Meeting Abstract
Southwestern College (SC) is a small liberal arts institution in Winfield, KS. Founded in 1885, the college has a long academic history in the biological sciences but it is unique among landlocked states in offering a marine biology degree program since 1985. The idea of such a major was seeded in a long history of SC biology faculty leading Jan-term road trips out to the West Coast and the attendance of SC students in summer courses at the University of Oregon’s Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB). The affiliation of OIMB with the East-West Three Seas Program inspired SC faculty to develop a marine biology degree in Kansas; a program that would provide a track for high school graduates with a genuine passion for marine biology to pursue it academically without relocating out of the region. Majors must spend at least one summer, ideally between their second and third years, at a marine field station taking field courses to acquire at least 10 credit hours in marine science. On main campus, majors take a lab-based marine biology course and a 1 credit hour marine biology seminar course. In addition, majors take five additional lab-based courses from among the following: ecology, animal behavior, animal physiology, biochemistry, freshwater biology, developmental biology, and microbiology. Recognizing that marine biology is largely a graduate field, majors are strongly encouraged to apply for research internships at marine field stations for the summer between their third and fourth years in order to prepare for graduate school application. Of the 29 graduates in the program since 2003, ten of them went on to graduate school in the aquatic sciences. Although recent changes in the academic calendar eliminated the opportunity for Jan-Term trips, efforts are underway to develop May-term road trips to coastal locations to enhance the SC marine biology program.
