Wald's Year Off Hurts Nat Sci 5

Changes in the staff and curriculum of the Biology Department have affected considerably the enrollment in that department's courses this year. Nat Sci 5, ordinarily one of the most popular Gen Ed courses, has a very light turnout; Biology 115 was very much oversubscribed; all other upper-level biology courses are full.

Peter Albersheim, assistant professor of Biology and one of the four lecturers in Nat Sci 5 this year, attributed the comparatively small demand for the course to the absence of George Wald, and also to the popularity of the new Nat Sci 6.

Biology 100, "Evolutioinary Biology," and Bio 115, "Cell to Organism," as well as Nat Sci 5, are the basis of a new orientation toward modern biology. The new approach attempts to organize biological sciences around a few central themes.

The over-application of Biology 115 should have been anticipated by the department, according to one source. "We should have had some idea of the demand for the course and gotten money from the university to equip labs to accommodate the extra students," he said.