Get reliable rangeland science

In recent years numerous changes have occurred affecting hiring prospects for public land management agencies. During a period of time when agency budgets were reduced and vacancy positions were scarce, universities providing rangeland management degrees experienced lower enrollment in rangeland ecology programs. Over the course of two decades, university department names and course descriptions were changed to attract a broader number of prospective students. At the same time fewer natural resource hiring officials with experience evaluating rangeland ecology and management university curriculums remained in the Forest Service. Fewer people were asked to do more with reduced financial resources. As a result some applicants for public land management vacancies were deemed unqualified, in part, due to a lack of knowledge about natural resource vocabulary, terminology in course descriptions of university catalogs and interpretation of course titles. In the meantime, new perspectives on agency skill needs, educational needs, technnological advances and agency hiring expereince have not kept pace with each other. We now have a need to reconciling agency needs, interpretations of hiring standards with hiring practices to construct an updated and clear description of requirements for the rangeland management GS 0454 entry level standard.