UW Trustees Approve Two New Graduate Degree Programs

Nov. 12, 2005 -- University of Wyoming trustees today (Saturday) approved post-graduate degree programs in molecular and cellular life sciences (MCLS) and in neuroscience. UW officials say both degree programs are essential to the university’s life-science curriculum and to the advancement of health-care professions.

Both new degree programs are identified as action items in UW’s Academic Plan. MCLS is an important component in an overall plan for the life sciences, UW Vice President for Academic Affairs Myron Allen says. It complements three other focus areas cited in the plan -- neuroscience, reproductive biology and ecology.

The graduate program in MCLS is designed to provide comprehensive, relevant training in one of the most rapidly changing areas of life science, Allen says. The Ph.D. program in MCLS will be more inclusive and interdisciplinary than the current Ph.D. program in molecular biology.

The involvement of faculty members from several cooperating departments will help strengthen graduate training, promote scientific collaboration and enhance research productivity. The program also promises to bolster faculty recruitment and attract additional high-caliber graduate students, Allen adds.

“Involvement of faculty members from several life science and health science departments on campus will better prepare students for careers in this area of the life sciences,” Allen says. “The field’s inherent complexity, the rapid rate of growth in knowledge, the need to address issues at the interface of traditional disciplines and the power of new technologies in the molecular, cellular life sciences require an interdisciplinary approach.”

Allen adds that UW needs to remain competitive with other first-rate institutions in this area, which is one of the university’s long-standing areas of distinction. Increased collaboration among faculty in several colleges, including agriculture, arts and sciences, engineering and health sciences, will help maintain this competitiveness, he says.

UW currently offers a doctoral degree in neuroscience, but does not have a corresponding master’s degree program. A neuroscience program has been in place since 1978 and in 2003 the university formally adopted an interdisciplinary Ph.D. degree neuroscience program. But with student interest in that doctoral program increasing each year, the need for a master’s degree track was needed, Allen says.

“This interdisciplinary M.S. program in neuroscience expands opportunities to recruit top students beyond those offered by the doctoral program. It also will help recruit and retain high-quality graduate students,” Allen says. “The program offers an intermediate graduate program that is attractive in the job market.”

Allen reported that a steering committee representing more than 40 faculty members in four colleges developed a prospectus for the interdisciplinary program and strongly supported the plan.

Posted on Saturday, November 12, 2005