By Emily Saks, Staff Writer
Interdisciplinary faculty members from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges have recently collaborated to establish a new major in neuroscience. According to the program website, the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience program provides students an opportunity to study the nervous system and behavior from an approach that melds perspectives in medicine, biology, psychology, philosophy and physiology. The major itself requires an introductory neuroscience class; one semester each of general chemistry, biology, psychology and statistics; four upper-level neuroscience courses; a neuroscience lab course and a thesis project or capstone. The faculty team working on the major included Haverford psychology professors Laura Been, Rebecca Compton and Patrese Robinson-Drummer; Haverford biology professors Robert Fairman and Roshan Jain; and Bryn Mawr psychology professor Laura Grafe.
The announcement mirrors the recent growth of neuroscientific research and its increasing recognition in the field of psychology. Interest in neuroscience on Bryn Mawr and Haverford campuses has also been growing in recent years. Many students choose to minor in neuroscience, and Haverford students started the Bi-College Neuroscience Club in 2017. Professor Been said that student interest played a principal role in the creation of the major: “We have had a BiCo Neuroscience Minor since 2013, and before that there was a concentration in Neural and Behavioral Sciences (established in 1995). The minor is very popular and we consistently heard from current and prospective students that they wished we had a major. The Bi-Co Neuroscience Faculty have been working together for about five years to create a major that is rigorous, inclusive, interdisciplinary, and sustainable. We are thrilled to finally be able to offer it as an option for students.”
The college will continue to support a neuroscience minor, which was also designed to be interdisciplinary and gives students significant flexibility to choose their approach to neuroscience. Its only required course is an introduction to neuroscience; the other five required credits come from an approved list of courses in philosophy, linguistics, computer science, psychology and biology. The new major will build on the minor by requiring graduating neuroscience students to have gained additional breadth, with courses in chemistry, biology and statistics. Previously, students were not required to take courses in these areas to complete the minor, but many did to gain a stronger foundation in neuroscience theory and laboratory skills. However, this new interdisciplinary neuroscience program will better prepare interested students to pursue careers in neuroscience after graduating.
Neuroscience within the Bi-College continues to thrive, with students engaging in coursework and research, both on-campus and off-campus, to investigate processes like aging, sleep and language. The interdisciplinary neuroscience program has a lot of room to grow, such as more closely integrating with departments like biology at Bryn Mawr. Overall, though, the neuroscience major is exciting for faculty and students alike. Sophomores and juniors can expect to declare a neuroscience major as early as this spring semester.
Image credit: Haverford College, Psychology Today
