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MCS College Council
May 12, 2006

In Attendance:
Richard McCullough
Gregg Franklin
Eric Grotzinger
Hyung Kim
Russ Walker (for Roy Nicolaides)
Curtis Meyer (for Fred Gilman)
Amy Burkert
Rea Freeland
Gordon Rule
Robert Swendsen
Zebulun Krahn
Claire Tomesch


  1. Proposed New Lab Course: 38-412 Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Science: Modeling Cellular Growth and Differentiation (handout)
    Chris Borysenko and Eric Grotzinger presented a proposal for a new interdisciplinary lab course, 38-412 Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Science: Modeling Cellular Growth and Differentiation. Goals for developing interdisciplinary lab courses included the first year lab course, EUREKA, modules to include in existing lab courses within the departments, examples of which were introduced in Chemistry's Lab IV and Randy Feenstra's Nanotechnology course, and an upper level interdisciplinary lab, which would be accomplished with the introduction of 38-412.

    The target audience would be junior and senior students from MCS, CIT, and SCS. The course fits into the curricula of each of the four departments in MCS as addressed in the handout. Prerequisites would be Calculus I and II (21-120 and 21-122) and Modern Biology (03-121).

    Questions and concerns included the following:
    • Chemistry, biology, and physics majors at the junior and senior level will have good lab skills and a lot of experience in the lab, whereas math and computer science majors will not. There was concern over how well these groups of students will function as a group, but the intent is for the students to learn how to rely on colleagues who have more experience than they do and to learn how to seek out help when needed. The concept of the cell as a unit of information should be accessible to both experienced and inexperienced students.
    • Mathematica, which will be used in the course, is also used in Lab 4 and the initial response from students in that course has not been good. Use of Mathematica in 38-412, however, will not be extensive and many of the problems can also be solved by hand as well. Only the final project requires use of Mathematica and it is hoped students who are more comfortable with it can help those who are not.
    • There will be 12 students in the course, with two chosen from each of the target departments (biology, chemistry, math, physics, computer science, engineering).
    • Nine units leaves only one hour for out of class work. However, the course has been designed so that not a lot of out of class work is required. Lab notebooks, using NSF guidelines, can be done in lab and the second ;lab session allows additional time for in-class learning including work with Mathematica.
    • This course would count as a lab requirement for CS majors. It will be roughly equivalent in terms of level of difficulty and time commitment, to 09-101 and 33-104.
    • The decision of which requirements are filled by this course should be up to each department. Departments should make this decision in time for the October college council meeting if possible. The council generally like to see a new course piloted before making this decision.
    • If the course is successful as a pilot, it will be submitted for approval as a permanent course.


    The following suggestions were made:
    • 15-100 Introductory/Intermediate Programming should be added to the list of prerequisites.
    • A formal lab report could be added as a requirement. This might also be useful to have if real results are generated and need to be documented.


    COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION: The proposal was unanimously approved. This approves the addition of the course 38-412 Special Topics in Interdisciplinary Science with Modeling Cellular Growth and Differentiation as its first iteration. Additional topics would also need to be approved by college council since special topics courses are typically approved by the department and this is a college level course that does not belong to a department.


  2. Change in Operations Research and Statistics Concentrations in Mathematical Sciences (handout)
    Russ Walker presented a proposal from the Department of Mathematical Sciences to change requirements for two of their concentrations. 21-355 Principles of Real Analysis would no longer be a strict requirement for Operations Research or Statistics Concentrations. Students pursuing those concentrations would have the opportunity to take that course as a depth elective and would be strongly encouraged to do so if they plan to go to graduate school. The number of depth electives required would be increased by one for students in each of those concentrations.

    COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION: The changes were unanimously approved.


  3. Proposed New Graduate Course: 09-705 Chemosensors and Biosensors (handout)
    Hyung Kim presented a proposal for a new graduate course in Chemistry: 09-705 Chemosensors and Biosensors. The course is targeted at graduate students with background in organic chemistry but advanced undergraduates who have taken Organic Chemistry I and II could take it. The council suggested that 09-217 Organic Chemistry I and 09-218 Organic Chemistry II, or permission of the instructor be listed as prerequisites. Prerequisites are not typically listed for graduate courses, but since undergraduates might be interested in it they should be listed for this course. Biomedical engineering and ECE students may also be interested.

    COLLEGE COUNCIL ACTION: The proposal was unanimously approved.