I certainly agree with Kirk and Jim and the others who have voiced their
dismay at the loss of invertebrate zoology courses from the marine biology
curriculum but I know that the fault is not all due to molecular types. My own
invertebrate zoology course was downgraded from required to elective in our
marine science major due to enrollment pressure. Being a small private
university with rather high tuition, we were under tremendous pressure to get
students through the major in four years. The recent enrollment boom has
stretched our teaching resources to the limit and as a result, several
formerly required courses were lumped into categories where students choose
one or another from a list of courses. This is a suboptimal way of designing
curricula but have you tried to get new faculty lines lately? We simply could
not accommodate the growing number of students in our program. Now that my
invertebrate zoology course is an elective, I have to compete for students
with courses like "coral reefs in Honduras" and "behavioral biology" and
"tropical biology in Costa Rica" which are favored by the students and the
administration since they are effective recruiting tools.
I respond by engaging individual students in my research and independent
studies hoping that they will gain a foothold and continue on. Sometimes it
works. I feel like I have changed from an R-strategy to a K-strategy where I
put more effort into individual students hoping to launch them into careers
with invertebrates. We all have to do our best under the circumstances to
compensate for the changes that are coming.
Stanley A. Rice
Professor
Department of Biology
University of Tampa
Tampa, FL 33606
srice at ut.edu
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