The trends of education in the United States of America suggest that the Wood Engineering has been taught under the category of Agricultural Engineering, Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Wood Science (or Forest Products). Only at few campuses have been recognizing the subject as different entity and this is one of the major reasons for the recent decline of the enrollment in the Wood Engineering education.

The number of students getting exposed to wood design in their curriculum is very low. The trend seems to be alarming and demands a quick action A recent survey of basic education for structural engineers in colleges and universities demonstrated that about half of the respondents do not even offer a course in wood design. If at all the other faculties teach a wood design course, then it comprises of a description and design of wood as a building material The decline in the Wood Science programs over the last two decades hasn’t helped foster wood engineering education Given the decline in the opportunity to gain exposure to wood design, it is not surprising that most design professionals are more at ease with design of steel and concrete structures and tend to shy away from considering timber structures as an alternate system even when it is viable and economical.

There are a number of other factors contributing to the current declining situation in the wood engineering education. They are in order of importance:

• There is a decline in the number of credit hours required for graduation – and program specific criteria mandated by ABET for accreditation of an engineering undergraduate curricula.
• The second issue is the decline in research funding in the wood engineering area. It is really important for training and producing doctoral students who in turn will become the wood engineering educators in future.
•There is a lack of coordination in the industry support for training of wood engineering educators and to keep them updated with new developments, technologies and teaching tools.
• There is a shortage of supporting faculty members required in the research areas
Each of these factors is discussed in this paper and recommendations are made on how to deal with these factors to promote wood engineering education.

Credit Hour Requirement and Program Specific Criteria
The steady decline in the number of credit hours required for graduation from an ABET accredited engineering program has forced departments to add a number of different courses in order to meet the credit hour cap. There is a conflict in the departments on the issue of out of line courses. The reduction in the credit hour requirement has led several analysis and design courses like indeterminate structures, steel, concrete, and timber design to be offered as technical electives rather than as required courses. Since most students feel that steel and concrete design should take precedence over timber design, they find limited opportunity to include timber design in their selected list of technical electives.

The students are asked to take at least two courses in each of the broad areas. This has left very few hours for technical elective in the program. The low credit hour requirement to have a bachelor’s degree makes it a compulsion for students to pursue a master’s degree upon graduation in order to receive the necessary level of training to be successful in their professional career.

Decline in research funding
The funding in the research category of the wood engineering area is declining at a faster pace for last twenty years. At this moment only few departments in the country have a really an active and vibrant research program in the wood engineering area. The industry needs to view this situation as a signal to increase the efforts in research of the wood engineering for the future generation of teachers and students.

This teaching tools package has really affected the wood design courses taught at U.S. universities in a very positive manner. The process of support and updating the teaching tools package to universities engaged in wood engineering instruction will go a long way to ensure the survival of wood engineering education.

Adjunct Faculty
The proper hiring of the faculty and a number of civil engineering and other departments are relying on the use of adjunct faculty members who are generally highly qualified practitioners in the area. Some critics view it as an outsourcing of instructional duties

It is very necessary to use wood intelligently and we need a coordinated effort by the industry and the educational institutions to educate and train the next generation of wood engineering researchers and educators.