A Change for the Better

New department structure enhances existing degrees and brings new opportunities for UTSA students

By Jalen Ray

UTSA is reorganizing the Department of Biology and the Department of Environmental Science and Ecology into three new departments this fall. The new departments will be the Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology (NDRB), the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI) and the Department of Integrative Biology (IB).

Previously, the Department of Biology served over 2,000 majors and offered 222 sections of biology in addition to independent studies. The new structure will give students more opportunities for transdisciplinary studies within the life sciences.

“This restructure is a means of realigning our goals as professors and our research interests in order to allow us to work together in an autonomous way to meet the needs of students with diverse backgrounds and disciplines,” said Dr. Janis Bush, chair of the Department of IB.

In order to support this diversity, the new departments are collaborating with each other to create changes to their individual classes and curriculums.

“We have made several changes to the MMI department’s courses as far as adjusting classes to get students better prepared for whatever it is they want to do once they leave this university,” explained Dr. Astrid Cardona, chair of the MMI department. “One of the biggest changes we are making is offering diverse electives for our students so they can participate in courses in other biological departments like the IB department if they want to.”

Electives are not new to these departments, but the new structure will allow the departments to work with each other more efficiently and create elective courses that will better fit students’ interests.

Creating diverse course work for students isn’t the only benefit of the new department structure. Each department will also have the ability to expand its fields of expertise and offer improved, specialized classes, ultimately leading to greater opportunities for the students. For example, the NDRB department is proposing a new undergraduate degree and minor in neuroscience along with a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. Before the creation of this new degree, the former Department of Biology offered only two undergraduate degrees: a BS in Biology and a BS in Microbiology and Immunology.

“Through separation, the NDRB department will have the ability to create new degrees and research programs,” explained Dr. Jenny Hsieh, chair of the Department of NDRB. “By originally putting neuroscience in the biology department, we didn’t fully capture its multidisciplinary aspects. For example, reorienting our department opens up new opportunities to develop future programs in stem cell biology, precision medicine and regenerative sciences.” This realization is the main reason for the restructure, and the changes seen in the NDRB department extend to the MMI and IB departments as well. The MMI department will offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs and the IB department will now house the B.A. and B.S. in Environmental Studies, which migrated from the former Department of Environmental Science and Ecology. In addition, the IB department will be the home for the general biology degree and all lower-division biology courses.

The department chairs want this change to be as smooth and easy as possible. “Hopefully, students won’t notice too much of a difference with how things will be run,” Bush said. “This will be a change seen the most on the faculty level.”

Creating this new vision for the life sciences reflects other major research universities’ structures. “If you look at some of the more recognized colleges, such as the University of Arizona, UC Irvine and Harvard, they have the biology sector split into more focused fields,” said Dr. Timothy Yuen, associate dean for Undergraduate Studies.

“I joined UTSA 11 years ago, and even then, there was talk of building more specialized departments,” Cardona said. “This is truly amazing to see.”

This restructure is a means of realigning our goals as professors and our research interests in order to allow us to work together in an autonomous way to meet the needs of students with diverse backgrounds and disciplines.