University administrators say they will carefully monitor the transformation of the undergraduate biology major and elimination of introductory classes that will go into effect next semester.

“Up to this point, we wanted to make sure we had all our ducks in a row before we rolled it out,” said Bonnie Comella, director of advising and operations for the Office of Undergraduate Biology. “We are trying to be pretty comprehensive about the transition,” she said.

In the fall of 2006, Susan Henry, former dean of College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Pete Lepage, dean of College of Arts and Science, commissioned an Undergraduate Biology Curriculum Task Force (UBCTF) to investigate the teaching of introductory courses and propose changes. Under the leadership of Prof. Robert Harris-Warrick, neurobiology and behavior, the task force included 16 Cornell faculty members of diverse disciplines and multiple colleges. Task force members met once a week for two years and studied the current method of teaching of introductory biology in the spring and fall semesters of 2007.

“After consultation with members of the Cornell community and comparison with [15] other universities, the task force proposes the development of separate course tracks for training in biology for majors in the biological sciences, other science students, and non-scientists,” according to the task force’s report published in February 2008, two years after its inception.

“There was nobody on that task force that had been involved with intro bio, but they interviewed various people from the Office of Undergraduate Biology and had taught in the intro class,” said Prof. Cole Gilbert, the instructor of the fall introductory lecture. He added that while he was not personally involved in the discussions, he received regular reports from the implementation committee.

Members of the original task force consulted representatives of the introductory courses’ faculty including deans of CALS, CAS, Human Ecology and Veterinary Medicine as well as various undergraduate advising offices such as the Health Careers Advising Center. The task force also conducted a survey of graduating seniors in 2006 and student veterans of the introductory courses in order to identify “a number of basic problems with the current biology curriculum,” according to the report.

Several reasons cited for the change included a need for smaller class sizes, more in-depth coverage of course topics, greater interactions with faculty and more active learning.

“We’ve been teaching bio the same way across the United States for 25 years — a big introductory lecture that in fact started here at Cornell,” Gilbert said. “[The class] turned into this book that is now 1300 pages thick and it’s gigantic. The introductory class is so broad that is has to be superficial.”

Another key factor in the decision to adjust the curriculum comes from future changes in MCAT requirements for medical school admissions. Instead of focusing on specific completed courses, the MCAT will move toward a format that will stress mastery of concepts and skills, according to Prof. Ron Hoy, neurobiology and behavior.

Hoy chairs the Biology Curriculum Transition Committee (BCTC), which was tasked with implementing the recommendations of the UBCTF upon the publication of the report. Its implementing the recommendations of the UBCTF upon the publication of the report. Its members include a more focused group of biological science professors who have been meeting once a week for over a year, according to Hoy. The biology department has been dissecting the MCAT that will most likely arrive in 2013 or 2014 to help develop the new courses.

“The task force report laid down what should be, the deans accepted it and put in an implementation committee whose job is to make it happen,” Hoy said. The key focus of the implementation was to provide more flexibility of choices so that there was no longer a proscribed sequence of courses for students to take.

Cornell is not the only school that is revising its biology curriculum. Harvard underwent a change nearly four years ago and currently, Princeton is in the process, along with many other leading research universities.

Yet, the change that will affect an average of 800 students a year does not come easily.

The responses from other life sciences majors that currently require introductory biology courses have still not been resolved.

“They can have their students enroll in the investigative lab and they can choose from among the other courses in the core. They will have to look at the requirements of their own subfields in the life sciences to see what best works for them,” Hoy said.

The biology department will meet with the College of Engineering and the College of Human Ecology in December to further discuss the reports and changes.