This post was updated April 14 at 11:08 p.m.<\/p>\n
The department of physics and astronomy will suspend admission to the biophysics major for continuing students next fall and is seeking to cut the program entirely in fall 2027, an advisor announced in a Monday email.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Admission to the major will be suspended effective fall 2026 for continuing students and fall 2027 for newly admitted students, said Mary Tran, the department of physics and astronomy\u2019s lead undergraduate advisor, in a Monday email to students. Tran added that the department is submitting a proposal to eliminate the major altogether, effective fall 2027. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Current biophysics students \u2013 as well as incoming first-year students who have already declared the major \u2013 will be able to continue the degree program, Tran said in the email. She added that the department will support students in the major to ensure timely degree completion, including by continuing to offer biophysics-related courses for the foreseeable future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the Biophysics BS program phase-out, the department will continue to support our Biophysics majors and ensure timely degree completion,\u201d Tran said in the email. \u201cWe expect to continue to offer biophysics-related courses in the foreseeable future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stuart Brown, the chair of the department of physics and astronomy, said the major has faced low enrollment levels and challenges finding professors to teach classes. He added that biophysics faculty surveyed other college campuses and realized many others did not offer biophysics as a standalone major.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we decided to close it, which would give us a little bit more flexibility in the teaching, then it wouldn\u2019t have to be a loss for any of the students,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe could still offer those courses as we could, and that is our intention going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that biophysics coursework overlaps with standard physics and other department courses, so students still have the opportunity to learn the same material.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a pedagogical point of view, nothing is lost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Students currently enrolled in the major will only have one curriculum change: a two-quarter sequence of lecture classes \u2013 Physics C187A and Physics C187B \u2013 will be combined into one course, Brown said.<\/p>\n
Students in the major were notified of the decision in an April 3 email, said Henry Fairbanks, a third-year biophysics student.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, it\u2019s a bummer,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a bit disappointing that they couldn\u2019t find a way to maintain it despite the obvious problems of attrition and devoting too much resources to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fairbanks added that the fact that the major classes are small \u2013 sometimes seven students per class \u2013 is something he loves about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the fact that I know everyone with the major,\u201d he said. \u201cI love that, and it\u2019s a bit disappointing, but I\u2019m hopeful that they\u2019ll continue offering the courses as electives to physics majors, and I\u2019m hoping that they\u2019ll provide avenues for people interested in biophysics to continue being able to pursue it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post was updated April 14 at 11:08 p.m. The department of physics and astronomy will suspend admission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-585522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}