Biology Department Self-Study

Biology-1

February 6, 2009

Dear Professor Gold:

The Biology Department has completed its departmental review as part of the college wide re-accreditation process. We followed the guidelines you provided in the "Guide for the Self-Study" memo. In particular we arranged the written self-study into sections based on your guidelines.

In Section I (pp. 1 – 4) we examined the last 10 years for the Biology Department. We began by considering the challenges faced by the department and in the process of describing the challenges we also described the key markers and significant changes to the department. We end by considering the successes and reasons for success that we have enjoyed over the last 10 years.

We examined our mission in Section II (pp. 4 – 5). We listed our departmental goals. As part of our departmental review we decided we were dissatisfied with the old department mission statement, so we wrote a new one which is included.

We covered assessment in Section III (pp. 5 – 7). Although our assessment procedures have been somewhat informal in the past (rather typical for Knox), we have outlined plans for more formal assessment in the future, concentrating on assessment for courses, especially Biology 210, and assessment for our capstone independent research experience. We conducted an on-line survey of recent alums (graduates from 1998-2008) this winter and we discuss the results of that survey as well because the results helped to clarify our thinking with respect to the future.

Section IV (pp. 7 – 9) examines our future plans. We begin by briefly considering the strengths which will assist us in the future. We spend most of our time discussing the challenges which still lie ahead for the Biology Department and suggest ways to meet those challenges.

The remainder of this document consists of supporting tables and appendices.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully submitted by,

Stuart K. Allison

Department Chair

Biology-1

Biology Department Self-Study

I. The Last Ten Years

The biology department, like Knox College as a whole, has faced a number of challenges over the past 10 years, but has also experienced many successes during that same decade. We will start by considering our challenges, then examine changes in the department not related to those challenges, and finally examine our successes and the reasons for success.

In many ways traveling through the last 10 years has been a long, difficult journey for the biology department, and we are happy to be at the end of that journey. However, we take great pride in the fact that not only did we survive the journey, but we actually persevered and in many ways emerged stronger from it. Some of the challenges we faced were challenges that the entire college faced. All academic departments had their budgets cut in 2000 and those budgets have not been restored to their earlier level, let alone increased to match inflation. Other challenges have been more unique to the biology department. Our greatest challenge was the rapid and extensive changes in faculty staffing that occurred during the last 10 years. In 1998 our permanent full time faculty consisted of Billy Geer, Eugene Perry, Linda Dybas, Mark Brodl, Janet Kirkley, Anne Houtman, Alastair Inman, and Stuart Allison. Professors Houtman and Inman were in a joint appointment that accounted for 1 FTE and Professor Kirkley was in a position split with Biochemistry so she provided biology with 0.5 FTE. In 1998 departmental teaching strength was 6.5 FTE. By the fall of 2008, Billy Geer and Eugene Perry had retired, Mark Brodl, Anne Houtman, and Alastair Inman had left for positions at other institutions, and Janet Kirkley’s FTE had been moved to full time in Biochemistry. The Biology Department lost a position when Eugene Perry retired in the spring of 2002.

The college instituted a freeze on hiring permanent tenure line faculty for several years, so we relied on visiting faculty. During the past 10 years we have employed 7 visiting professors (exclusive of Professors Mountjoy and Templeton who were originally hired to a visiting position). Another major change was that Lee Farrar, the long-time biology storeroom manager, retired in 2004. She had served as the departmental memory about much of our day-to-day operations for over 30 years. Obviously it has sometimes been difficult to maintain continuity with so many new professors arriving and others departing.

In the fall of 2008 the Biology department faculty consisted of just two members from 1998, Linda Dybas and Stuart Allison, and several more recently hired professors – Judy Thorn, Jim Mountjoy, Jennifer Templeton, Esther Penick, and Matthew Jones-Rhoades. Professors Mountjoy and Templeton are in a joint appointment for 1 FTE and Professor Penick is in a position split between Biology and Neuroscience and thus provides biology with 0.5 FTE. Thus the permanent teaching strength of biology is now 5.5 FTE.

