April 2001, Volume 2, Issue 1

November was a big month for students as we got away from campus for the national SAF Convention in Washington, D.C. Fourth-year student Chelsea Paile said, "The Convention was a blast. It was more a celebration of SAF and the people that make it happen than about science and research. It was an invaluable opportunity to mingle with professionals and other students from all over the nation." All 14 Cal students who attended the convention thoroughly enjoyed the experience as they made job contacts, took part in forestry discussions, and simply socialized. We are grateful to the Alums who contribute funds that enable us to participate in these conventions.

Only days after returning from Washington, another student group headed into the central Sierra Nevada for our annual Christmas Tree Cut. In between snowball fights and homemade brownies we cut and loaded a few hundred trees into a rental truck, sparking occasional discussions of silviculture and ecology. Our sale of these trees on campus was a big success, with the few remaining trees donated to a Berkeley charity. We are grateful to Sierra Pacific Industries for donating time and really great trees for this fundraiser.

One brief week after returning to Berkeley for the spring semester we were back on the road as 11 Cal Foresters went to Sacramento for the NorCal SAF Winter Meeting. "I thought that it was great that Cal could show such a good presence," said grad student Rolf Gersonde. "It is of great importance to us students to get to these meetings and talk politics."

After a lapse of several years the forest fire science course is again being offered. The William Main Distinguished Visitor Seminars are also a feature every Tuesday afternoon, and one student said, "It is the best class ever!" Finally, students searching for summer and post-graduation jobs are finding that this is a good time to be hitting the job market, especially for state and federal jobs. Luckily, a lot less of us are looking for dot-com jobs.