Wood Engineering Education: Balancing the Needs

While there would be little argument that wood plays a significant role in construction today and should be part of the standard offering within most civil engineering programs (as well as other programs), few engineers actually receive formal instruction in wood engineering and design during their undergraduate or graduate study. The reasons for this apparent disconnect between need and availability could certainly be argued. Is it that faculty are not appropriately trained to and therefore comfortable to teach wood design? Is a lack of research funding to blame, and without research funding is it that faculty trained in wood simply do not have the interest or time to teach wood? Is it, perhaps, that engineering students are not interested in taking a wood design course? Or, are employers not interested in hiring or giving any preference to new graduates with wood design on their transcripts? The speculation could go on. The issues facing wood education in engineering is presented from the academic administrative perspective.