SJSU News Archive
Date: 04/29/2008
A year ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute issued a challenge to 224 undergraduate colleges nationwide: identify creative new ways to engage your students in the biological sciences. Now 48 of the nation's best undergraduate institutions will receive $60 million to help them usher in a new era of science education. San José State, which received a $1.3 million grant, is among those institutions. Julio G. Soto, associate professor of biology and science education, will oversee the SJSU grant.
The San José State biology curriculum will be overhauled to make all classes more inquiry-based, more hands-on and more multidisciplinary. Freshmen will get more research-directed labs, transfer students will take a summer course focused on local ecological problems, and biology majors will enroll in a yearlong, team-taught eukaryotic cell and molecular biology course tied to cancer biology. To fill current gaps in faculty expertise and expand opportunities for students, a bioinformatics specialist will be hired.