Hi Ross, Jon and the list of many other responders,
I think that all of us on this list agree that plants and animals are both
worthy of study and we see no reason to cut out botanical study. I try to
emphasize the importance of Botany as well as the importance of animals to
plants and I think my students apprreciate the importance of plants. Our
problem is with the people in power, who slipped through the cracks when
they got their degrees, and didn't have a botany experience. Maybe they
didn't have a good botany experience. We have two faculty members who make
it a point of saying they never had botany and it hasn't hurt their careers
any. They don't have any say in whether or not our majors take botany or
not (thank goodness). They just won't advise students into upper division
Botany courses unless they don't think they can handle the "more rigerous"
molecular and biochemical classes so, I get to be the one to flunk them and
thus word gets out that Botany is too hard. I try to make Botany an
interesting experience and, so far, my advanced classes continue to fill.
I guess we just have to keep on top of what is going on, such as on this
preprofessional grant writing committee. The grant tries to direct a
students training from the age of 13, through college, This sounds to me
like what I always thought of the Soviet system of taking a child, at an
early age, and grooming them for an event to take place 10 or 20 years in
the future. I know this is done in lots of areas in lots of countries but,
what will be done withh all the preprofessionals that don't cut it in med
school when that's all they've been groomed for in the past?
I'll shut up now and go teach my Intro.Botany class about stems.
Cyndy
Dr. Cynthia M. Galloway
Assoc. Professor of Biology
Dept. of Biology
Campus Box 158
Texas A&M University
Kingsville, TX 78363
(512)593-3790
