a B.S. in Resource Conservation with minors in Wilderness Studies
and Music Composition. He says: “E.O. Wilson pointed out that discussing a joke is like
dissecting a frog: you can do it, but it’ll surely be dead when you’re done. It feels similarly
mutilating to attempt to describe these university years. The pages of my transcript are no
more telling than folds of frog skin what it feels like to inhabit this fresh and wild place and
time. Inspecting this heart will give you no indication of how it races when the gorge is running
22,000 CFS. Tattered books or tired lungs can’t convey the crispness of alpine summit air,
the lethargy of late-summer wildfire smoke, or the camaraderie of friendlier kinds. A flaccid
stomach can’t show you how healthily we can eat in a valley where most folks believe that it’s
easy being green. Don’t go near the liver. The eyes and ears would know you can’t build memories
just from bones. Go have a real collegiate adventure. Perform a symphony in a tuxedo,
gather up gear in your overalls, and party with the cedars and springs and a cold smoke in
nothing at all, to fill an evening. Skip class and ski. Build a backcountry-heavy resume. Read,
smile, and harmonize. Analyze the mind you find here; it devoted time to school. It grew.
Tadpole ideas sprouted able legs and lungs. With one persistent wonder: ‘How did I pull this
off? Through the blithest college ride, success or a successful joke?’ I say both, laugh and let it
be. Spare this life the knife and hop along to the next great thing.”

graduate students
Emily Schembra is getting an M.S. in Forestry. She completed her
bachelor’s degree at UM in 2011 as a Davidson Honors College
University Scholar. Emily worked at the US Forest Service Rocky
Mountain Research Station’s Missoula Fire Science Laboratory prior
to graduate school, which inspired her desire to research the connections
between science and policy, or “where the rubber hits the road.”
For her master’s research, she worked with Professor Martin Nie to
examine the role of standards in National Forest planning, leading to
a joint report and the opportunity to present findings to U.S. Forest
Service planning practitioners and local conservation organizations.
She also served as a teaching assistant for Natural Resources Policy
and Administration (FORS 422). She currently works as a conservation
consultant for the National Forest Foundation. Emily has received numerous scholarships
and awards, including the prestigious national Udall Scholars award and the CFC Richard F.
Johnson Legacy Scholarship, which she attributes to support from UM’s excellent faculty and
staff. However, she is most grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with and be mentored
by Professor Nie.
Jody Tucker is finishing her PhD in Wildlife
Biology. She grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh
and got a degree in biology at Hiram College
in Ohio. Right after graduation she migrated to
the West Coast for an internship with the U.S.
Forest Serivce; she has worked for the National
Forests System ever since in a wide variety of
positions including whitewater river ranger,
backcountry trail crew, and wildlife field technician.
Since 2004, Jody has worked with the Sierra
Nevada Carnivore Monitoring Program. This
long-term wildlife research program tracks
the population trend of two species of conservation
concern, the fisher and marten, across
seven national forests in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She conducted dissertation research on
the population genetics of fishers in the Sierra Nevada using DNA obtained from hair samples
collected by the monitoring program. Jody came to UM for her PhD because of a strong
existing collaboration between the Wildlife Biology Program and the U.S. Forest Service
Wildlife Genetics Laboratory here in Missoula, where she conducted the genetic analysis for
her dissertation.

Congratulations, graduates!
stay in touch with us
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Send us updates on your adventures and jobs • connect@cfc.umt.edu