A proposal is under consideration to allow the Division of Biological Sciences to reconstitute itself into a college.

DBS started 34 years ago as an intercollege unit with ties to the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the College of Letters and Science. Discussions within the division for the past several years indicate a desire to transform the division into a college.

As of 2002-03, DBS has 135 faculty members, 370 staff, 4,500 undergraduate students, 518 graduate students and an annual budget of about $40 million. The division administers nine undergraduate majors in biology.

"Becoming a college won't result in any change to our size, the financial resources allocated to us, the amount of space or the number of FTE," said Phyllis Wise, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences. "But it would help to clarify who we are to our students and their parents and enhance our ability to build our programs and reputation."

Under bylaws, both colleges where DBS faculty members hold appointments -- the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the College of Letters and Science -- must approve the reconstitution. Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has already given the green light, and the plan is now under discussion in Letters and Science.

If Letters and Science approves the proposal, it then goes before the UC Davis Academic Senate. An affirmative vote there sends it to the UC Davis deans and vice chancellors for consideration. The UC Office of the President and the regents will make the final approval.

According to its proposal package, becoming a college would allow DBS to:

• remove cumbersome processes for faculty promotion and merit actions;
• give faculty a full voice in the Academic Senate;
• allow control over processes of review, change and approval of courses and curricula;
• enable it to create its own college degree requirements based on the best features of its current parent colleges;
• develop bylaws and committee structures;
• grant undergraduate degrees and honors programs; and
• allow for a parallel structure with many similar colleges and schools in the country.

Executive Associate Dean for the Division of Biological Sciences Thomas Rost said, "The reasons for doing this now in our history are related to clarifying who we are both inside and outside the campus, and simplifying the processes we follow for faculty personnel actions and matters of curriculum."

He added, "We have considered financial impacts, and other than changing business cards and Web site addresses and things like that there aren't any that we have identified. Our DBS budget is already independent of the College of Letters and Science and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and that will remain the same."

The proposal has already progressed through several steps:

• UC Davis Academic Senate committees approved the pre-proposal and recommended submittal of a full proposal on March 10, 2003.
• Chairs and faculty of DBS Sections approved the proposal in July, 2003.
• College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean Neal Van Alfen approved it on Aug. 1, 2003.
• The College of Letter and Science divisional deans approved the proposal in July and August 2003;
• Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty approved it by paper ballot -- 172 yes, and 78 no -- on Jan. 29; and
• The Assembly of the Faculty of L&S voted March 2 to approve the measure, 26 yes, 16 no, with four abstentions.

Faculty of L&S bylaws permit questions decided by the Assembly to go to mail ballots, and one has been requested on the question of reconstituting DBS.

Those results are likely to be tabulated in a couple weeks, said Peter Rodman, an anthropology professor and chair of the Faculty of the College of Letters and Science. He makes the point that the vote in Letters and Science is to be made by "faculty" as defined in UC Academic Senate bylaws.

"Establishing a new college is not trivial," Rodman said. "The decision will affect thousands of undergraduates through the long future of our campus, and once it is done, there is little chance the change can be revisited. Committees in the College of Letters and Science have taken the time provided by College and Senate by-laws to fulfill our responsibilities to those future students. When our ballot is complete, we'll know that the faculty's decision was based on considering the matter quite seriously."

Wise noted that reconstitution adds a sense of "efficiency and clarity" and would streamline procedures for faculty, students and staff, including the educational process. DBS has five academic sections -- evolution and ecology; microbiology; molecular and cellular biology; neurobiology; physiology and behavior; and plant biology. Wise anticipates a the new college would retain the section model.

Another reason to reconstitute as a college, Wise added, is that it would parallel the structure of many similar universities in the U.S. UC Irvine, for example, has a School of Biological Sciences, and the University of Minnesota has a newly formed College of Biological sciences. She points out that the UC Davis campus has a breadth of life sciences that is matched by only a few universities in the country.

"With its own dean's office, budget, faculty and staff, and curriculum," Wise said. "DBS now operates as a college in most every way -- except in name."

DBS has functioned as a division for the past 10 years after reorganizing in the early 1990s. Its founding departments were created as early as 1922.