Nine natural science hours are required for general education credits, but next year will be a different story.

Faculty members are looking at decreasing the number from nine to six for this fall’s catalog. They plan on doing this by removing the computer science courses from the list of classes that count toward the required science credits.

“Right now, computer science is counting toward general education in natural sciences, and it’s not a natural science,” Professor of Biology Darcy Russell said. “It was a bad decision when it was made a long time ago … before I even got here.”

Russell, along with Professor of Mathematics Jean Johnson and others, has been working to form a plan to fix this situation for future years.

“We, as a building, decided that it would be best to take computer science courses out of the gen ed curriculum in the science category,” Johnson said. “I had originally thought that CS151 (Computing for Non-Science Majors) would still meet the gen ed requirements for students who took it who were under the old catalog, where they needed nine hours and computer science was still included. But, Ruth Miller, (director of records and registration), informed me that once a course is no longer listed as a gen ed, then it doesn’t count as a gen ed for anyone who takes it.”

A new plan is in the works, which will most likely include increasing the number of sections of other natural science courses, so students under the old catalog are still able to meet the nine hour science requirement.

Johnson said the plan will be in place for the 2009-2010 school year.

Students also will be able to switch to the new catalog if desired.

“We don’t want to make the burden on students harder, we want to make it easier,” Russell said. “You have to be careful though, because you have to make all of the changes (when switching to a new catalog). You can’t just say I’m changing to the new catalog for this gen ed, but not for anything else. You have to pick a catalog and go with the whole thing.”

Aside from removing computer science courses from the general education program, the department has completed the search for a new computer science professor. 

Norm Mast, who is a database administrator on campus, will be teaching computer science full time next year.<br/>"We had a search committee and had people all across campus on it," Johnson said. "I think everybody was impressed with Norm. He's going to be a great addition.""We had a search committee and had people all across campus on it," Johnson said. "I think everybody was impressed with Norm. He's going to be a great addition."
“We had a search committee and had people all across campus on it,” Johnson said. “I think everybody was impressed with Norm. He’s going to be a great addition.”

Mast, who  has taught as an adjunct in the past, said the move seemed natural because he had been doing computer work and teaching for several years.

“I think it will be an exciting time,” he said. “I’ll enjoy developing relationships with the students and faculty that I don’t have now.”