General Goals

It is the goal of the Department of Biological Sciences at Arkansas State University to become a comprehensive biology department that is internationally recognized for academic and research excellence that is distinguished by an emphasis on interdisciplinary instruction, the interfacing of teaching and research, and research programs integrating molecular, cellular, organismal, and conservation biology.

1. Emphasis on interdisciplinary instruction

The department will work to develop a focus on interdisciplinary courses.  The overall goal of these courses will be to enhance student learning by providing better integration of information across discipline and subdiscipline lines.  We expect that within 5-7 years at least 50% of the courses offered by the department will be distinctly interdisciplinary in nature.  To this end courses will be developed under both The Course Coordinator Model and The Team Teaching Model.

This new approach faces a number of administrative challenges.  They are:

1. Development of administrative structures that will allow faculty and departments to be appropriately credited for delivery of interdisciplinary instruction.
2. Develop laboratory experiences that fully support interdisciplinary instruction.
3. Develop techniques and tools that allow student learning in an interdisciplinary environment to be accurately assessed.
4. Experience suggests that our students, especially first-year undergraduates, often have difficulty adapting to multiple instructor courses.

Interdepartmental Efforts:  We will develop courses (and programs) that cross traditional department and college boundaries.  We will begin by identifying one or two potentially fruitful areas for inter-department or college collaboration that can be actively pursued.  We expect that to occur primarily between the departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry and Physics and well as with the Psychology Department and the College of Agriculture.

Intradepartmental Efforts:  We will focus our initial efforts in developing both laboratory and upper level and graduate courses that are interdisciplinary in nature.  They are: (1) a first-year level laboratory course that integrates existing Biology of the Cell, Animals and Plants labs; (2) Evolution; (3) Principles of Ecology; (4) Human Structure and Function I & II; (5) Conservation Biology; (6) History of Biological Ideas; and, (7) Natural History of Vertebrates. We will also streamline the current prefix system for naming courses, so it becomes easier to understand, while eliminating the conceptual barriers among subdisciplines.

A Departmental Assessment Committee was created in order to appraise the current status of the above-mentioned and to recommend how best to design those courses with the purpose of making them more interdisciplinary.

2. Interfacing of Teaching and Research 

We intend to increase our research productivity and integrate it more closely to our teaching activities, particularly with undergraduates.  To that end we will (1) place more emphasis on the use of original sources in courses; (2) emphasize integrating research projects into graduate courses through data collecting, analysis, interpreting data and submission of results by students in a scientific format; (3) increase problem-based learning experiences in the labs; (4) expand the opportunities for public presentations of research projects by undergraduate students; (5) expose students to research seminars and learning experiences through the Access Grid Classroom; (6) develop a web-based journal where undergraduate students can publish the results of their research; and, (7) establish awards for undergraduate students that will support travel to state or regional meetings where they would present their research.  Because of the expenses related to these activities and the need to attract more students into research, undergraduate research programs will require healthy funding.  The Department will also look into ways to allow at least some portion of undergraduate research hours to count as part of the official teaching load.  In order to increase faculty’s research output, we need to: (1) develop procedures for enhanced accountability for reassignment time and (2) develop policies that will support specialization by tenured faculty through appropriate financial and time reassignments in the form of a multi-track system regarding time spent for teaching/research/service.

3. Integrated Research

In order to foster integrated research, the Department will: (1) place a high priority on recruiting people who have training and experience in integrative research; (2) encourage and support groups of faculty from different disciplines (within and without the department) to work together to submit grants proposals; (3) establish more formal opportunities for the exchange of ideas and problems; (4) strengthen and further develop relationships with the Environmental Sciences Program and develop similar relationships with Arkansas Biosciences Institute; (5) host scientists from other institutions, industry, and/or governmental agencies to facilitate grant writing sessions, (6) acquisition of research funds that will foster collaborative integrative research programs; (7) work with the administration in order to establish a “reassignment time from teaching” policy that favors participation in collaborative integrative and interdisciplinary research projects; (8) provide significant release time in the second or third year for pre-tenure faculty so as to enhance their research productivity mid way through their pre-tenure appointment; (9) link available research space to research productivity taking into consideration the actual need to house actual research activities to the space to be used for those purposes; and, (10) to aggressively seek funds in order to maintain our facilities in optimum conditions for both research and teaching.

4. Other Specific Actions

In parallel to the above-mentioned goals, the Department will work on the following actions:

1. Invite an external committee of peers to review the current status of the Department and, particularly, our plans for the future.
2. To explore fundraising opportunities to create an endowed professorship/chair for the Department
3. To explore changing the name of the Department into one that better reflects the new directions we are embarking in as well as making of that name a marketing tool to attract more and better graduate students.
4. To continue working on the Biodiversity Center, an initiative that has been approved by the ASU president.
5. To develop a project for the implementation of a field station.
6. To continue working on the development of a peer-reviewed electronic journal to be hosted by the Department.

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