Yale School of the Environment

Yale School of the Environment (YSE) is a professional school of Yale University. It was founded to train foresters, and now trains environmental students through four 2-year degree programs (Master of Environmental Management, Master of Environmental Science, Master of Forestry, and Master of Forest Science), two 10-month mid-career programs, and a 5-year PhD program. Still offering forestry instruction, the school has the oldest graduate forestry program in the United States. The school changed its name to the Yale School of the Environment in July 2020. It was previously the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. History The school was founded in 1900 as the Yale Forest School, to provide high-level forestry training suited to American conditions. At the urging of Yale alumnus Gifford Pinchot, his parents endowed the two-year postgraduate program. At the time Pinchot was serving as Bernhard Fernow's successor as Chief of the Division of Forestry (predecessor of the U.S. Forest Service, USFS). Pinchot released two foresters from the division to start the school: fellow Yale graduate Henry Solon Graves and James Toumey. Graves became the School's first dean and Toumey its second.