Department of Environmental and Forest Biology
Summary of Curricular Changes 2010-2011
Submitted Fall 2011
Overview
The primary curricular changes subsequent to 2009 were all related to adoption of a new sequence of
courses for sophomores, Diversity of Life I and II, to meet a perceived need for increased breadth in
biodiversity training for our students. This need arose following elimination of freshman Botany and
Zoology in favor of a more conceptual Introductory Biology sequence. The recent flexibility provided
to SUNY campuses to modify the General Education requirements for our students presented an
opportunity for us to re-integrate general lower-division biodiversity training into curricula for all
seven of the EFB majors. These changes are summarized below generally, with specific differences in
curricula addressed separately.
Background
Until 2003 Environmental Biology was the sole major in the Department of Environmental and Forest
Biology (EFB). In 2003 Biotechnology was added and after 2004, five other majors were fully
implemented, so the department currently co-ordinates seven majors (Aquatic and Fisheries Science,
Biotechnology, Conservation Biology, Environmental Biology, Forest Health, Natural History and
Interpretation, and Wildlife Science).
Assessment plans for all seven majors were approved in 2008. These plans were developed just as EFB
had adopted a two semester Introductory Biology sequence of courses required for freshman, replacing
a long-standing requirement for Botany and Zoology as the first year biology courses. All seven of the
majors required the new Introductory Biology sequence.
One traditional hallmark of our programs has been the inclusion of extensive training in organismal
diversity. Once a key component of any biology education, training in systematics, function and form of
organisms has been eliminated at many universities over the past 30 years as emphasis shifted to
molecular biology training. This has resulted in a loss of expertise in taxonomy that the scientific
community now recognizes as essential for understanding the current rapid loss of biodiversity in
response to multiple stressors, including increasing anthropogenic pressures on the environment. A
number of initiatives to improve scientific investigation and training in biodiversity (including the
National Science Foundation's Planetary Biodiversity Inventories Program at the turn of the millennium
and their current Dimensions of Biodiversity Initiative) confirm the scientific community's recent reassessment of the importance of biodiversity.
The consensus of the EFB faculty has been that our maintenance of biodiversity training in the curricula
has given our graduates substantial advantages in obtaining employment at various government
agencies (e.g., New York State Department of Environmental Conservation), non-profits and consulting
companies, because they possess identification skills and knowledge of biodiversity lacking in many of
our peer programs. With the new national initiatives in biodiversity, the benefits of including
biodiversity in our curricula can only increase. For these reasons, demonstration of biodiversity skills
was included in learning outcomes for six of our majors (explicitly as an independent learning objective
in five of the majors, and as a component of one learning objective for Forest Health majors).
Adoption of a two semester Introductory Biology sequence for freshman helped our majors meet their
goal of introducing freshman to general biological principles and concepts, likely improving general
biological knowledge (although this was not explicitly assessed after the curricular switch to
Introductory Biology), and brought our curricula in-line with those of other institutions, facilitating
transfer credits. However, the loss of Botany and Zoology courses in the freshman year meant that
students were not receiving general biodiversity training early in their programs. This shortfall was to
some extent foreseen in initial discussions of Introductory Biology adoption, but a viable solution was
not proposed, in part due to lack of available credits to require additional courses in our programs.
As students who took the Introductory Biology sequence progressed through the seven EFB majors,
faculty teaching upper division courses recognized that students were arriving at their classes with less
background knowledge, and that students could now graduate from EFB without a broad taxonomic
training in biodiversity.
When the reformulation of General Education requirements was permitted, it provided flexibility to
develop a general Diversity of Life (DoL) sequence, giving students broad command of biological
diversity. The sequence also provides a sophomore level set of biology classes, filling a gap in our
offerings and providing options for transfer students. Faculty from all seven of the EFB majors chose to
adopt either one or both semesters of Diversity of Life in their curricula, beginning with students who
entered the majors in Fall 2011.
For Aquatic and Fisheries Science, Forest Health, and Natural History and Interpretation, the curricular
changes involved adopting DoL I and II as required sophomore level courses and reducing the number of
General Education categories required from nine to seven (via a pick list of General Education
categories), which freed six credits.
In several other cases, additional curricular changes were proposed as well, and the justifications for
these changes are described below.
