Unit to integrate cross-college biology

Offering 38 different life sciences majors, undergraduate biology education on campus is an enormous enterprise, especially considering that between 20 and 25 percent of students graduate as majors in one of these areas each year.

Some programs that serve these students are cross-college, meaning that they rely on faculty and staff from many schools and colleges to serve as teachers and advisers. To enhance the learning experience, UW–Madison will soon launch an institute that will integrate and coordinate cross-college undergraduate biology education.

Called the Institute for Cross-College Biology Education (ICBE), the organization will serve as an umbrella for undergraduate biology programs and majors that span more than one school or college. These include the four-semester honors biology sequence, called the Biology Core Curriculum, or Biocore; the Zoology/Botany 151 and 152 introductory courses; the majors of biology, molecular biology and biological aspects of conservation; and the current Center for Biology Education.

The ICBE director will report to Provost Peter Spear. The institute’s budget, created through reallocation, will be used to enhance cross-college biology teaching.

“Unlike other fields on this campus, biology is fairly evenly spread across multiple schools and colleges,” says Spear. Every corner of campus — including the School of Education, the School of Human Ecology and the College of Engineering — houses faculty, staff and students whose teaching and research are based in biology.

“At UW–Madison, biology does not have a clear center of gravity in a single school or college,” Spear adds.

Because biology spans so many departments, some cross-college programs have no clear home, says Millard Susman, an emeritus professor of genetics who will serve as ICBE’s interim director.

The program directors, for instance, must solicit resources from multiple departments and deans, who understandably must consider their own programs, explains Spear. As a result, cross-college programs, which serve many undergraduates who major in the biological sciences, often struggle for faculty, resources and general support.

“We’ve been talking about doing something like this since I became a member of the faculty,” says Susman, who joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1962 and taught Biocore courses for more than 30 years.

After Spear became provost in 2001, he pulled together two task forces. The first evaluated undergraduate biology education and proposed an administrative unit to integrate the efforts of related cross-college programs. The charge of the second group, chaired by Susman, was to recommend an optimal detailed design for an umbrella structure and then to evaluate its potential improvement over current efforts.

Even though the second task force included people initially skeptical about an integrated approach to cross-college biology education, the group reached a consensus: by having related programs under one roof, the institute and its director could facilitate communication among cross-college biology educators, department chairs and deans. The results, they concluded, could lead to more sharing of lab space, materials and guest lecturers; improvements in teaching and advising; and, overall, a more collaborative and effective community of biology educators, and improved biology education for undergraduate students.

Susman adds that the new institute could help create “an atmosphere where biology undergraduates feel like they belong to a community, where they can interact more with faculty and one another.”

ICBE will have two branches: the Team for Instruction and Student Services, which will oversee cross-college undergraduate biology education functions; and the Team for Outreach, Research and Resources, which will oversee programs indirectly connected to undergraduate biology education, such as professional development and K-12 outreach activities.

ICBE will be reviewed internally after three years and externally after five years of operation. The task force proposes that the institute, along with all cross-college introductory biology instruction and advising for most biology majors, ultimately share a unified space in the new BioStar IV building, currently in the planning phase.

Susman will work closely with the directors and chairs of cross-college biology programs and majors to discuss the evolution of the new center.

“It’s important to see this as an evolving effort,” says Spear. “By and large, the programs are working well and should not be changed, but we need someone to work with their directors and the deans to help integrate, coordinate and interface with the cross-college biology community and university administration.”

As Susman fulfills this temporary role, Spear will pull together a search-and-screen committee for internal candidates for the half-time director position.

“One strength of biology on this campus is in the huge range of fields it encompasses,” explains Spear. “By bringing many of the cross-college undergraduate biology programs together under one umbrella, we will enhance the opportunities available to faculty, staff and students.”