Meeting Abstract

P2.64  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Vertebrate morphology in the biology curricula of four-year colleges and comprehensive universities: observations, data, and a suggestion DARDA, D.M.; Central Washington University dardad@cwu.edu

In general, as biology departments at four-year colleges and comprehensive universities have bolstered the curriculum in cell and molecular biology and emphasized the increasing importance of ecological study, the amount of curricular space for organismal level courses has decreased. In the anatomical realm, classical embryology and histology have been pushed aside to make room for other priorities. Each of the few remaining courses offers a limited view of vertebrate morphology as a whole. Given that students struggle to make room for even a single anatomical course in their undergraduate program, they are left with an incomplete perspective on animal form and function and are potentially underprepared for the rigors of medical school and other professional programs. In this poster, I summarize initial data resulting from an informal survey I conducted among the four‑year institutions in Washington State and suggest how the undergraduate vertebrate morphology curriculum might be modified to meet student needs given the constraints of staffing and time.