1968
SNR begins operation with faculty on the Columbus campus and the Wooster campus at the college’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC). The school has four divisions: Conservation and Outdoor Education, Fisheries and Wildlife Management, Forestry and Forest Industries (later Forestry), and Park Administration and Outdoor Recreation (later Parks and Recreation Administration). A fifth division, Resource Development and Conservation (later, Natural Resources Development), will be added in 1971.
Charles Dambach serves as SNR’s first director. Five acting and interim and 10 permanent directors will follow him, including the school’s current director, Jeff Sharp.
1969
O.L. Barnebey of Columbus donates the former Camp Indianola, 980 acres of land and buildings in Fairfield and Hocking counties, to SNR to create a field lab, the Barnebey Center for Environmental Studies.
The Master of Science in Natural Resources program is initiated.
Director Dambach forms the Honorary 100 group (go.osu.edu/honorary100) to garner support for and ensure community input into SNR.
1970
Robert W. Teater serves as acting director (1970) and director (1971–74).
1971
Forestry Extension functions are moved from the college’s Department of Horticulture to SNR.
The Forestry Division in Wooster assumes responsibility for Secrest Arboretum, which also is part of the Wooster campus.
1973
Director Robert W. Teater forms the School of Natural Resources Alumni Society.
1981
SNR’s Columbus units move into the new Agronomy, Natural Resources, and Plant Pathology (ANRPP) Building.
1982
The ANRPP Building is renamed R.M. Kottman Hall. The name honors Roy M. Kottman, who retired that year as Ohio State’s vice president for agricultural administration and dean of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics (formerly the College of Agriculture, now CFAES), director of OARDC, and director of the Ohio Cooperative Extension Service (now Ohio State University Extension).
1983
The Gwynne Conservation Area is established at the college’s Molly Caren Agricultural Center in London, Ohio. Bill Cowen begins planting pine trees there in 1984. A pond is built later that year. The center, including the Gwynne Conservation Area, now hosts the annual Farm Science Review.
1991
The Environmental Sciences Graduate Program is established. It draws on multiple Ohio State colleges, including CFAES. Its first director is Terry Logan from SNR. Its current director is Nick Basta, who’s also from the school.
1992
A groundbreaking is held for the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park (ORWRP) near the Columbus campus. Two experimental wetlands are completed in 1993. Water starts flowing in from the adjacent Olentangy River in spring 1994.
1994
The college’s Soil Science functions, programs, and faculty are merged with SNR.
Administrative responsibility for The Ohio State University Stone Laboratory, Ohio State’s island campus on Lake Erie, is moved from Ohio State’s Office of Academic Affairs to SNR.
2000
Doctoral programs in natural resources are initiated.
The new Natural Resources Interpretive Center opens in the Gwynne Conservation Area.
2001
The Ohio Woodland Stewards Program is launched, offering public workshops throughout Ohio on forestry and wildlife management. It expands on landowner workshops taught in the 1980s and on the Master Tree Farmer Program.
2003
The Heffner Wetland Research and Education Building is built at the ORWRP.
The Terrestrial Wildlife Ecology Laboratory is established in SNR in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife.
2004
The renovation of Hayden Hall on the Wooster campus is completed, providing space for SNR’s Soil Microbial Ecology Program.
2005
The University Honors and Scholars Center approves the Environment and Natural Resources Scholars Program.
By action of Ohio State’s Board of Trustees, SNR’s name is changed to School of Environment and Natural Resources.
2008
The ORWRP is designated as the United States’ 24th Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.
2009
The Professional Master’s in Environment and Natural Resources (MENR) is approved.
2010
The college’s Rural Sociology faculty are merged into SENR.
2012
The Environmental Professionals Network (EPN), a statewide professional group organized by SENR, is established. Today, it has nearly 2,000 members and hosts monthly breakfast programs and annual signature events. The signature events, featuring big-name speakers such as Jack Hanna, have drawn up to 1,400 people (go.osu.edu/top5EPN).
The Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability (EEDS) major is established in partnership with the CFAES Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics.
The first Environmental Science Student Symposium, “Investigating Earth’s Environmental Challenges,” takes place in the Ohio Union on the Columbus campus. It features projects by hundreds of Ohio State students taking SENR’s ENR 2100, an introductory environmental science course. The annual event is still going strong.
2014
The School of Natural Resources Alumni Society changes its name to the Environment and Natural Resources Alumni Society.
Kottman Hall is renovated. The $12 million investment upgrades the building’s heating, cooling, and exhaust systems; replaces its windows and roof; and upgrades its elevators (go.osu.edu/ kottmanrenovation).
2018
The ORWRP celebrates 25 years of integrating teaching, research, and outreach on aquatic ecosystems and water quality.
SENR is home to 40 tenured or tenure-track faculty; two professional practice faculty; 750 undergraduates; 110 graduate students; and nearly 100 academic, research, Extension, and business operations staff. Together, they provide leadership for engaging and impactful research, teaching, and Extension and outreach programs in environment and natural resource areas of critical importance. Those areas are water, fisheries and aquatics, soils, forestry, wildlife, and human dimensions.