Sessions adds his backing of students; shares rationale on Biscuit report

Members of Oregon State University’s College of Forestry want it known that they support their students, despite concerns to the contrary prompted by a graduate student’s experience earlier this year.

The flap surrounding Daniel Donato’s controversial post-salvage logging study has attracted national media attention, prompted a congressional field hearing and called into question academic freedom and scientific integrity. It’s also led to investigations into the relationship between the college and the timber industry.

To learn from this “teachable moment” and move forward, the College of Forestry has assembled a Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility.

The group, which consists of faculty and graduate students, drafted a statement pledging support for students. Eighty faculty and staff signed it.

“What prompted it was concern that students knew that they are supported in the college. With all that happened, students have wondered where they fit. We wanted them to know that providing them a supportive, nurturing environment is a top priority,” said Norm Johnson, committee chairman and distinguished professor of forest resources.

Among those signing it was John Sessions, who opposed Donato’s study.

In addition to the statement, which Johnson posted on a wall in the coffee break room for people to sign, the committee has been busy conducting a survey on the perceived climate within the college.

“We recognize that in times of crisis, and this has been a crisis, there is an opportunity for real growth and change,” said John Bliss, Starker Chair in Private and Family Forestry. Bliss is a member of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility.

He hopes the committee meetings will provide a venue for working through problems and increase communication among members of the college. Ultimately, he believes, it will help foster “an institutional culture that is most productive and collegial.”

The anonymous survey was distributed among faculty, staff and graduate students, and asks questions about whether academic freedom is supported, and how the structure of the college enhances or inhibits its core values.

The committee will discuss the results of the survey at 1:30 p.m. Friday in Richardson 107.

Donato’s experience with some faculty in the college left many educators and students alike wondering if academic freedom and student success are priorities.

Donato, an OSU graduate student, led a study of salvage logging in the southwest Oregon area burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, and concluded that salvage logging slows forest regrowth and creates tinder that can increase fire risk.

Some professors in the College of Forestry who disagreed with Donato’s findings, including Sessions and Mike Newton, tried to delay publication of the study, raising concern among students and faculty about censorship.

Sessions discusses Donato report

“We all support students. They came to school to learn. What we disagreed with was a poorly done study,” said Sessions, a university distinguished professor of forestry.

Sessions said he and his colleagues initially only wanted to help Donato and his co-authors strengthen their paper in between its release on the Science Web site and when the journal went to press.

“We were concerned that a poor piece of reporting would be in scientific literature for good. There was the chance they could revise it before it was ink. We were trying to help them out,” Sessions said.

“We sought only to strength that paper. And for that, we’ve been kicked all around.”

Sessions said he later realized that the study wasn’t just poorly documented, but the design was flawed.

Donato and his co-authors compared their seedling counts to general stocking guidelines, which address what percentage of an area is covered in seedlings.

“Counting how many seedlings you have doesn’t give you the information about whether they’re well-distributed, or whether you have to add more. All foresters know that,” Sessions said.

Also, logging in the Biscuit fire area was delayed for two years, which explains why seedlings were damaged, Sessions said.

“If you’re going to salvage, you do it quickly,” according to Sessions, who noted that most post-fire logging is done within several months of the disaster.

This expediency retains the value of the salvaged timber, decreases the cost of establishing a new stand and avoids killing new seedlings that pop up in the first spring after the fire.

Sessions also believes Donato’s team didn’t disclose important information about the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest’s management plan.

Donato’s paper says post-fire logging produces tinder that increases short-term risks of future blazes.

The paper doesn’t note that the forest managers in that area decided to increase ground wood to protect the soil and provide for wildlife, Sessions said.

A call to Donato Monday afternoon was not returned by press time.

Joe Fontaine, a Ph.D. candidate in OSU’s department of fisheries and wildlife, could not be reached either. Fontaine was the other graduate student besides Donato working on the paper.

In his testimony before the Senate Interim Committee on Natural Resources and Alternative Energy, given April 7, Fontaine said, “Claims you may have heard about the flawed design or statistical conclusions are simply baseless.”

Donato has previously said the findings of their short-term study are not meant to be applied widely to other forests and time frames.

Newton, forestry professor emeritus, echoed Sessions’ concerns, adding that the paper didn’t note the forest manager’s plans to replant.

Newton didn’t sign the petition, but not because he doesn’t agree with its pledge to support students, which he believes is an obvious priority for all professors.

He thinks the statement misses the actual problem going on in the college, which is a media blowup of his and his colleagues attempts to strength a flawed paper and be mentors to their students.

Newton took issue with the survey because it does not define academic freedom. Academic freedom applies to faculty and their ability to conduct rigorous research outside their university job requirements, so long as these creative projects do not interfere with their teaching commitments.

Students must expect to be criticized, as long as that criticism is constructive and well-intentioned, he said.

Newton added that his oath as a 47-year member of the Society of American Foresters charged him to “challenge and correct untrue statements about forestry” contained in the Donato paper.

“This (controversy) so far has focused on the little guy being stomped on by the big, old, ugly professors, but it turned out that the big, old, ugly professors are really the little guy’s best friends,” Newton said.

Letter of support

Eighty faculty and staff in OSU’s College of Forestry signed the following letter, indicating their support of graduate students. This statement follows the controversy over attempts by some faculty members in the college to interfere with publication of a graduate student’s research in the journal Science.

“Events in the College of Forestry over the past few months have been trying to many inside and outside the university. We, the undersigned faculty and staff of the College of Forestry, publicly state that a supportive, nurturing environment is a top priority of the college — now and in the future. Anything that threatens our students threatens our entire college. We are committed to integrity, respect and professionalism in all that we do, and especially with regard to the treatment of our students.”

The college’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility will discuss the results of its recent survey at 1:30 p.m. Friday in Richardson 107, 3180 S.W. Jefferson Way.