Posted on September 1, 2021 by College of Sciences
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College of Sciences Consolidates Life Sciences Departments to Enhance Student Success
By Ryan Schoensee
The College of Sciences is restructuring its Department of Biology and Department of Environmental Science and Ecology into three new departments: the Department of Integrative Biology (IB), the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI), and the Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology (NDRB).
The Department of Biology previously served over 2,000 students and offered 222 course sections in addition to independent studies. The new restructure will redistribute this large student population, offer more opportunities for transdisciplinary studies within the life sciences, and provide a more specialized learning experience.
"This restructure aligns with our goals and research interests in an autonomous way that will allow us to meet the needs of students with diverse interests, backgrounds, and disciplines," said Janis Bush, chair of IB.
To address this growing diversity, the new departments are collaborating to integrate their courses as electives into each other's curriculums. The new structure will allow faculty from across the departments to work together more efficiently and create elective courses that coincide with their students' interdisciplinary interests.
"We've made changes to our course offerings to better prepare students for their post-university goals," said Astrid Cardona, chair of MMI. "In addition, offering diverse electives for our students so they can easily take courses offered by other life sciences departments, and facilitating hands-on experiences in specialized disciplines of infectious diseases and immunology, will be advantageous to many of our students."
Increasing the choice of electives isn't the only benefit life sciences students will receive from this department restructure. They'll also have access to more specialized programs and courses. For example, NDRB is proposing a new undergraduate degree and minor in neuroscience along with its current doctoral degrees in Cell and Molecular Biology and Neuroscience. Before the creation of this new department, the former Department of Biology offered only two undergraduate degrees.
"By becoming its own distinct department, NDRB will be able to create new degrees and research programs," explained Jenny Hsieh, chair of NDRB. "When we were still a part of the previous biology department, we didn't fully capture all of its multidisciplinary aspects; reorienting our department creates new opportunities to develop future programs in stem cell biology, precision medicine and regenerative sciences."
These changes extend to MMI and IB as well. MMI will house the undergraduate degree program in Microbiology and Immunology and will offer a doctoral degree in the near future. IB will now house the B.A. in Environmental Studies and B.S. in Environmental Science, which migrated from the former Environmental Science and Ecology department. In addition, IB will be the home for the general biology degree and all lower-division biology courses.
Creating this new vision for the life sciences aligns with other major research institutions. "If you look at some of the most recognized colleges, such as the University of Arizona, UC Irvine, and Harvard, they all have the biology sector split into more focused fields," said Timothy Yuen, associate dean for Undergraduate Studies.
The life sciences department restructure is a project that has been envisioned within the College of Sciences for several years now. "I joined UTSA 11 years ago, and even then there was talk of building more specialized departments," Cardona said. "This is truly amazing to see."
Additionally, the Department of Geosciences has been renamed to the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences to better reflect the range of expertise and courses offered within the department that go beyond the standard definition of geology but span a wide range of areas including earth sciences, water and climate, environmental geosciences, oceanography, geological hazards, geoinformatics, and planetary science.
— College of Sciences
