The SFRC maintains a 2,040 acre teaching and research forest northeast of Gainesville, the Austin Cary Forest. The forest is used by a wide variety of individuals and groups, both related to the SFRC and otherwise. Professional schools are required to provide practical training and experimental facilities to supplement students classroom and laboratory teaching experience. The School of Forestry (as it was named in 1938) needed a forest to put into practice the theories and principles of its academic subjects such as protection, silviculture, mensuration, management, economics and others, thus the Austin Cary Forest was created.
The Forest Campus is a collection of publicly available facilities within the Austin Cary Forest, including the new Learning Center, the Education Building, and the Teaching Pavilion. The Learning Center was completed and dedicated on April 5, 2014 and was funded almost entirely through donations from our alumni and supporters, with great support from IFAS administration and our own Development Committee.
You can read about the history of the Learning Center and previous Conference Building, and learn more about our donors, by navigating the links to the right.
