Creation of a revised Biochemistry and Molecular BS degree integrating the humanistic, metacognitive, and foundational knowledge domains
Description
Viterbo University's revised Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Bachelor of Science Program aims to prepare future students for healthcare and STEM-related careers by integrating foundational, meta, and humanistic knowledge. This holistic approach is critical as the problems in our world continue to increase in complexity and involve an increasing amount of diversity of approaches and viewpoints. This integration is achieved through a curriculum that invites students to use knowledge in applied settings such as course-embedded research, service-learning, and community building both on and off-campus. Students will participate in an annual biochemistry symposium and related seminar course that showcase the complexity of science-related issues within our world.
Background/context: Our initial planning has identified two strengths that we seek to leverage in our redesigned curriculum. First, many students are attracted to Viterbo due to our focus on pre-health preparation and humanistic knowledge is becoming more critical to the professional school application process. This revised curriculum aims to help students succeed by integrating these diverse areas of knowledge more intentionally across the entirety of our curriculum. Second, we recently received a sizeable gift from an estate that will provide the resources for an annual biochemistry symposium around a theme of our choosing. The symposium will allow us to showcase the integration of these knowledge categories not just to our majors but also for the larger campus community. Finally, Viterbo University is a Catholic Franciscan University and our values expressly support greater inclusion of humanistic knowledge within the curriculum.
Goals of the Program
Viterbo's revised Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Bachelor of Science Program aims for students to encounter the three separate but interrelated domains of knowledge (Foundational, Meta, and Humanistic) necessary for students to skillfully navigate the complex and interdisciplinary problems of our world. The cumulative effect is that our graduates are prepared to enter medical school, other biomedical professional or graduate programs, as well as direct employment in a variety of STEM-related careers. Our work aims to create a revised program that:
- Will enable students to learn and articulate the importance of a diverse population contributing to science
- Becomes a pre-health destination major
- Integrates the new biochemistry symposium into the curriculum
- Will enable students to be competitive for professional and graduate studies and/or employment
- Better aligns with the mission and values of Viterbo
- Will have the same or fewer credits as the existing biochemistry major
Learning Outcomes
Foundational knowledge & skills:
- Conceptual Content Mastery: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the main themes of energy, structure and function, and information storage of biological systems.
- Experiential Content Mastery: Students will apply course content to an applied setting, where they design and execute experiments to address research questions.
- Systems Content Mastery: Students will analyze how things relate to and affect one another in a holistic way.
Attitudes (humanistic knowledge):
- Values Thinking: Students will demonstrate an understanding of how culture, tradition, and values influence decisions, which can help break through barriers of prejudice, politics, and culture.
- Ethical Thinking: Students will understand the complexity of ethical issues surrounding a broad range of scientific disciplines to encourage the highest levels of professionalism and humanism.
- Curiosity: Students will demonstrate a desire to learn, forming probing questions across a wide range of subjects.
Collaborative Skills (meta-knowledge):
- Interpersonal Competence: Students will work effectively with others to achieve a goal. When combined with values thinking, this competency is a powerful tool to find productive ways to solve complicated problems.
- Communication Competence: Students will effectively communicate, both orally and in writing, key scientific findings in the molecular biosciences to lay and professional audiences.
- Critical Thinking and Creative Problem-Solving Competence: Students will apply quantitative and qualitative reasoning skills to identify and solve problems at the molecular, cellular, and systematic levels.
Assessing Program Outcomes
Rubrics will be developed to measure the above learning goals. Our intention is to have three direct measurements of each outcome.