Going Their Separate Ways

The long-planned division of the Biology Department into two separate departments moved a step closer to reality this week, as the Faculty Council overwhelmingly approved plans for the split.

If the Faculty affirms the proposal next month, as observers say is almost certain, the department will divide into the departments of Cellular and Developmental Biology (CDB) and Comparative Biology (CB).

That split will formalize existing functional divisions within Biology, where members of CDB and CB now make separate appointments and admit graduate students independently.

Undergraduate Biology concentrators will not be affected by the change, tentatively scheduled to take effect January 1. A joint committee of members of the two new departments will oversee the undergraduate curriculum, and each body will monitor one half of Biology 7, "Introductory Biology."

But the split will increase the visibility of each group to potential graduate students, Biology professors say, and will ease the administration of a department that has grown dramatically in recent years.

Plans for the division, which had been discussed for nearly two years, stalled last spring when prospective CB professors cited flaws in preliminary plans.

But members of both units now say they are satisfied with new arrangements hammered-out over the summer. The revised proposals specify when each department may hire new professors, link associated institutions like museums to CB, and provide for a separate administrator of coordinate CB activities.