Natural Sciences in the Liberal Arts

The Task Force on the Natural Sciences examined the place of science and laboratory science in the educational experience of Middlebury undergraduates. The academic category component of our current distribution requirements has students complete at least one course in 7 of 8 categories. Avoidance of any of these categories is unfortunate. Approximately 40 percent of our students complete the degree without fulfilling the language requirement while 10 percent do not take a course in natural or physical science, and 40 percent leave Middlebury without a science laboratory experience.

The Work of the Committee:

A member of the task force met with students (both science majors and non-majors) to discuss student perception of science and science courses.

The committee met with representatives from Admissions to discuss the admissions process at Middlebury, trends in admissions, and possible strategies to achieve a better match of eventual majors with our faculty and teaching resources.

We also met with Science faculty to discuss whether the College should institute a science requirement, and if so, should this include laboratory.

The task force began its work by collecting general distribution and science distribution information. 41 colleges and universities were considered. Of these, seven institutions have no distribution requirements of any kind or only a single requirement in writing or quantitative work. Of the remaining 34 institutions, Middlebury is the only school to have true distribution requirements and not require physical or natural science. Many of the schools require two or more science courses in order to graduate, and at least 19 require one or more science courses with laboratory.

This only affirmed what many already suspected, that Middlebury is clearly unusual by not requiring at least one natural or physical science course. The Task Force believes that the establishment of a required science course with a laboratory component would better demonstrate our commitment to provide an educational experience of the highest quality for our students.

Members:

Scott Buckley '07

Bob Cluss, Chair

Marcia Collaer

Noah Graham

Jim Larrabee

Sallie Sheldon

Dave West

Task Force Recommendations:

1. Our major recommendation is to require a natural or physical science course for the Middlebury College BA degree. This was the unanimous sentiment at the meeting attended by 25 science faculty and in a subsequent survey of faculty in the Departments of Geology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Physics, and Biology.

Ideally, this course should also have a laboratory component.

This suggested change will necessitate a re-examination of our current 7 out of 8 academic distribution requirements.

The institution of a required science course with laboratory will require additional faculty to teach.  This resource issue will need to be considered by the EAC.

2. Data from the Education Testing Service indicates that high school students who take AP exams in the sciences are more likely to major in science in college. We recommend that Admissions use such information in an effort to admit more students who have an interest in science and who will major in science at Middlebury.

3. The College should consider awarding additional credit towards graduation for courses with a lecture and laboratory. One approach is for courses with laboratory that meet for six or more hours a week would count as 1.5 credits. Students may apply up to one total credit of laboratory work towards graduation.  This change would recognize the greater workload associated with laboratory courses and serve as an incentive for more students to study laboratory science. The limit of two such courses counting as 1.5 credits would prevent science majors from accumulating excessive credits towards graduation. Several courses in our study of 41 institutions provide extra credit towards graduation for laboratory courses (see Appendix, Table 3).

4. We recommend that the median grade for every course with an enrollment of 10 or more be placed on the Middlebury transcript next to individual course grade. This will help to place course grades in a broader context and may encourage more students to take courses with a median grade of B and fewer to take courses with a median grade of A- or A.

5. The College should appoint a Director of Undergraduate Research to help direct and support student/ faculty collaborative research that is carried out throughout the calendar year. The Director should be a tenured professor and should receive course release for oversight and institutional grant writing.

6. The faculty should elect a special committee to consider the recommendations from all the task forces and suggest further action.