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Biology

Truman Biology Quick Facts

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  • The Biology Discipline includes 25 full-time and 2 part-time faculty members.
  • 90% of the full-time faculty members hold a terminal degree (Ph.D.).
  • 44% of all Biology faculty members are female.
  • Our faculty members are diverse: they were born and raised in many different states and several countries, they attended an array of public and private undergraduate institutions, and their Ph.D.'s were received from a variety of research institutions from within the U.S. and abroad.
  • Our faculty members are active teacher-scholars who regularly work collaboratively with students on undergraduate research projects.
  • Our faculty members are professionally active at the local, state, national, and international levels.  For example, they currently, or have recently, served as Executive Officers, members of Executive Boards, and on Committees of the following organizations:  Council on Undergraduate Research, Botanical Society of America, Entomological Society of America, American Microscopical Society, American Society of Mammalogists, Mycological Society of America, Fulbright Scholar Review Board, Missouri Academy of Science, and Sigma Xi - The Scientific Research Society.
  • Our faculty regularly travel internationally to study, attend conferences, and conduct research, and they often take Truman undergraduates with them.  For example, in recent years Biology faculty members have traveled to Antarctica, Africa, Austria, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and Sweden.
  • The Biology Discipline is currently hosting two visiting scholars.

Facilities and Equipment

  • All Biology faculty members are located in the completed phases of our new Science building (Magruder Hall), a $26 million building completed in fall 2005. 
  • We have eleven new teaching laboratories in the new science building.
  • In addition to teaching labs and associated preparation rooms, Biology oversees a variety of other shared-use rooms, including two student project labs, four Instrument and Equipment labs, a Microscopy and Imaging lab, a Greenhouse, and Truman's Natural History Collection.
  • Each full-time Biology faculty member has a student-faculty collaborative research lab used to mentor undergraduate students in conducting scholarly work.
  • The “Biology Center” is a student-centered area nested among the Biology faculty offices and research labs.  This is a comfortable space used for studying, gathering, and socializing, and is generally a hub of activity on the third floor.
  • We have state-of-the-art instrumentation in our teaching and research labs to support work at all levels of biological inquiry (e.g., cellular and molecular, organismal, and ecological levels).
  • Our teaching and research labs, as well as our common-use facilities, include numerous computers, and the science building houses many computer classrooms and open labs.
  • We have contemporary transmission and scanning electron microscopes, each with new digital imaging systems.
  • Within the last three years, Biology faculty members have been awarded grants totaling over $3.5 million from the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies to purchase new instruments, to enhance our curriculum, and to support student-faculty collaborative research.

Curriculum

  • We offer both a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Biology.
  • Students can opt to graduate with Departmental Honors in Biology in combination with either the B.A. or B.S. degree.
  • In addition to Biology coursework, requirements for the B.S. and B.A. degrees include one to two years of chemistry, one year of physics, and one calculus course.
  • There are numerous opportunities for students to conduct undergraduate research, either on-campus with a Truman faculty member or off-campus, both during the academic year and during the summer. 
  • A wide spectrum of study abroad and internship experiences are available.
  • We have a weekly seminar series in which we host speakers from a variety of institutions.  Speakers present current work and recruit Truman students for their summer research or internship experiences, as well as for their graduate and professional programs.
  • We have a new collaborative initiative with the Mathematics and Computer Science Division to develop interdisciplinary courses and research projects in computational biology.
  • Our largest lectures might have 72 students, but the majority of classes have only 20-50 students, and many elective classes are as small as 8-10 students.
  • Biology faculty members teach all of our lab sections, and labs have 24 or fewer students.
  • We have cooperative programs with several institutions.  Some include the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, Gulf Coast Marine Lab (MS), and Reis Biological Station (Steelville, MO).
  • We have a small Master of Science (M.S.) in Biology degree program, with a new 5-year combined under-graduate/graduate option.

Students

  • Truman graduates the second-largest number of undergraduate biological and physical science majors among public institutions in Missouri.
  • Approximately 55-60% of Biology students are female.
  • Students regularly present the results of research investigations at scientific conferences.
  • Student organizations include ßßß (Biology Honor Society), AMSA (American Medical Student Organization), Pre-Vet Club, Herpetology Club, PLANTS (the botany club), ECO (Ecological Campus Organization), and NSTA (National Science Teachers Association, student affiliate).
  • Over the past eight years approximately 35% of our graduates have entered health professional schools  (e.g., medical, dental, veterinary, optometry, physical therapy), approximately 35% have entered graduate schools (e.g., Ph.D., M.S., M.A.E.), and 30% have entered the work force directly.
  • Over the past eight years 76% of those students who have applied to medical schools have been accepted.