[FUN_Mail] advice needed
Margaret B. Upchurch
mupchurch at transy.edu
Wed Mar 27 14:19:45 EDT 2013
I am at a liberal arts college that just added a neuroscience major, in part because our studies of benchmarks indicated that we were lagging in this area. The interdisciplinary approach seemed the right way to go in order to have a strong major with a minimal need for new faculty. We made the argument that at this point neuroscience is an emergent discipline that can't be contained within psychology, biology, computer science, and philosophy (our four contributing disciplines). Eliminating the major definitely seems to run counter a current trend, as Bob indicates.
Meg Upchurch
Transylvania University
Lexington, KY
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Jacobs" <BJacobs at ColoradoCollege.edu>
To: "Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Mailing List" <fun_mail at lists.funfaculty.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 2:12:51 PM
Subject: Re: [FUN_Mail] advice needed
I would start with the observation that sfn is one of the largest
biomedical fields out there with around 30,000 participants each year to
the conference. It would be odd to eliminate a program at a time when, in
fact, many colleges are starting such programs (some numbers on the growth
of undergraduate neuroscience majors would be helpful).
I believe the interdisciplinary option is a good one, and is what we have
here at Colorado College. It requires minimal resources if it can work
within the current offerings of courses. Bob
------------------------------------------
Bob Jacobs, Ph.D.
Laboratory of Quantitative Neuromorphology
Department of Psychology
Colorado College
14 E. Cache La Poudre
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
Phone:(719) 389-6594
FAX: (719) 389-6284
EMAIL: BJACOBS at ColoradoCollege.edu
<applewebdata://64BF5C86-B98B-4DE6-A45C-797ABE3ED79F/UrlBlockedError.aspx>
Web page: http://www.coloradocollege.edu/academics/dept/neuroscience/
<http://www.ColoradoCollege.edu/IDProg/Neuroscience/>
------------------------------------
On 3/27/13 12:07 PM, "Carol DeVolder" <devoldercaroll at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>This listserv comes at a wonderful time. I am currently the primary
>faculty
>member for a small Behavioral Neuroscience program. My dean would like to
>eliminate the program due to low enrollment. It is currently a subset of
>psychology, but I hope to make it interdisciplinary. I've considered
>sources such as the Macalister Report, other schools' curricula, and
>trends. What I'd like now is some logical arguments as to why we should
>NOT
>eliminate this program and instead work to strengthen it. I hope I'm not
>being too vague, I feel like I'm just shouting into the wind and would
>appreciate the advice.
>Thanks,
>Carol
>
>
>--
>Carol DeVolder, Ph.D.
>Professor of Psychology
>St. Ambrose University
>518 West Locust Street
>Davenport, Iowa 52803
>563-333-6482
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