Back to Main College Council Page | Back to MCS Home Page

MCS College Council
October 8, 2003

In Attendance:
Richard McCullough
Gregg Franklin
Eric Grotzinger
Elizabeth Jones
Hyung Kim
Roy Nicolaides
Frederick Gilman
Amy Burkert
Michael Widom
Paul Karol
Rea Freeland
Shiu Fai
Ksenija Simic

I. Request for Approval of New Course: Bioinformatics Data Integration Practicum

Beth Jones presented a proposal for a new biology course, 03-513/03-713 Bioinformatics Data Integration Practicum. The course will be offered in the first half of the spring semester, for 6 units, and will be taught by Bob Murphy.

The course was initially offered as an independent study in the second half of the spring 2003 semester. The department believes it should be offered as course by itself and that it should be moved to the first half of the semester. Offering the course in the first half of the semester facilitates further interaction between the students an the company, such as arrangement of summer internships, which it is often too late to do in the second half.

Members of College Council questioned whether there would be legal issues regarding intellectual property resulting from course projects. Rick suggested that the department check with Jon Cagan in Mechanical Engineering, who is involved in administering a similar course in his department. He also suggested that they discuss plans to work with an outside company with Susan Burkett, the Associate Provost for Academic Administration & Research, who negotiates with companies that work with the university in this manner. Amy volunteered to contact Jon Cagan and Susan Burkett. Rick will be kept informed about the progress made on this issue.

One wording change was proposed for the course description. The last sentence reads "Selected students will have the opportunity to present their work to the company." This should be changed to read "Selected students will have the opportunity to present their work to the partner.", so that it is consistent with the first sentence which refers to an industrial or government partner.

COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION:
College Council unanimously approved the proposal, pending the change described above.

II. Request for Approval of 09-519/719: Bioorganic: Peptides, Proteins, and Combinatorial Chemistry

Hyung Kim presented a proposal for a new chemistry course, Bioorganic: Peptides, Proteins, and Combinatorial Chemistry. The range of topics in bioorganic chemistry is too broad for one course, so the department would like to expand to a second course that will covers additional topics. This will be a 9 unit course (12 unit at the graduate level), taught by Danith Ly.

CUA recommended that the course names reflect the topics covered, and not include numbers - i.e., "Bioorganic I" and "Bioorganic II". The courses can be taken independently of one another and neither is a prerequisite for the other, so numbering them might confuse some students.

The course will be taken primarily by chemistry majors and minors.

COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION:
College Council unanimously approved the proposal.

III. Update on First-Year Interdisciplinary Laboratory Course

Eric Grotzinger gave an update on the new first-year interdisciplinary lab course, 38-101 Eureka! The course features a three hour lab on Tuesdays and a one hour lecture on Thursdays.

The lectures are independent of the lab and seek to showcase the interdisciplinary nature of scientific research. Guest speakers such as President Jared Cohon, Dr. Sara Majetich, Dr. Gordon Rule, Dr. Alan Waggoner, Dr. Jon Minden, and Dr. Victor Weedn have presented at Thursday lectures. Students have been thoroughly engaged and asked relevant questions of the guest lecturers.

One of the objectives of the course is to get students to understand objective analysis of data. The lab portion of the course consists of three lab modules. Groups of students rotate through two of these modules, and will participate in a final Crime Scene Investigation project during which they apply their knowledge from the first two lab modules to solve a crime. Russ Walker created the crime and wrote a description, along with numerous interviews with suspects and investigators.

The lab modules include:
The final project will feature lab activities that teach students about isolating and comparing DNA, determining whether tire tracks found at the crime scene match those of a suspect's car, examining gun shot residue, and analyzing paint and ink samples.

Thanks go to Carrie Doonan for helping with preparation of the DNA module, to Bill Brown for helping with preparation of the course and assisting in the lab on Tuesdays, and to Beth Jones for the contribution from her HHMI grant which purchased equipment for the lab.

The modules used for this course are very transportable and have already been modified and used for other events, such as a recent tour of the new lab space for Carnegie Mellon's top donors. A modified version of some of the modules will also be used for tours during minority recruitment weekends.

The instructors are not able to sustain the course in its current format, so the next step is to determine how to modify it so that one instructor, with teaching assistants, is able to manage the course. The instructor will most likely be a new hire who will dedicate significant time to this course.