The Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation invites applications for Collegiate Assistant Professor of Forestry. At Virginia Tech, Collegiate professors are full members of the faculty whose responsibilities are focused on teaching. The successful candidate will join Virginia’s only four-year Society of American Foresters-accredited forestry program and will play a highly visible, student-facing role in sustaining core forestry instruction, field-based education, professional preparation, and workforce connections.
We seek an educator with broad forestry expertise, a strong background in forest operations, and the ability to connect classroom and field laboratory instruction with contemporary forestry practices and employer expectations.
Teaching and Mentoring Expectations
The position is expected to carry approximately a 3:3 teaching load, with appropriate consideration of the additional time demands of field laboratory courses. Specific teaching assignments may include some of the following courses, depending on program needs and the professional experience and expertise of the successful candidate:
• FREC 2214 Introduction to Land and Field Measurements
• FREC 3714 Forest Harvesting
• FREC 3724 Forest Boundaries and Roads
• FREC 3734 Forest Fiber Supply
• FREC 4004 Professional Skills in Natural Resources
• FREC 4714 Harvesting Systems Evaluation.
The successful candidate may also contribute to a first-year experience course, forestry courses for non-majors, a forestry capstone course, or study-abroad experiences, as appropriate, within the approximately 3:3 teaching workload expectation.
Research, Scholarship, Extension, and Engagement Expectations
For a Collegiate faculty appointment, approximately 5–10% of effort may support pedagogical or disciplinary scholarship and collaborative research. The successful candidate will be expected to contribute to curriculum development and revision, student mentoring, experiential learning, and engagement with forestry employers and stakeholders. Participation in Forestry Extension activities is possible but not required.
About the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation
The Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech is one of the top forestry, natural resource management, and conservation programs in the United States. Our vision, mission, and values statements can be found here: https://frec.vt.edu/vision_mission_values.html. We are an inclusive and collaborative department that values knowledge and innovation; ethics and integrity; diversity and inclusivity; opportunity and affordability; and sustainability. Our exceptional education, research, and outreach programs are diverse and approach critical natural resource issues from many perspectives. The department offers master's and doctoral programs, as well as five undergraduate majors: environmental conservation and society, environmental data science, environmental resource management, forestry, and water resources policy and management. Faculty research areas of focus include forest biometrics, modeling, and remote sensing; forest biology, physiology, and genomics; ecology, silviculture, and wildland fire; hydrology, soils, and watershed management; forest management, operations, and business; resource economics and policy; human dimensions of natural resources and sustainability; environmental education, interpretation, and communication; and urban forestry. Department faculty also are engaged with industrial cooperatives, as well as extension and outreach efforts such as landowner education, SHARP logger, Master Naturalist, learning networks focused on environmental education and interpretation, and geospatial education programs.