Hi Kay, We have requirements for several categories of courses. Two options for Genetics, several for organismal, for example, and 4 courses that meet the population, evolution requirement. Ecology is one of the latter. The students have a choice of Ecology, Evolution, Natural History of the Great Lakes Region or a course called Interactions in the Environment. The last two are majors/non-majors courses with majors taking the required lab component. This way, all students end up taking some sort of E&E course. BTW, I teach all but the Interactions course. That is taught by our Animal Behavioral person. It seems to be a strategy that is working. In fact, I typically have students who took Ecology or Natural History deciding to take another of the courses in E&E. Often, these are the very pre-health students who thought E&E was so useless - great attitude change!
Liane ********************* Liane Cochran-Stafira, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biology Saint Xavier University Department of Biological Sciences 3700 West 103rd Street Chicago, IL 60655 Ph: 773-298-3514 Fax: 773-298-3536 coch...@sxu.edu http://faculty.sxu.edu/dlc1 -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Kay Shenoy Sent: Monday, February 01, 2016 10:24 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: [ECOLOG-L] promoting Ecology course Does anybody have ideas on how to promote Ecology among Biology undergraduates? We are finding that Biology majors are increasingly focused on health-care fields; many students consider Ecology "unimportant" for their future careers, and it is not addressed in the MCAT exams, so they give it a low priority. How does one increase enrollment in Ecology courses, and particularly in schools that do not have dedicated Ecology departments? Any thoughts would be welcome!
