The Department of Biology at Lafayette is housed in a modern, 31,000-square-foot science building, Kunkel Hall. We have excellent classroom and laboratory facilities, a wide variety of modern laboratory equipment and a staff of ten teaching faculty who divide their efforts between teaching and research.
Biology majors at Lafayette enjoy small classes and laboratory sections, even in General Biology (Biol. 101/102, section size 35-60 students). Our faculty are committed to undergraduate teaching and about half of our majors perform individual laboratory research projects under the guidance of faculty mentors. Many of these research projects result in published scientific papers with students as co-authors (15 such papers were published in 2004-05) and/or public presentations at state and national scientific meetings (24 such presentations based on student/faculty research were given in 2004-05).
In 1961 the Biology Department began to develop its undergraduate teaching assistant program, in which junior and senior majors are hired to assist faculty in teaching the laboratory sections of their courses. During the 2004-05 academic year 29 students served as teaching assistants in the 40 laboratory sections offered in departmental courses. Teaching assistants give brief introductory lectures at the beginning of laboratory sections and learn how to grade laboratory reports and give laboratory practical examinations. Many of our majors who have gone on to graduate programs have found this training very useful when they have become graduate teaching fellows.
The department offers two degree programs, a B.S. curriculum intended to prepare professional biologists for admission to graduate programs and an A.B. curriculum for students who want to major in biology but also want more curricular freedom to investigate other areas of study. In 2005, 18 students graduated as B.S. Biology majors and 10 as A.B. Biology majors; there were a total of 174 biology majors in all four classes.
The Biology Department also supports Lafayette's interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program.
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