In 1881, as part of a movement recognizing the environmental damage wrought by demands of the lumber industry, the University of Michigan became the first university in the U.S. to offer courses in forestry. The first faculty member to teach the courses was accomplished botanist and U-M alum Volney Morgan Spalding, 1873.
Spalding helped recruit one of the next leading figures of the future School for Environment and Sustainability’s (SEAS) early history: Filibert Roth, 1890. The German-born frontiersman brought his experience as a student from U-M along with his work at Cornell University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead the newly formed Department of Forestry in 1903. Affectionally nicknamed “Daddy” by both his peers and pupils, Roth’s forthright, personable, and righteous character combined with his hands-on and in-field teaching philosophy to make him a beloved campus figure.
Camp Filibert Roth, U-M’s first forestry summer field camp, was opened and named in his honor in June 1929. Initially located in Alger County of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, students learned timber management, firefighting skills, and harvesting techniques. Camp Roth moved to a new site in Iron County in 1935 and operated into the late 1980s; the University sold the property in 1994.
Preceding the opening of Camp Roth was the planned conversion of the Department of Forestry into a full school in 1927. The Board of Regents approved the change with the caveat that “conservation” be added to the title. The first dean of the school, Samuel T. Dana, HLLD’53, wholeheartedly agreed with the idea and the School of Forestry and Conservation became reality.
Dana, a deeply learned and respected forester, researcher, and policy advocate, expanded the academic scope of the school to more fields, including wood technology, wildlife management, and fisheries management.
In 1950, reflecting this ever-further evolution, the school was renamed to the School of Natural Resources (SNR). Across the 1960-80s, more courses and programs were added to prepare students to meet emerging environmental challenges, such as concentrations in resource ecology and management, resource policy and behavior, and landscape architecture.
Bunyan Bryant, MSW’65, PhD’70, joined the school in 1972 as the first African American professor on the faculty. Bryant and professor emeritus and dean emeritus James Crowfoot, MA’71, PhD’72, were recruited to begin the school’s Environmental Advocacy Program, a student-driven initiative that blended environmental courses with social justice activism. The program grew to national prominence under Bryant’s leadership and in partnership with Paul Mohai, another environmental justice scholar with expertise in quantitative research skills. Mohai joined the faculty in 1987.
Reflecting the modern scope of its mission, SNR became the School of Natural Resources and Environment in 1992, then the School for Environment and Sustainability in 2017. Its home base is the Samuel T. Dana Building in Ann Arbor. Originally opened in 1903 as the West Medical Building, it was remodeled, renamed the Natural Resources Building, and occupied by the school in 1961. It was named to honor Dana in 1973.
For more on Bryant’s life, check out the inclusion of his memoir in our 2025 Summer Reading List.
Gregory Lucas-Myers, ’10, is the senior associate editor of Michigan Alum.
Biographical information sourced and/or adapted from “The woods were his classroom” by James Tobin, ’78, MA’79, PhD’86; “U-M’s Sustainable Gold” by Navya Shankar; “A forest of knowledge” by Katie Kelton; “A Salute to Samuel T. Dana at 90” by Henry Clepper; and “In memoriam: Bunyan Bryant (1935–2024)” by Lori Atherton.
