Department of Life Sciences
Department of Life Sciences
The Mission of the department of life sciences at Bethel College is to educate and train Christians for positions of leadership within the scientific community.
Vision
In order to fulfill this mission, our vision is to develop “Kingdom Scientists:” students who actively follow Christ in their careers as biologists and medical professionals, who work to bring Jesus' sovereignty and authority to bear all areas of life sciences. To this end we desire to instill in our students the belief that we are uniquely called by God to be stewards of His creation and to glorify Him through performing with excellence in all aspects of our work.
Goals
Our goals as the department in life sciences are to provide an academically excellent program to recruit, encourage, and promote the entry of young Christians into the scientific research and medicine and to provide diverse learning and research experiences for our students to help them develop a strong base of knowledge in biological principals and research techniques, critical thinking and analysis skills, and verbal and written communication skills.
Objectives
Consistent with the Bethel College mission and vision statement we
believe that it is our duty to provide our students with the analytical and professional
skills necessary to succeed in their chosen career. In order to balance these needs, we believe that all departmental courses and programs should integrate the following elements:
- Critical thinking skills
- Biologists should be able to identify and analyze a problem, weigh evidence and generate hypotheses.
- Research skills
- Biologists should be able to propose and test hypotheses and analyze problems, and they must have the skills and research tools necessary to investigate them.
- Communication skills
- Biologists should achieve competency in both oral and written communication in order to effectively disseminate the results of research.
- Technological skills
- Students should acquire and demonstrate competency in the use of, at minimum, spreadsheet, word processing, bioinformatics, presentation and basic statistical analysis programs.
- Practical experience
- Students should receive real-world experience through undergraduate research programs and internships.
- Ethics
- Students should be able to discuss and form opinions about current issues in bioethics from a Christian worldview.
- Global citizenship
- Students should be aware of global issues and be actively involved in finding solutions to critical problems in the world, such as global warming, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and poverty.
