“Harvard Forest was a good academic awakening, and after that I was a super-charged battery, ready to go,” Ribbons says. “Before I would just wander outside. After the REU program, I knew I was going to grad school.”

Alumni say the REU program was one of their best college experiences. Many students have returned to the Forest, while others have let the experience propel them into graduate school or careers in ecology.

Alumni also say that they have continued to benefit from the connections they made during the program.

“It’s not that often coming into your profession that you have a lot of connections,” Diaz says. “It’s very nice to have a network.”

LOOKING AHEAD

In order to be funded by NSF, the program must be continuously reinvented.

Administrators at the REU are hoping to encourage students to do more work in teams and engage in an interdisciplinary approach.

“We’re working on making the projects reach across even more programs at Harvard from history, biology, and computer science,” Foster says.

The Forest is hoping to foster this collaboration through a January term experience. Students will spend a week at Harvard Forest to learn about conservation in New England.

Compared to the REU program, students will focus on conservation from an interdisciplinary perspective and will be required to interpret the issues through a final presentation, which could take the form of artwork or historical analysis.

Furthermore, program alumni agree that the Harvard Forest is an underutilized resource at Harvard. Administrators hope that programs like the J-Term initiative will encourage more students to become involved.

“Most people don’t even know Harvard has a forest,” Levye says. “It’s a great resource. Whether or not you are doing research or science at all, it’s great to just go there.” “Most people don’t even know Harvard has a forest,” Levye says. “It’s a great resource. Whether or not you are doing research or science at all, it’s great to just go there.”

­—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu