The Good, the Bad and One Possible Ugly
Outside Review of the Resource Management Program
Central Washington University
By
Richard Hansis
Department of Environmental Science and Management
Humboldt State University

In this review I will be examining both the adequacy of the goals of the REM program and how well the goals of the program are being achieved. Any enterprise needs to reflect on how well it is accomplishing its mission and associated goals in order to determine whether it needs to adjust its practices. In natural/cultural resource management this process is called adaptive management, of which the monitoring and evaluation phase corresponds to program review. This process can serve both to help the program learn and improve and to model for students what they should be doing when employed in resource management. Because it is the interactions among faculty, students and curriculum that determine outcomes, I will discuss these in light of the self study and my interviews.
Because program assessment is a method for helping enterprises/programs improve, more time will be spent on discussing challenges and their possible resolution.
Strengths
Goals
The eight goals of the program are ambitious and necessary for the REM program. Bringing to the fore the understanding other cultural perspectives, especially Native American ones, is a commendable and important function for an institution located close to the Yakama Reservation. The eighth goal of developing critical thinking and other skills is especially important for students to be able to grasp emerging issues in a time when the shift from the age of cheap resources in the last half of the twentieth century to increasingly expensive and conflict causing resources puts a premium on this goal.
Curriculum
Having a common core curriculum provides students with a common understanding of the basic cultural and natural resource issues. It broadly prepares students for a complex, changing world. The faculty should be explicit about why this type of preparation is necessary. Especially notable are REM
505, which gives students an early start on how to go about developing a thesis, and REM 562, which furnishes students with understanding and skills in resolving resource conflicts. REM 522 should give students required skills of data collection and analysis
Faculty
A good mix of experienced and younger faculty in both of the departments that direct the program helps to provide direction and enthusiasm in the program. For having relatively heavy teaching, advising and other duties, most of the faculty are involved in research that can engage students in the production of knowledge relevant to resource management. Facilities, in comparison with those that I am familiar with at my University, a similar institution, seem up to date and provide faculty with the tools that they need for their research and for students to learn by doing. Morale among faculty, again in comparison with my University, seems better due in part to the less drastic budget cuts of the past several years and in part to the support received from administrators one step up in the hierarchy.

Students
Much learning in graduate school comes from fellow students. Gender diversity, age differences, and differences in professional experiences widen perspectives and enhance mutual learning. Students having offices near each other and near the faculty are a strong plus for the program because this arrangement facilitates informal exchanges among students and between students and faculty. As well as serving as a means of financial support, graduate assistantships also provide some of these outside the regular curriculum opportunities for learning
Meeting with students at the end of their first year to assess where they stand is a part of the program that also stands out.
Other
Interaction with resource management agencies is a strength. These relationships are important for providing students with internships, research and employment opportunities
Weaknesses
Goals
Evaluating student outcomes for the eighth goal that I single out in the Strengths section is problematic.
It is not a simple task and does not lend itself to the “90% of students earn 80% …” used in the Criterion of Achievement for the other goals. As an aside, I am not a fan of this type of outcomes assessment for education: it does little to improve upon the issuing of grades for courses and just adds to an already heavy workload.
Curriculum
The REM master’s degree has a large number of credits required for graduation. Many other masters’ programs consist of 45 quarter (30 semester) credits. For many students it is nearly impossible to graduate in the nominal two years unless supported by funding that does not require work either as a teaching or research assistant or other forms of employment or unless the student can tailor every course toward a thesis which has been defined very early on in the program. This difficulty creates stress, whether it be from a perceived inadequacy or, more likely, from financial pressures.
As researchers, faculty are expert at analysis and understanding of resource issues. In a professional program that wishes to prepare students to be resource managers, this understanding is a necessary but not sufficient basis for good resource management. Going from understanding complex resources to the understanding of how to manage complex resources in an even more complex world requires management courses as well as resource analysis. Some course work does the former, but more may be necessary and will be addressed in the Recommendations section. Of course I realize that I may be partially contradicting my first paragraph in this section.

