Beginning with two trial classes next semester, the undergraduate biology major will undergo a significant transformation that affects multiple majors in three of Cornell’s colleges. After two years of planning, approval of the change was granted Oct. 22, according to Prof. Cole Gilbert, Entomology.

Starting next year, all but one semester of lab has been eliminated from the introductory requirements for the biology major, according to Gilbert, instructor for BIOG 1101, the lecture course that will be eliminated.

“Instead of intro lecture — this course will disappear — you’ll have to choose two out of these three options: Ecology and the Environment, Physiology, or Cell and Developmental bio for a total of six courses” along with introductory lab, BIOEE 2781: Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, BIOGD 2810: Genetics, and one of the Introduction to Biochemistry courses, Gilbert announced to his class last Monday.

“The idea is that there will no longer be this general survey course of biology and that you’ll jump right in with a deeper but more specialized course,” he said.

Some freshman students are already taking specialized courses, according to Gilbert. Biology faculty advisors are recommending students with Advanced Placement credit for Introductory Biology to start with BIOEE 2780, which has already been modified to accommodate freshman.

“The concept is to teach a relatively small group for a while,” said Prof. Robert Turgeon, plant biology. Turgeon has taught introductory lectures for majors during the spring semester for the past three years. This will be his last semester doing so. “Different universities use different ways to introduce kids to biology. It is very hard to come up with the best way,” Turgeon said.

To answer this question, members of all disciplines within the department of biological sciences formed the Biology Curriculum Transition Committee. The instructors of the introductory courses, however, did not play a major role during the deliberation process, according to Turgeon. The members of the committee were unavailable for comment.

This restructuring not only affects the biology major, but also other life sciences majors in the College of Human Ecology and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences that require introductory biology.

The nutritional science, plant science, animal science, entomology and human biology, health and society majors all require introductory biology. It is still unclear how each major will respond to the elimination of the class.

“The introductory course will probably remain for non-biology students who are pre-med,” Turgeon said. The course offerings are still being worked on for next year, but the auto-tutorial introductory class and the non-majors survey course will most likely stay.

This spring two newly-developed electives, Physiology and Cell & Developmental Biology, will be taught for the first time.

Each will be capped at around 30 students and may require an application to enroll this spring, according to Gilbert. Next year, all three electives will be available both semesters for anyone wishing to enroll.

Without the broad introductory class and choice of electives, there will be some topics to which students will not be exposed. Yet many veterans of the introductory classes do not see the harm.

“It was stuff I had already seen before. What it did was solidify concepts,” said Christina Masco ‘10, a biology major who took introductory biology. “The intro lab was very good to go through because the lab program at my high school wasn’t very good.”

Some students currently in the introductory lecture agree. In a clicker survey during BIOG 1101, nearly two-thirds of the students responded that they would rather take the new electives in the spring than continue with lecture.

“I would have liked a more focused course because there is a lot of stuff in biology that doesn’t really have to do with stuff that I am looking at to study, “ said Barbara Moony ’13, a prospective plant science major.

Still, a third of the class disagreed. “I would stick with the course. People tried to assure me that medical schools wouldn’t mind, but it seems a little sketchy,” Nicole Karch ‘13 said. She added that, after learning about plant biology this semester, she is considering switching her concentration, something she might never have discovered in the new system.

“It’s not good if you know what you want to do, but it is good if you don’t,” Moony said.

One of the more advanced classes in which students can directly enroll is BIOEE 2781: Evolution. The course now has a broader scope — both evolution and biodiversity are included — as well as a large portion of freshmen.

“We’ve known about it for a while. Nothing like this gets decided quickly,” said Prof. Irby Lovette, biology, who works at the laboratory of ornithology teaches the evolutionary biology core course. “We were lucky because we were already reorganizing the class before we knew. We have modified the level of material because half of the class is new to Cornell,” Lovette said. “In our case, the advising office particularly recommended those students with AP credit to join the class.”

In the new organization, only one semester of lab would be required, instead of the full-year version most students take. Although TAs and course administrators may wish for the two semesters to include slightly different material or experiments to prevent monotony, keeping fall and spring courses interchangeable is important so students would have more flexibility.

The lab will adjust to suit new requirements as well. Although the poster project will remain, most of the experiments will be spanning more than one week and new technological components will be added as early as this spring, according to Kuei-Chiu Chen, director of BIO 1103-1104 Introductory Biology laboratories.

“Each [semester] can satisfy a particular concept list,” Chen said. “But we are still working on it.”