More students look to science

Skidmore sees increase in interest as offerings expands

Reprinted with permission from the Daily Gazette, November 6, 2007

By Lee Coleman

Skidmore College is seeing an increase in science majors as the college expands its science offerings and science faculty.

The private, liberal arts college of 2,400 students earmarked $15 million in its ongoing capital fundraising campaign several years ago to improve its science programs.

Muriel Poston, the college's dean of faculty, said Skidmore has already seen a 25 percent increase in science enrollment.

She said the college has had to add two or three sections to its introductory science courses to meet the demand.

These introductory courses include new interdisciplinary science courses, Poston said.

The college, for example, has added a neuroscience program, which includes courses in biology, psychology and chemistry as a way of understanding the "mechanisms that give rise to [brain processes] and behavior."

Poston said the college has also added an environmental science program that provides an integrated study of the physical, chemical and biological aspects of environmental issues.

The science departments and programs have more than 80 faculty members and administrative staff, including two new faculty members for the Environmental Studies Program. The college on North Broadway in Saratoga Springs has more than 200 faculty members overall.

Just as the college science programs are expanding, its sciencerelated technology is also being enhanced.

For example, David Domozych, former chairman of the biology department, is now director of the college's microscopy imaging center.

Domozych said the center received a jump start three years ago when a National Science Foundation grant allowed Skidmore to purchase a new electron microscope.

Since then new and improved technology has been added to the center on an regular basis.

"We have everything," Domozych said. He said the science technology available to Skidmore science students equals, and sometimes surpasses, technology available at colleges offering graduate science programs.

"We are taking our students to a new level," Domozych said.

Skidmore launched its latest capital fundraising campaign in 2004 with a goal of $200 million by 2010.

The $15 million for expanding the sciences at Skidmore is included in this campaign. The money will be used for new science faculty appointments, new and better equipment, and more undergraduate science research.

Poston said the college held a faculty retreat last month to discuss the future of the sciences at Skidmore. One of the areas discussed was developing better instruction in "computational science," Poston said. She said the college wants all students to learn the basics of handling large data sets.

For example, students must learn how to do the necessary computer science and mathematics so they can deal with large quantities of scientific information required to examine and evaluate water quality issues or molecular structures.

The college is also investigating the need for more laboratory and classroom space at Skidmore's Dana Science Center. The last addition to the Dana center was in 1997.

"There will be no building any time soon," Poston said. However, an addition may be required within the next decade. "We are at capacity at our current facility," Poston said.

Liberal arts colleges, and Skidmore in particular, must respond to the challenges of the 21st century that relate to climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, and environmental resource depletion, according to the college's strategic plan.

"We must provide our science students with a firm understanding of the foundations of contemporary science, the interdisciplinary possibilities of the discrete science disciplines, and substantive, meaningful research experiences focusing on real life issues that prepare them to become scientists in the 21st century," the strategic plan says.

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2007 the Daily Gazette