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Published: March 05, 2007
11:03 am
ACM forestry programs show rise in female students
For
the
Cumberland
Times-News
CUMBERLAND
- Kayla Hartung of
Cumberland
and Melissa Stevens of Frostburg both love the outdoors and want to make it
central to their future careers.
The two freshmen at Allegany College of Maryland are among five female students
who enrolled as forestry majors in the fall semester, when one
in seven forestry students was female.
While this response may not signal a trend in a profession that is
traditionally and overwhelmingly male, it is a development ACM forestry
programs coordinator Steve Resh would like to see continue.
"We've had many women in the program," he said. "Some of our
best graduates have been women."
A 2006 graduate of Fort Hill, Hartung worked with a
self-employed professional forester last summer and has been a volunteer at the
Tri-State
Zoological
Park
.
Her overriding interest in forestry pertains to wildlife. "If I can help
the habitat," she said, "I can help the animals."
Stevens, who graduated from Beall High in 2006 among
the top grads in her class, has been a hunter since age 8 and worked with the
Maryland Forest Service's Western Region Office last summer. She also was
captain of Beall's envirothon team.
Both are members of ACM's woodsmen team, which, with its throwback crosscut saw
and broadax events, might offer some of the most physically demanding tasks
they'll see in forestry.
"I'm one of those people that will not let a lot of things intimidate
them," said Stevens.
"You have to have a real good sense of humor," Hartung said of studying a male-dominated field. "They're typical guys."
The camaraderie that Hartung and Stevens sense in the
academic setting continues into the professional arena, said Jennifer Mangin, a 2004 graduate who works for the Maryland Forest
Service in
Cecil
County
.
"Forestry is a giant family for me. Once you're in forestry, you're in a
family."
Mangin said the forest technology program prepared
her well for her duties. "Everything I've learned has so far come in
handy."
She recounted a tree-identification assignment in a
Prince George
's County forest. "College
got me ready for that because our classes took us outdoors," she said.
"I felt like I was back in school."
Women can do well in forestry, Mangin said. "If
you have a passion for it, you can do it. I love it."
Mangin said she's felt some ribbing - but from men
outside the profession.
"The guys in my family are jealous because I get to drive heavy equipment.
That's something they don't get to do in their work."
Women started to enter the forestry profession in the 1970s, a decade when they
began cracking other male-dominated fields.
Penn
State
's
first female forestry graduate was a member of Resh's 1974 class.
"I've worked with women in all kinds of jobs," he said. "I never
worked with any that couldn't do what the profession asked of them."
The Society of American Foresters has, over the years, made a concerted effort
to attract more women and other minorities to the profession, Resh noted.
Nonetheless, he allowed, drawing more women hasn't always been an easy sell.
Many may believe that forestry involves back-breaking work and holds onto a
rough culture, a legacy of hurly-burly lumber camps.
Forestry is very much a thinking-person's field that depends on knowledge,
communication and analytical thinking, according to Resh. It's also one that
increasingly relies on technology, such as global positioning and geographic
information systems.
"We've had to confront the stereotypes," he said. "If you can
walk in the woods, you can do forestry management."
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