Your gift puts specific improvements into action, like biotechnology and molecular genetics lab equipment—or strengthening Michigan Tech's leadership in the biomaterials boom. Because of you, we can continue our world-record predator-prey studies. Or provide travel for students, faculty, and staff to present our work, and collaborate in powerful venues. Your gift pays for learn-by-doing activities—like managing area forests, tending local trails, tapping into the maple-syrup trade—that create remarkable (and marketable) students. Thank you!
Programs
Put simply, it's one of the things Michigan Tech is most known for, generating just as many headlines as winter carnival snow statues or Husky Hockey. The Isle Royale wolf-moose study, the longest-running predator-prey study in the world, garners international prestige and ongoing national publicity for the University—and engages the public and the scientific community in passionate discussion and relevant research. Our goal: an endowed faculty position in predator-prey relationships to oversee continuation of these vital studies.
Biomaterials are the future. The state of Michigan, perfectly positioned to answer the need, is developing under-used forest products markets for more jobs, economic impact, and quality of life for Michigan residents, through the Michigan Forest Biomaterials Initiative. Michigan Tech's leadership in this endeavor—including biomaterials technology innovation—is one of four major University-wide initiatives. Your contributions will fund faculty, staff, and student travel to key gatherings around the state and beyond.
Applied ecology and forestry come to life through FERM, a program that puts students in the field and conservation into action as they work in teams to manage land for our working forests, and for other landowners, from improving recreation trails to selective timber harvesting. You can help fund a professor of practice and cover associated costs to oversee and help to grow one of the School's most distinctive and effective education enhancements. Learn how you can contribute to the activities that put our School on the map in the Copper Country and the world.
Our Sugarbush Maple Syrup project at the Ford Center in Alberta has been going on in different permutations for several years: as a forestry club fund-raiser, workshops and demonstrations for schoolchildren, youth camps, and private landowners, and most recently as a non-traditional SFRES Maple Syrup Management & Culture course. The blended-learning opportunity includes a field day for collecting, processing, and boiling in Alberta, and a business-operations overview. We are ready to develop the program into something Michigan Tech is known for—after all, we're in prime maple country. Outreach may include tapping some trees on main campus and offering a small boil. Your help also allows us to deepen emphasis on cultural and historical importance, including partnering with Keweenaw Bay Indian Community foresters to educate students about First Nation maple culture, and to encourage Native American student recruitment.
Awards
Help cover expenses for student travel to annual conferences and club-related activities including Society of American Foresters conclaves and quiz bowls, wildlife society, and environmental science events that increase career skills, industry connections, and professional development.
This annual award goes to an outstanding faculty member to fund short-course training, special classroom equipment, or visits from outside speakers to augment specific topics within a course, and enhance the School's educational mission.