The Gustavus Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) Program recently learned that it has been accredited by the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the field’s professional organization. ASBMB accreditation is a national distinction, rarely bestowed, that will be recognized by graduate and professional schools and science industry employers as confirmation that Gustavus BMB graduates are thoroughly prepared for professional success in the field.
Gustavus already is the top-ranked liberal arts college in Minnesota to offer a BMB major. The College is one of about 100 schools in the U.S. to secure ASBMB accreditation, and one of just nine in Minnesota. BMB faculty members Jeff Dahlseid ‘90, Heather Haemig, and Janie Frandsen applied for accreditation in fall 2023 to bolster an already well-established program. Gustavus has had up to 20 BMB majors per year since its establishment in the early-1990s, graduating about 14 such majors per year in the past half-decade, making it one of our more popular majors.
“Nationwide, schools that offer this major will often offer it as a second major within a biology department, or a second major within the chemistry department,” said Dahlseid, the BMB program director. “Ours is jointly sponsored by our Biology and Chemistry departments. It doesn’t necessarily lean one way or the other, so we better support students with interests anywhere along that continuum.”
This flexibility and range of options prepares Gustavus BMB students for career options including teaching, research, medicine, and other industry-specific fields that involve critical thinking and leadership. “The accreditation reinforces how our students receive lots of hands-on learning with inquiry-oriented pedagogy, so that students are exceptionally well prepared to take next steps in industry or in graduate schools, where they’ll actually need to apply the science they’ve learned to real-world problems,” Dahlseid said.
The ASBMB accreditation will run through 2030 and was granted because the organization affirmed Gustavus BMB’s accomplishments in and commitments to the following areas, among others:
- An overall solid curriculum covering the core concepts in biochemistry and molecular biology
- The program’s student-centered teaching practices
- A focus on student learning outcomes
- The highly qualified and sufficient number of faculty supporting the Program, working together across Biology and Chemistry
- The use of the CURE (Course Embedded Research Experience) in the BMB major capstone course to give students research experience.
“The really cool thing to me about the accreditation is that we didn’t do anything different or new in recent years to get it,” said Haemig, senior continuing assistant professor in BMB. “This doesn’t really change anything for those students that have already gone through the program, because we were doing all those things when they were here.”
Gustavus has long been one of the only liberal arts colleges in the state of Minnesota to offer a full major in biochemistry and molecular biology, which this accreditation reflects. “The fact that the program we’re offering has been recognized by the external society for the field demonstrates that the education our students are getting in the discipline is robust,” said Frandsen, assistant professor in BMB.
She added that even though the BMB major has more course requirements than many other majors at the College, that doesn’t keep BMB Gusties from participating in all aspects of Gustavus life in and out of the classroom. “If anything, BMB students are more involved than the average Gustavus student,” she said. “They’re athletes or in music. They have minors or second majors. They’re doing it all.”