Plant Biology or plain Biology

[Mike Crisp]

>        There is a proposal at our university to merge Plant Biology with
>various other departments under a massive umbrella department called
>Biology.  I (and others) think this bodes ill for Plant Biology, but need
>some data to back up my intutitive arguments (or to convince me that my
>fears are unfounded). If any of you have information about the results of
>such a merger at another institution, and can help me by providing all
>relevant details, I would be most appreciative.  Also, any references to
>an eloquent, published argument that not only extolls the virtues of
>maintaining a botany department with classical disciplines (anatomy,
>taxonomy, etc.), but does so in terms administrators can understand
>($$$$$$$ benefits), would be helpful.

It is five years since our botany department was merged with the zoology
department.  Various names were mooted for the new dapartment, some verging
on the impolite, but we settled on the 'Division of Botany and Zoology', or
(appropriately?) 'BoZo' for short.  This merger has definitely been to the
disadvantage of teaching botany in this university if not to research.  One
problem is that anybody who was vaguely connected with molecular biology
was transferred to an expanded biochemistry department.  Needless to say,
it has bcome necessary to re-establish molecular labs in BoZo, as molecular
techniques have become adopted in all branches of biology.  The greatest
problem is that the 4.5 academics (faculty) in botany are vastly
outnumbered by the zoologists and microbiologists (11).  Thus in meetings
our combined voice is weak.  With our low academic numbers, we are able to
teach only two 'pure' botany courses among the many that are offered by our
department.  Most of the teaching done by myself and my botanical
colleagues is in general biology courses, e.g. 'Evolution', and
'Comparative Biology and Systematics', plus many ecology courses.  Perhaps
this is not a bad thing in itself, but students tend to think of themselves
as being primarily interested in either botany or zoology.  Those
interested in botany, seeing so few botany courses on offer, become
discouraged, and our botany student numbers are low.  The latter further
reduces our political power in the department.  I should add that the
graduate students numbers in botany are disproportionately high, so one
cannot argue that we have inferior academics.
One strong argument that can be made in favour of independence for a botany
department is that on average botanists tend to have greater capacity to
win large research grants than zoologists.  At least that is the case here.

Here is a paper that may be helpful to you.

Bolick, M.R. (1989) Botany departments vs. biology departments: Is there a
difference? Plant Science Bulletin 35: 2-3.



---------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael D. Crisp
Senior Lecturer in Plant Systematics
Division of Botany & Zoology
Australian National University       Phone int+ 61 6 249 2882
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia         Fax int+ 61 6 249 5573

  WWW http://online.anu.edu.au/BoZo/profiles.html
---------------------------------------------------------------