Awards

Carl Alwin Schenck Award

This award recognizes outstanding performance in the field of forestry education. The award is presented at the SAF national convention and includes a honorarium of $500, complimentary convention registration, and up to $500 to cover travel expenses.

Eligibility

Nominees must be an active faculty member at the time of the nomination in any SAF-accredited degree program and have a minimum of ten years of professional experience. Nominees must be members of SAF at the time of the close of the nomination period and cannot be current members of the National Committee on Professional Recognition.

Criteria

Nominees  must demonstrate their abilities as an outstanding forestry educator, including attributes in the following areas:
     • Devotion to the instruction of forestry.
     •  Demonstration of an active career that sets high professional and educational standards for students and demonstration of outstanding service to professional education.
     •  Development of personal teaching methods that are characterized by imparting competent knowledge through dynamic communication skills and by imaginative techniques, or by development of educational programs that utilize novel concepts in search of imparting sound forestry education to students.

Nominations

Your nomination packet must be submitted through the online submission portal site and include:
     •  Nominator and Nominee information will be completed online.
     •  A letter from the nominator demonstrating that the nominee meets the award criteria, with each criterion addressed separately in a brief paragraph.
     •  Up to four letters of endorsement addressing the award criteria, in addition to the nomination letter. One letter must be from a peer or associate and, one letter must be from a dean or department head. 
     •  A biographical summary not to exceed three pages.
     •  Recent, digital headshot photograph of a minimum 300 dpi.

About Carl Alwin Schenck

The German-born and educated Carl Alwin Schenck was invited to the United States by George W. Vanderbilt to manage the Vanderbilt Forest Estate in North Carolina. Together with Bernhard E. Fernow and Gifford Pinchot, Schenck was one of the few academically trained foresters in the United States in the 1880's and was among the original fifteen active members of SAF. Schenck founded the first forestry education program in the United States at the Biltmore Forestry School in 1898. A confirmed generalist, Schenck taught all of the forestry subjects offered at Biltmore. Dean Emeritus Joseph S. Illick of the College of Forestry, State University of New York, and one of Schenck's forestry students, said of him: "Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck possessed that rare quality which characterizes the superior teacher who can make education remain after all that was learned has been forgotten."