To: General Education Committee
From: Charlie Janson, Associate Dean, Division of Biological Sciences
Re: request for exemption to the Foreign Language General Education Requirement
Date: February 19, 2009
I write to request an exemption to the Foreign Language general education requirement for DBS
undergraduate students. In the Division, we have students majoring in Biology, Microbiology, and
Medical Technology. Students in all of our majors and options (with the exception of the Natural History
option) are required to take an approved symbolic system course (MATH 150 - Applied Calculus, or
MATH 152 - Calculus). We ask that our students be allowed to use this symbolic system in lieu of a
foreign language. While philosophically we agree with the desirability of having students learn and
experience a foreign language and culture, our program requirements prohibit the addition of another 10
lower division credits. The biological sciences rely heavily on several related fields (chemistry, physics,
and mathematics), and we therefore require that our students take courses from these cognate fields. In
addition to the 40+ biology credits (almost half of which are lower division and foundational), we require
up to 8 credits of lower division mathematics, 20 credits of lower division chemistry, and 10 credits of
physics. Adding additional lower division credits to this load will make it difficult for our 500+ majors to
meet their upper division requirement in a timely matter, and would likely lead to lowered retention and
completion rates.
I hope you find the above arguments convincing. If you have additional questions, I would be more than
happy to answer them.
Charlie Janson
Associate Dean
Division of Biological Sciences
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
Ph: 406-243-5122
FAX: 406-243-4184