School of Science

Curriculum

The goal of the Biology Deparment is to develop in students an awareness of the methods, potentials and limitations of the discipline. The curriculum includes a combination of required and elective courses consistent with a liberal education, while maintaining strong support for independent study and undergraduate research.

The Department core curriculum is built around several courses whose content is central to the discipline. This core includes Genetics, Microbiology, Cellular and Systemic Physiology and Ecology.

Recognizing the various professional goals of students, the department offers groups of courses in several areas of study that contribute toward reaching a specific career objective. These areas include professional and graduate school preparation, Biotechnology, Environmental Biology and the Physiology of Exercise. Once a student reaches junior year, with close consultation with his or her advisor and the chairperson, he or she decides which electives to take to help reach a particular career goal.

Many of the critical problems which the world faces that challenge human values and beliefs are based on biology principles. Students must possess the educational background to make ethical decisions, especially with regard to scientific and technological issues. The faculty members of the Department of Biology recognize their responsibility to raise these issues and to foster the values that are important to the process of free inquiry, the foundation of our discipline.

The Curriculum supports a Bachelor of Arts Degree and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology. See the Biology Department Catalog for pertinent information.