Amazingly there have been relatively few changes to the structure of the biology major during the last 10 years. The department instituted a new set of major requirements in the fall of 1998. These requirements called for all students to take two terms of chemistry (Chemistry 101 and 102), three terms of introductory biology (Biology 110 Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Biology 120 Cell Biology and Physiology, and Biology 130 Molecular Biology and Genetics), a biology methods course (Biology 210 Introduction to Research), one upper level course from the 31x series (ecology and evolutionary biology), one upper level course from the 32x series (organismal biology), one upper level course from the 33x series (molecular biology and genetics), one upper level techniques course from the 34x series, and at least one term of independent research as a capstone experience (the research can either be a Biology 38x course or honors 40x). We have made only minor changes to the major requirements since they were adopted in 1998. We have changed the names of the 110, 120, and 130 courses (we have listed them in this document with their current names) and switched some of the subject matter around among those courses. We also dropped the requirement for an advanced techniques course because we found it difficult to staff those courses with our reduction in teaching strength. We now require a fourth 300 level biology course instead of the advanced techniques.

Why have we made so few changes to the biology major in the past 10 years? There are several reasons. Probably the least important among them is simply that keeping the major in a somewhat constant form was one way of ensuring continuity despite the many changes in faculty. A much more important reason is that the biology major developed in 1998 has worked extremely well for us. The combination of emphasizing both breadth and depth in content (the introductory sequence of 110, 120 and 130, and the upper level requirements of a 31x, 32x and 33x) while also making independent research a key component of biology at Knox (210 Introduction to Research and the capstone research experience) has proven to be a winner. Our students are accepted into excellent graduate and professional schools and also get jobs in government, with NGOs and in industry that rely on skills in biology. Our alums report that their experiences at Knox prepared them well for the post-graduate careers whether in school or on the job market. We will provide data and examples when we discuss the results of a survey of biology alums who graduated from 1998 to 2008.

Another reason that we made so few changes to the biology curriculum is that biology was uniquely well positioned when the college adopted the “New” Knox Curriculum in 2002. The college made a massive revision of its curriculum that was implemented in the fall of 2002. A key element of this revision was to make sure that students learned broad intellectual content, engaged in independent inquiry, and developed skills in such areas as writing, oral presentation and information technology. It was thought to be critical that students developed ownership over their educational programs. These were all elements of the biology major requirements adopted in 1998 and part of the heuristic philosophy of the department long before that. For many years, beginning probably with the hiring of Billy Geer in 1963, the biology department faculty felt that only way to prepare truly engaged, curious and skilled biologists was by having our students do independent research. Knox was one of the first liberal arts colleges in the country to emphasize independent student research and has been a leader in that area ever since. Our Biology 210 Introduction to Research course was specifically designed to get students involved with the process of research early in their careers at Knox, usually in their second year here. Students in 210 learn the basics of experimental design, data analysis, how to write as biologists, and how to present material orally by doing all those things in a series of three to four independent, original experiments conducted during the course. Thus the biology department was already doing everything the New Knox emphasized and has continued to do those same things ever since.

We have faced other challenges as well. A challenge that is unique to the Biology Department, and probably unique to Knox relative to biology departments at other institutions, is the relationship we have with the biochemistry department. In many ways that challenge has been particularly difficult to resolve and is a very sensitive issue. Our biochemistry department has a very strong biological bent and at many campuses would probably be considered another branch of biology. Many of the upper level Biology 33x courses (Molecular Biology and Genetics) are taught by professors in the biochemistry department (Biochem 265 Cell Biology, Biochem 335 Immunology, Biochem 340 Pharmacology, and Biochem 345 Molecular Medicine would be considered biology courses at many campuses). We have had difficulty coordinating upper level Molecular Biology and Genetics offerings in the past and have had a hard time assessing the courses for overlap in the material covered. Communication and coordination has been more difficult in some years than others and lately has been pretty good. Nonetheless the dynamics are complicated and unlikely to change in the near future, so that relationship remains a challenge.

Our reduced staffing has already created a challenge in terms of serving our greater mission to the college as a whole. While we have been able to support the FP program we have not been able to provide very many biology courses intended for non-majors in recent years. We have many courses designed for non-majors that are excellent courses for the students and fun to teach for the faculty (Bio 101 General Biology, Bio 150 Human genetics, and Bio 160 Plants) but which we have not been able to offer recently. Luckily we have continued to be able to offer Bio 201 Contemporary Biological Issues and recently added in Bio 212 Human-Animal Relationships, but the college and the department would benefit from a more regular and diverse set of courses intended for non-majors. In general, our current FTE has limited our ability to provide a diversity of courses frequently enough to satisfy student needs.

