The department emphasizes basic, discovery-based scholarship. However, many of our faculty are involved in research that will improve biomedical technology or lead to better environmental conservation and management practices. Our faculty work at research sites and with collaborators not only at Clemson and in the Southeast, but across the nation and internationally as well.

We are student-oriented, striving for excellence in our advising, our teaching and our mentorship of graduate and undergraduate student research. We are leaders in advancing Clemson as a student-centered research university.

Biological Sciences has one of the largest enrollments of undergraduate majors of any department on campus. We offer BS degrees in Microbiology and Biological Sciences with options under each. These programs are among the most rigorous and comprehensive in the nation. We also offer a BA in Biological Sciences for those who seek a broader liberal arts experience. We are developing 5-year programs in which a student will receive both a BS and an MS. For example a BS in Biological Sciences and an MS in Bioengineering is currently available.

In addition to our majors we advise students in pre-professional health, pre-rehabilitation sciences, pre-pharmacy and pre-physician assistant curricula. Overall we advise approximately 1000 students and teach approximately 3000 in our major and service classes each semester.

Our undergraduates have excellent credentials, with 15-20% of our majors enrolled in the Calhoun Honor’s College, recipients of Clemson National Scholars are regularly in our department and the average SAT for 2004 entering freshman majors was over 1220. Over 40% of the Clemson acceptances to medical school have come form our majors in recent years.

We especially encourage our undergraduates to have an experience away from Clemson, whether it is through a study abroad program, as an intern or through an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates project.

We also have one of the largest graduate programs in the college, with students in our MS and PhD programs in Biological Sciences and Microbiology and other students in the MS and PhD interdepartmental programs of Plant and Environmental Science and Environmental Toxicology. There is ample opportunity for financial support for our students, either as a research assistant or as one of our approximately 40 teaching assistants.

Our department encourages students to interact with other programs on campus. If you follow some of the links, you will see that there are many excellent biologists in other programs who strengthen our missions through their research, outreach and teaching interactions with us. Graduate students often interact with faculty or have major advisors in several other departments on campus, the SC Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit and our faculty at the Oncology Research Institute of the Greenville Hospital System.

Students have access to a wide array of facilities. Our department manages the Campbell Museum of Natural History, the college tissue culture and imaging facilities, several aquatic animal facilities and greenhouses. We maintain a fleet of both vehicles and boats for field work. A college sequencing facility is located in our main research building.

We support education at all levels, including K-12. Our department is a principal participant in the SC LIFE program and the SC DNA Learning Center, two programs targeting public school education in science. The directors of both programs are faculty in our department.

Although we are a large, busy and diverse department, we pride ourselves in the personal attention we offer to those interested in our programs or in need of our services. In this spirit, if you have any questions about the department or its programs, please feel free to contact me at 864-656-1415 or wheeler@clemson.edu.