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Biochemistry
The Department of Biochemistry was one of
the premier teaching departments at UC Davis. The department's three
founding members--Paul Stumpf, Eric Conn, and Lloyd Ingraham--were
joined by ten new colleagues between 1959 and 1969, and all proved
adept at garnering grants for educational activities. Blessed with
generous support from the NIH and the Shell Company Foundation,
the department was able to invite many nationally prominent biochemists
to give seminars and become acquainted with the campus. (Departmental
hospitality usually also included acquainting many of the guests
with the pleasures of the enology department.) Beginning in 1967,
funding for an annual Shell Lectureship supported a series of speakers
of Nobel caliber, who usually stayed for several days of interaction
with faculty and students. Awards by the Stauffer Company and the
California Foundation for Biochemical Research supported other aspects
of the educational program, while the annual Swackhamer Award honored
outstanding graduate students.
In 1971, after more than a decade of rapid development,
the Department of Biochemistry moved into spacious new quarters
in Briggs Hall. Nationally known for good teaching, the department
offered a very successful undergraduate major in biochemistry, and
biochemistry majors at Davis at one time comprised 7 percent of
all such majors in the country, often becoming top graduate students
at other schools. Several faculty members wrote highly effective
textbooks that moved into national use and eventually ran into several
editions.
The department also graduated a relatively high
number of Ph.D.s. The Graduate Group in Biochemistry convened biochemists
from a number of other Davis departments to help administer the
graduate program in biochemistry. Thus biochemists from agronomy,
vegetable crops, botany, zoology, microbiology, food science, the
veterinary school, and several medical school departments contributed
to the strength of the program. The format developed at Davis was
later adopted at several other universities.
One of the greatest strengths of the department
was the exceptional stability of its faculty and support staff.
Throughout its long history, only four faculty members left the
department, and the hardworking staff was equally devoted. Chairs
of the department between 1958 and 1993 were P. K. Stumpf, E. E.
Conn, S. Chaykin, J. Priess, R. H. Doi, J. L. Hedrick, J. R. Whitaker,
D. M. Carlson, and M. McNamee.
In 1983 the department celebrated its silver anniversary
with a daylong symposium. After 35 years, however, the department
as an entity ceased to exist: In 1993 it was subsumed into the larger
administrative unit called Molecular and Cellular Biology within
the Division of Biological Sciences. source
See also Molecular
and Cellular Biology and Division
of Biological Sciences.
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Biological Chemistry
There is no history currently available for
this department. See School of
Medicine.
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Biological Sciences, Division
of
Although its founding departments were created
as early as 1922, the Division of Biological Sciences was officially
established as an intercollege unit in 1970. Designed to provide
an organizational framework for undergraduate biology programs,
the division linked the College of Letters and Science departments
of bacteriology, botany, and zoology with the College of Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences departments of animal physiology, biochemistry
and biophysics, and genetics. At its inception, the division administered
an interdepartmental major in biological sciences as well as the
six departmental undergraduate majors. Associate Dean S.R. Snow
headed the division, holding a joint appointment and reporting to
the deans of both colleges.
The division became an administratively independent
unit in 1979. Donald McLean was appointed the division's first dean.
Robert D. Grey of the zoology faculty became dean in 1985. That
year the division was given responsibility for developing and coordinating
campuswide programs in basic biological sciences that transcended
the boundaries of colleges and schools. The advisory Biological
Sciences Council subsequently began forming an academic plan for
the biological sciences and in 1988 recommended that the division
be reorganized.
During the previous 25 years, campus biology departments
had changed little even though traditional disciplinary boundaries
had blurred and new interdisciplinary fields had emerged. The council
formulated a plan for the division that reflected the integrated
nature of biological subdisciplines. In addition, given the rapid
and continuous developments in biology, council members wanted a
structure that would be flexible and encourage new directions in
research, reflecting the major themes of modern biology. After an
intense reexamination of the biological sciences programs, the council
recommended reorganizing the original six departments into five
sections: (1) evolution and
ecology, (2) microbiology,
(3) molecular and
cellular biology, (4) neurobiology,
physiology, and behavior, and (5) plant
biology. The council strengthened the dean's role, assigning
responsibility for resource planning and budgeting, coordination
of academic planning, and faculty appointments, and the dean began
reporting to the campus provost. To ensure that divisional academic
priorities and programs would continue to be in accord with those
of the two colleges, the division model included an administrative
council comprising the division and college deans.
In 1993 the reorganization plan was enacted. Faculty
members chose their new section affiliation, and each section's
budget was officially transferred from the colleges to the division.
The Division of Biological Sciences currently comprises the five
sections listed above. Concurrent with the administrative reorganization,
the undergraduate biology curriculum was redesigned, and the division
instituted a coherent series of introductory courses to encompass
the diverse areas of biology, reflecting a commitment to integrated
teaching.
At the time of the reorganization, division sections
were housed separately in Robbins Hall (plant biology), Hutchison
Hall (microbiology), Storer Hall (evolution and ecology), and Briggs
Hall (molecular and cellular biology; neurobiology, physiology,
and behavior). In 1997 divisional faculty members with research
programs in cellular and molecular biology moved to the new Life
Sciences Addition. This building brought together more than 30 faculty
research laboratories and is architecturally designed to foster
research collaborations, featuring interconnected laboratories and
common-area spaces that house essential research equipment.
The division currently has 108 faculty members.
It administers eight undergraduate majors in biology, enrolling
approximately 3,500 students: (1) biological sciences, (2) biochemistry
(3) cell biology, (4) evolution and ecology, (5) genetics, (6) microbiology,
(7) neurobiology, physiology, and behavior, and (8) plant biology.
Additional majors may be established as new biological themes emerge.
The division also provides administrative support for ten graduate
groups involving approximately 480 students. To promote campuswide
collaborative projects, the division administers the Center for
Population Biology, the Center for Animal Behavior, the Center for
Neuroscience, and the Biotechnology Program. source
See also Evolution
and Ecology; Microbiology;
Molecular and Cellular
Biology; Neurobiology,
Physiology, and Behavior; and Plant
Biology.
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