Our greatest success is that we have maintained a strong vibrant biology major and department despite all the personnel changes during the last 10 years. Evidence of that strength is that despite the reduction in staffing and changes we remain one of the most popular majors at Knox. We have averaged 54.5 declared biology majors per year over the past 10 years (declared majors at Knox are almost all juniors and seniors, so we have about twice that many students actively interested in biology at any one time). By total number of majors we are the fourth most popular major at Knox during the last 10 years (behind Educational Studies, Economics and Psychology (in that order)). We have been the third most popular major by number of graduates during that same time (behind Economics and Educational Studies (in that order)). As noted above, our students do very well once they graduate from Knox and that is the greatest sign of our success.

We are proud of the fact that we have been able to maintain the tradition of excellent research conducted by biology professors at Knox. Our faculty members are active in their scholarly fields, with most publishing several papers during the last 10 years. Members of our department regularly present papers at scientific meetings and several serve on editorial and/or grant review panels.

Biology faculty are committed members of the Knox community serving on many committees and providing leadership in many areas of college life. Although we have worked hard to maintain a strong biology major, we are very serious about participating in the life of the college as a whole. We contribute courses and mentoring to students in many other majors, especially those in Biochemistry, Educational Studies, Environmental Studies, Neuroscience, and Psychology. Pre-health students who do not major in Biology take many of our courses due to the requirements for admission to professional schools. We regularly contribute to the FP program and several of our faculty have been very active in the design of the new FP and have served on the FP steering committee. We have helped staff the popular Green Oaks Term. Members of our department provide the expertise for managing the Green Oaks Field Research Center which is an extremely important part of the Knox experience for students, faculty, staff and alumni from all areas of campus. We are proud that we have continued to be successful in providing service to the entire college.

II. The Biology Department Goals and Mission Statement

Goals of the Department of Biology

We are working for students to:

I. Acquire and use disciplinary knowledge in the following areas:

(a) ecology, evolution, biodiversity and animal behavior

(b) anatomy and physiology at the level of both the cell and organism

(c) genetics and molecular biology

II. Learn techniques and methodological approaches used to generate and analyze data in biology

III. Develop an understanding of the application and societal implications of biology in the world outside of the classroom

IV. Gain proficiency with scientific investigative skills (i.e. the scientific method in its many forms)

V. Effectively communicate, both orally and in writing in the style typically used in our field

VI. Successfully combine all of the above goals. To take information acquired from various sources, use this information to pose interesting questions, develop an approach to answer these questions using the scientific method, perform the research and communicate the process to others orally and in writing.

We did not like the Biology Department Mission Statement that was part of the 1998 self-study. Therefore we have written a new mission statement which appears immediately below:

“The mission of the Biology Department is to provide our students with a knowledge base and the investigative and communication skills to address the variety of biological and interdisciplinary issues facing the world today as educated citizens, as well as to meet the requirements for higher education leading towards careers in education, health care and research. To achieve these goals the Biology faculty has designed a diversified major in the broad discipline of biology that provides introductory courses in three main areas: ecology and evolution, molecular biology and genetics, and organismal biology followed by more advanced courses in each of these areas. A student majoring in biology must demonstrate competency in the acquisition and utilization of disciplinary knowledge, critical thinking and quantitative skills and effective writing and oral communications. Experimental design, generation and analysis of data, oral and written presentation of data are integral parts of laboratory work within the context of courses and independent research projects and are the main focus of the required course, Biology 210, Introduction to Research, and the capstone experience of original research in the area of a student’s interest (Biology 38_ or 400- Honors). Thus students proceed through increasing levels of sophistication working both independently and collaboratively with their peers and the faculty in acquiring disciplinary tools as well as gaining transferable skills useful in liberal learning.”

III. Assessment

Current Students

Courses: We have examined each course taught by our department in the context of our departmental goals. Using a mapping grid, each faculty member identified the goals that each course addressed and the level at which it addresses each goal. (Table 1). Based on the results of our mapping grid, the combination of courses a major would typically take (as described in Part I, pg. 1-2) will successful address all of the departmental goals. In addition, all courses offered by the biology department are addressing some of our goals. These results provide evidence that our current curricular model is successful in meeting our goals and should be maintained.