Forestry, Doctorate Major

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The PhD in forestry symbolizes the mastery of a special field of learning and indicates the ability of the recipient to independently complete original research and the highest levels of scholarly work. The recipient must demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the specialized field by successful completion of a prescribed course of study, planning and conducting original research, preparation and defense of a well-written dissertation, and passing qualifying and final examinations. The PhD in forestry is a research degree awarded in recognition of the student’s ability to think and work independently as a scholar and to contribute to society original research in a chosen field of natural resource management.

Program Requirements

Beyond the master’s degree, a student must complete a minimum of 42 credit hours of graduate coursework. This will consist of:

Research Tool

Complete a mimimum of six hours.

Approved research tools include:

Statistics (6-9 hours)
Computer science (6-9 hours)
Foreign language (6-9 hours or by examination, or other research tools as recommended by the committee)

Although a student’s native language is not acceptable as a foreign language, a student whose native language is not English may use English as a foreign language. In such a case, the student will demonstrate proficiency by a score of 550 or greater on the paper version of the Test of English as a Foreign Language or a score of 213 or greater on the computer-based TOEFL.

Graduate courses required for achieving proficiency in a research tool may not be counted in the total hours required for the degree and each must be completed with a grade of B or higher. Guidelines regarding acceptance of transfer courses are stated in the Research and Graduate Studies section earlier in this catalog.