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Riverside: Departments
Liberal Studies and Interdisciplinary Program
Life Sciences
Liberal Studies and Interdisciplinary Program
There is no history currently available
for this department.
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Life Sciences
Instruction in the Division (later department)
of Life Sciences began in the spring semester, 1954, with a staff
of six, including Chairman Herman T. Spieth. Forty-one students
enrolled as majors. During the early growth of the Riverside campus,
instruction in life sciences was limited to the undergraduate level.
In September, 1961, in line with the 1959 Regental action designating
Riverside a general campus, graduate study was inaugurated in the
division with a program leading to the degrees of Ph.D. and M.A.
in zoology. Further growth in staff, especially in botany and microbiology,
permitted expansion, in 1964, to a program leading to the Ph.D.
and M.A. degrees in biology. The graduate curriculum emphasized
a minimum number of courses developed around the major areas of
cell biology, evolution, genetics, ecology, phvsiology, and metabolism.
The enrollment in 1964-65 included 364 undergraduates and 21 graduates.
In 1963, following the splitting of the original
Divisions of Humanities, Social Sciences and Physical Sciences into
departments, the life sciences staff elected to retain its integral
organization, effective July 1, 1964, and the name of the unit was
officially changed to Department of Life Sciences. The curriculum
of the department embraced the subject fields usually found in the
separate departments of botany, microbiology, and zoology. This
is in keeping with the important unifying developments in biology
at that time. The academic staff of 22 covered a wide variety of
interests from the molecular to faunistic and floristic levels.
The department was temporarily housed on the first
floor of Webber Hall and the library. A greenhouse and headhouse
were constructed in 1955. A new wing on the present budding was
scheduled for completion in 1967. It would provide facilities primarily
for graduate instruction and staff research.
Important auxiliary facilities
included the botanical garden and experimental area, under development
since 1959, and the Boyd Desert Reseach Center near
Palm Desert. source
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