Biotechnology
The interdisciplinary (EFB, FRNM and FCH) faculty participating in the Biotechnology major recognized
the need for increased biodiversity training. This major has numerous core requirements and directed
electives, with few open electives, and most students will go on to bench science or health-related
careers. The revised Biotechnology curriculum thus gives the students choice of either DoL I or DoL II to
meet a basic biodiversity training. Because many of the students in this major gravitate more toward
molecular biology or chemistry than to environmental biology, it was decided that requiring the full DoL
I and II sequence might be counter-productive for students who were less inherently motivated to
appreciate the material. Requiring one of the two DoL courses provides students with an appreciation
of taxonomic diversity while still providing core goals of biotechnology training.
Environmental Biology
Environmental Biology is the broadest and most flexible major available in EFB, preparing students for a
wide variety of careers; students gain a breadth of knowledge across environmental biology, but have
sufficient elective and directed elective choice to either specialize or sample a broad array of electives.
Adoption of the DoL series provides a breadth of diversity training, and so the requirement for three
additional upper division diversity classes was reduced to two (although students are free to choose
further diversity classes as open electives). The General Education reductions also allowed more
flexibility in open electives, allowing the major to be even more open to individual choice on the part of
students (in consultation with their advisors).
Conservation Biology
Enabling students majoring in Conservation Biology to obtain a broad overview of biological diversity
while simultaneously developing a specialization in a particular taxonomic group of interest to them (at
the level of plants, invertebrates, vertebrates, or microorganisms) has always been a goal and was a key
component of initial discussions on how to design the major. This is because breadth and depth in
familiarity with biological diversity are stated as key learning goals by the Society for Conservation
Biology’s Education Subcommittee and are frequently mentioned as desirable attributes by potential
employers. The major had never succeeded in achieving this breadth/depth objective due to lack of
course credits available until the Diversity of Life (DoL) sequence in EFB was adopted. Requiring
Conservation Biology majors to enroll in the DoL sequence ensures they will acquire a broad overview of
biological diversity. It also enables reformulation of the upper-division biological diversity pick-list to
enable specialization in one taxonomic group of interest to the student (students had been forced to
choose across groups to secure generalization). Moreover, because the Conservation Biology major has
substantial “human dimensions” course requirements already and is global in focus given the nature of
the biodiversity crisis, it was deemed acceptable to reduce the general education course requirements
to the new minimum. This created a number of unallocated credits sufficient to facilitate this adoption
of the long desired breadth/depth aspect of familiarity with biological diversity for students in the
major. Thus adopting the DoL sequence, coupled with reduction in GenEd requirements and
reformulation of the upper-division pick-lists, enabled us finally to achieve an original goal: that students
become both generalists and specialists regarding biological diversity.
Wildlife Biology
The Wildlife Biology faculty made several curricular changes to help students in the major take courses
that would enable them to achieve professional certification by the Wildlife Society. In the past,
graduates often lacked sufficient courses on plant diversity to obtain this certification; because DoL I
covers plants extensively, requiring this course furthers the students' progress toward certification. In
addition to requiring DoL I and II, several other changes were made. (1) Physics and organic chemistry
were moved into a pick list instead of requiring both, with a minimum of three credits required and the
extra four credits gained were moved into open electives. (2) Animal Physiology was moved from a
required class into a new directed 'Structure and Function' pick list. (3) Geospatial Technology was
moved into a new 'Technical Skills' category. In addition, the required General Education categories
were reduced and changed to a pick list, as with the other majors. These changes serve to increase
student choice, improve breadth of biodiversity training, and move the students more clearly toward
professional certification upon completion of the program.
Implications for Future Curricular Assessment
This year we are in the process of re-examining our 2008 assessment plans to: (1) ensure that all data
are collected each year, (2) determine if the current plans are meeting our abilities to assess our
learning objectives, and (3) develop a more streamlined electronic procedure for collection, analysis and
storage of assessment data. With the adoption of the new Diversity of Life sequence, some of the
learning assessment metrics and objectives will change to include this sequence in the assessment
process. The EFB faculty plans to submit revised assessment plans to the SUNY ESF college faculty
governance for approval during the Spring 2012.