Except for those of you who are recent grads or among those who received our newsletter of 1994, it may seem this newsletter is coming from a department you do not know.  Six years ago, Botany and Zoology faculty joined to form a Biology Department, with Dr. Steve Kaulenas (former Head of Zoology) as Head, and Dr. James Walker (former Head of Botany) as Associate Head. After completion of Dr. Kaulenas' term, Dr. Chris Woodcock took the Headship.
In order to keep some sense of unity in the plant field, a Plant Biology Graduate Program (PBGP) was formed within the new Biology Department. During the 1997-1998 academic year, the PBGP became campus-wide for all faculty working in the plant field. The current director of the PBGP, Dr. Peter Hepler, is a 20 year faculty member of the University and Ray Ethan Torrey Professor of Botany. 
The merger of the Botany and Zoology Departments was just one of the administrative changes which have occurred on this campus in recent years. As in higher education elsewhere in the United States, major efforts are being made to reduce isolation between departments and "blur" departmental boundaries. The Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, which has been in existence for more than 15 years, was the first of the graduate programs to cross departmental lines.  It was followed by the Neuroscience and Behavior Program.  As Botany and Zoology were being united, the Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology came into existence. Now, with the creation of these four graduate programs, virtually all faculty in the life sciences have another potential "home" in one of the programs.  Although the latter are all graduate programs, they have had a major impact on our undergraduate programs; they have led to undergraduate seminars in these fields, and increased opportunities for undergraduates to work in faculty research labs during the summer and academic year.  Since the graduate programs have become central to the development of the life sciences on our campus, in future issues of this newsletter, we will provide a more detailed picture of them.