Students feel that there is overlap in the REM 501 and 505 courses. In addition, different expectations between REM 505 course instructors and the student’s advisor of what a thesis consists of and the form it should take sometimes tug the student in two directions and lead to perceived extra work.
The program seems to provide good analytical skills. It is not clear that students are required to develop skills of synthesis and holistic thinking. Perhaps an interdisciplinary program such as REM would expect this form of thinking to develop from exposure to different cultural and natural resource issues which in and of themselves are connected.
Fire management is listed as one of the desirable outcomes. Although strong in fire history and ecology, I see little in the curriculum that provides students with tools used in, for example, controlled burning, nor in dealing with a public trained by Smokey the Bear to see all fires as dangerous and bad.
Faculty
The one possible ugly mentioned in the title of this report is a perception by students that some faculty are undercutting others for professional or personal reasons. I can think of reasonable explanations for a faculty member saying of another, “I will not serve on a thesis committee if that other faculty member is the chair of the committee.” For example, through experience the first faculty member has found that the other is not as diligent as would be expected in directing the thesis and thus leaving more of the burden on the other committee members. The first faculty should explain his reasoning to the student rather than leaving the student with the impression that the first finds the second faculty member incompetent or worse. The divisions may be one source of the undermining of morale both for students and for faculty.
Team teaching seems to be both a strength and a weakness. For faculty, the interactions facilitated by this arrangement are a major benefit. Students do not always feel the same: they sometimes see different expectations from the two faculty members. I believe that the REM faculty needs to discuss this issue.
Numbers of graduate students per faculty member did not seem to be a major issue, but I do notice a few faculty who have loads beyond those counted in workloads. Having many graduate students is a sign of a good reputation among students, but it also may detract from an advisor being able to spend the necessary time with all advisees and still do all of the other work required of a faculty member.
Students
Students complained about outdated computers in their offices: they could not run some of the software used in their coursework. If labs where the necessary software is readily available, I do not believe that this perceived lack is a major problem.
While diversity in student backgrounds may help the process of education, diversity in writing skills presents a challenge for a program and, later, a profession that requires clear, grammatical prose. I have little idea how to address this issue. The thesis advisor should not be teaching writing.

Recommendations
Being transparent with students would serve to alleviate some of the stresses and uncertainties that they face while going through the program. The end of the first year assessment partially serves this function. Students, however, may have unformed or unrealistic views about what a graduate program entails and what it can do for them. Most seem to be looking for employment, but some do not feel that they are getting the practical skills that would give them a leg up in the job seeking process. I believe that an in depth interview process at the beginning of the program or at the application and selection stage could alleviate, though not eliminate, this problem. This interview should help faculty understand individual student’s expectations and for students to become clearer about their goals.
One weakness identified earlier is the difference between understanding a resource and managing it.
Some of the students do not feel that the program prepares them well for the latter. They may be correct. Conflict resolution is certainly a management skill needed, but avoiding some conflicts through competent public participation processes and genuine collaboration that go beyond the formal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act in its Environmental Assessment/Environmental
Impact Statement provisions is also important. Helping students learn to develop processes that enable the public to feel that their (the public’s) voices are being heard as well as feeling that they are being involved in a fair procedure should be part of the students’ education. In a similar vein, students need to be aware of the cultural basis of cognition, both of their own and of the people with whom they work and interact in their professional lives. Especially important is for students to understand that the more challenged one’s ideas are, the more entrenched that they become. Learning that bombarding people with facts is not likely to move them in the direction desired will make their management of resources a little easier. Along the same line, some introduction to the concepts of social marketing for encouraging behavioral change could be considered. I suspect that some of this awareness would come from their conflict resolution course as well as from some of the research methods that come from cultural anthropology. I am not sure how much of this material actually sinks in.
Another set of management skills needed involve personnel management, budgeting and grant writing.
Establishing a set of clear expectations for what a thesis should be would help students and faculty feel more sure about what has to be done. I would argue for a broad understanding of what a thesis is in order to be consistent with the applied nature of the program and to accommodate students doing internships with agencies. However, the culminating experience should not be just a report that the student is preparing for the agency; rather, it should contextualize the issue with at least a thorough literature review and, if appropriate, further steps/research that needs to occur.
From the level of detail in the self study and from conversations, I was not able to discern if students are well versed in the principles of adaptive management. I know that they have some exposure, but I

would like to emphasize here the important role that monitoring and evaluation play in the process of ongoing learning that a resource manager must engage in.
For all students in the program, an understanding of ecological principles should be required. For students in the natural resource management track, these principles are the basis for achieving ecological health, one of the main aims of natural resource management. Including readings, such as C.
S. Holling’s “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems”, would be a way to achieve this goal.
Alumni from the program are a valuable resource. In addition to written questions asked of them about the program, some could be interviewed in depth for feedback about the program. If brought to campus, they could also be a resource for the current students. However, obtaining their “heart of hearts” view of the program may require a third party.
With the “adaptive management” that the program has been going through over the years that it has existed and with continued and continual feedback, I believe that the program will keep on improving.
As both main sponsoring departments review their programs, they need to keep in mind that they have dual responsibilities: to the department and to the REM program.