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Department of Biology

Master of Science in Biology

Degree Requirements

A student's Master of Science program must be initiated under the direction of a major porfessor and approved by the head of the Department of Biology and the Dean of the Graduate School. The thesis option is offered for those students preparing for further graduate work in biology. For thesis admission, a student must select a research topic and be approved by the biology graduate faculty member who represents this discipline. The non-thesis option is offered for those student desiring to improve their positions and skills as a secondary school or junior college teachers, laboratory technicians, consultants, or government employees.

Thesis Option
Typically the thesis option is followed by students who plan to pursue a doctoral degree. Thesis students must complete a minimum of 30 semester credit hours of graduate work, including 18 to 24 semester credit hours in biology graduate courses and 0 to 6 credit hours in supporting electives. Six additional semester credit hours in biology are awarded upon successful completion of the thesis. Admission into the biology graduate program as a thesis student requires acceptance into a research program of one of the biology graduate faculty. Thesis research is available in systematics, including vascular plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, ecology, microbiology, and molecular biology. Students interested in admission as a thesis student to the biology graduate program should first contact a biology graduate faculty member conducting research in an area of interest to the student.

Non-Thesis Option
The non-thesis biology graduate student is required to complete 27 to 36 semester credit hours of biology graduate courses and 0 to 9 hours in supporting electives. A non-thesis graduate student (i.e. a student who either has chosen the non-thesis option or has not been accepted into a graduate faculty member's research program) is required to take three hours of literature-based research to fulfill degree requirements. This research is to be based on a thorough review of the literature on a topic acceptable to both the student and the supervising graduate faculty member. The grade will be based on a 20-30 typewritten page summary paper. If a non-thesis student is interested in conducting additional research, he or she may seek approval from a member of the biology graduate faculty and the Head of the Department of Biology for additional laboratory or field based study after the three hour research requirement has been successfully completed.

Graduate Faculty