Inspired by the Integrated Science
Program at Princeton and with sage
advice from David Botstein, director
of that program, Tyson and colleagues set about crafting a program
that would meet the unique needs of students in the College of Science
at Virginia Tech. Those needs included the development of a curriculum
that would serve as a gateway not only to the systems biology degree,
but also to the other three new programs as well as to the existing
degrees in biological sciences, chemistry, geosciences, mathematics,
physics, and statistics.
The team spent the better part of the year poring over the syllabi and
learning outcomes for foundational courses in biological sciences,
chemistry, physics, calculus, linear algebra, statistics, and computer
science. They reviewed accreditation documents within disciplines.
They debated which parts of a traditional curriculum were essential
and which were not. They identified unifying themes around which to
organize the subject matter traditionally covered in three or four different courses and textbooks. They considered a range of pedagogical
approaches: lectures, team-based learning, case studies, and problembased laboratory exercises.
The curriculum that emerged was radically
different from anything ever taught before
at Virginia Tech, or just about anywhere
else. The ISC spans the first four semesters,
or two full years, and students enroll in an
-John Tyson eight-credit mega-course each