By Meredith Lyverse
Bellarmine’s biology and psychology departments have banded together to create a new neuroscience major.
Dr. Paul Kiser, professor and chair of the biology department, and Dr. Joy Jacobs-Lawson, associate professor and chair of the psychology department, have been developing the highly requested program for almost three years, and it will be available in the fall.
“There wasn’t a lot of resistance to try and go forward [with developing the major],” Kiser said.
Kiser said he previously offered a popular neuroscience course as a biology elective in the Spring 2018 semester, and many students wanted to join. “We thought we would get 12 students, so we capped it around there and blew through that,” Kiser said. “Then we got to 20 and had to put a hard cap on that, and then ended up with 21 anyway.”
Jacobs-Lawson said there were several psychology students asking for other neuroscience courses after taking PSYC 240, the psychology version of the introductory neuroscience course.
“We have a lot of students who take that course and want more,” Jacob-Lawson said. “It was just kind of natural with the resources we have at Bellarmine in terms of people who can teach the courses. It kind of was a no-brainer.”
Kiser and Jacobs-Lawson have outlined the major with its required courses depending on the student’s status, as well as neuroscience electives for students in the physical therapy, behavioral neuroscience and medical school tracks.
Sophomore Sasha Domenech-Ames is a biology major with a psychology minor on the pre-med track, which Kiser and Jacobs-Lawson said is the usual major and minor for students interested in neuroscience.
Domenech-Ames said she plans to add neuroscience as one of her majors in the fall because it will benefit her later in her academic and professional career. “I’d like to be a child doctor, and neuroscience will help me understand how to help treat them,” Domenech-Ames said.
Jacobs-Lawson said the major will give students an academic advantage when they enter graduate school. “They’re likely to be stronger going into those type of graduate programs than if they came out with a biology or psychology degree,” Jacobs-Lawson said.
Courses required for the major include biology, psychology, chemistry and physics. Junior Zoe Rister is a psychology and criminal justice major but said she might have dropped criminal justice if neuroscience had been an available major when she was a first-year or sophomore.
“A lot of the graduate programs for neuroscience do require basic to advanced biology and chemistry knowledge, which are not required courses for a psychology or criminal justice degree,” Rister said. “With the biological aspect of the brain that I enjoy, it would have been a lot more beneficial if I had been a neuroscience major.”
Although Rister is not going to take on a neuroscience major because it would extend her time at Bellarmine, she said she plans to take a few neuroscience courses next year.
Kiser said adding the neuroscience major due to requests from students and encouragement from the administration is just another part of the Bellarmine difference. “It brings value to the university as a whole,” Kiser said.