Arizona State University School of Life Sciences

[conceptualized and designed; to be initiated July 1, 2003]

Another important example of intellectual fusion at Arizona State University is the reorganization of our biological faculties. Historically housed in three departments—biology, microbiology, and plant biology—ASU will launch a new School of Life Sciences. No longer encumbered by the artificiality of disciplinary boundaries, this new school will merge the talents of more than 100 life scientists, engineers, philosophers, social scientists, and ethicists in a new kind of teaching and research enterprise, one focused on advancing our understanding of nature while at the same time using that understanding to build better lives. The reorganization represents the collaborative effort of hundreds of faculty members from the three departments.

In the new School of Life Sciences, faculty will self-organize around the great questions of the day, students will move between faculty of various disciplinary backgrounds, developing research topics and learning in new types of inter- and transdisciplinary settings. Our enhanced new fusion structure will allow the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences to expand dramatically the range of problems and questions that our institution is able to address.