Faculty of Science opens new door for students

Biological studies department to open July 2007

JENELLE PETRINCHUK STAFF

A new department of Biological Sciences will be implemented in the faculty of science, effective July 1, 2007.

The new department, approved by the university senate earlier this month, will be a combination of the existing departments of botany, zoology and introductory biology. Currently, the unification of these departments is only an administrative change and won’t affect students presently enrolled in the program.

Mark Whitmore, dean of the faculty of science, explained that although just the administrative change is occurring right now, he wants to make it clear that academic changes to the programs are definitely foreseeable in the future.

“What we’re doing right now is the administrative step, which we need to do to open the door to the academic changes,” said Whitmore, “And it’s the academic changes that we’re doing this for.”

For students currently enrolled in either botany or zoology, when the new department opens next July, nothing will change for them at all at this point.

“Over time this should lead to new programs and changes to programs,” explained Whitmore, “but nothing is changing in terms of programs yet . . . The botany and zoology programs will stay there for the students who are currently in the programs and maybe new thematic areas will open up with time.

”Whitmore emphasized that it’s important not to get “department” is and what a “program” is confused. Although they sometimes mean the same thing, in this case they do not. Instead of separate botany and zoology programs being run by different departments, new students will enroll in various programs in one biological sciences department.

At the Oct. 4, 2006 University of Manitoba senate meeting, a “Rationale for Unification” was presented to senate.

The report explained, “As founding departments at the University, Botany and Zoology have a long and illustrious history spanning over 100 years . . . and are logical candidates for unification on academic grounds.”

The report declares that the new department will make “the full nature of the diversity (from biochemical, molecular and cell levels to systematics and populations) inherent in Botany and Zoology” clear to students. It adds that eventually combining programs will “allow for broader and creative choices for students to obtain degrees that meet the challenges of the future.”

Combining the three programs into one department will enhance the connectivity between the programs, especially between first-year courses in biology and upper-level courses in botany and zoology. Collaborative research and coursework will be made easier and more common between the programs.

A small cost involved in this process will be recruiting a new department head externally. The current department heads will not be losing their positions, as their respective fiveyear terms will be ending just as the new department opens.

Whitmore pointed out that at this time, no one can predict exactly what’s going to happen with the department in the future.

“This is the first step. The idea is to get people thinking,” he said.

Whitmore is sure that the change will benefit students in the long run. “The departments complement each other nicely and I think they’ll be able to offer new things [once combined] . . . This administrative step is opening the door and paving the way to academic changes in the future,” he commented.