Intercollege undergraduate biology major debuts

For as long as anyone can remember, UW–Madison undergraduate life sciences students have been faced with the confusing and intimidating task of picking an academic home on a campus with no fewer than 37 distinct biology majors.

This diverse biological landscape remains a pillar of academic strength for the university, but tapping into it is now far easier for the undergraduate as the first broad-based, intercollege biology major in the history of the university debuts this semester.

Biology committee members Here are the members of the executive committee for the biology major, along with information for contacting them: Robert Goodman, plant pathology, co-chair, 262-9162; rgoodman@facstaff.wisc.edu Jeff Hardin, zoology, 262-9634; jdhardin@facstaff.wisc.edu Pat Henrikson, biology advisor 262-6836; phenriks@facstaff.wisc.edu Bob Jeanne, Entomology, 262-0899; jeanne@entomology.wisc.edu Tom Martin, biochemistry, 263-2427; tfmartin@facstaff.wisc.edu Erik Nordheim, forest ecology and management, 262-0326; nordheim@facstaff.wisc.edu Gary Roberts, bacteriology 262-3567; groberts@bact.wisc.edu Tom Sharkey, botany, chair, 262-6802; tsharkey@facstaff.wisc.edu Millard Susman, genetics, 263-5075; msusman@facstaff.wisc.edu Tom Yin, physiology, 262-0368; yin@neurophys.wisc.edu

“It makes the institution much less confusing, much less complicated for students,” said Robert Goodman, a professor of plant pathology and a co-leader, with botany Professor Tom Sharkey, of the new biology major. The new major, he said, is designed to provide a unified academic gateway to the life sciences on the UW–Madison campus.

The motivation for the new intercollege major offered by the Colleges of Letters and Science and Agricultural and Life Sciences, Sharkey said, was to provide a broad gateway to biology, to give undergraduates a unified, big-picture look at biology before they settle on a life-sciences niche to call home.

“It is designed so that if you start in this major you can move into a specialty major with no loss” of credits, Sharkey said. “The second thing it achieves is an emphasis on breadth in biology. It includes the range of topics from ecology to cellular and biochemical classes.”

Alternatively, students can remain in the major throughout their undergraduate years, according to Sharkey, and be well-served by it.

That there is a demand for such a broad gateway to the biological sciences is reflected by the fact that more than 130 students declared the program as their major before a single class was held this semester.

One of those students, Jennifer Jirka, a sophomore transfer from DePaul University, was swayed in her decision to declare the major by the program’s big-picture approach to biology and its built-in flexibility: “In college, I knew I wanted to study the natural sciences, but I didn’t know what. This major makes it much easier to explore my options. I’m very excited about this year.”

Tom Sharkey Robert Goodman

An important goal of the program is to get students to declare biology as a major and to get those students connected with a faculty advisor who can help guide them to their desired academic destination. And faculty support, Goodman said, has been terrific with more than 50 faculty members from both colleges as well as the Medical School volunteering to serve as advisors in the new program.

While the new biology major is broad-based and likely to serve an increasing number of students each year, it was created to capitalize on existing strengths in the biological sciences with a minimum of bureaucracy. There are, for instance, no new courses or large administrative structures to confuse students, although an office and student services coordinator, Tanya Hendricks, have been added to the program to help students find their way.

To allow students to meet the requirements for bachelors of science degrees in either college, CALS or L&S, the program comes in two flavors. On the CALS side, science remains as an emphasis while L&S students can build into their course of study all of the components that make up the broad program in the liberal arts. For the undecided, there are courses such as Anthropology 104 and Economics 101 that satisfy requirements in both colleges.

“This has taken a long time to build and has involved the efforts of many people,” said Sharkey.

The new biology major was conceived and forged through the efforts of two faculty committees, and an elected 10-member executive committee representing faculty from across the biological sciences now guides the program.

“The biology community here is solidly behind it,” he said. “It plays to a strength of our institution, resolves its complexity and provides an easily accessed starting point for our students.”