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This project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is named Research Experiences at the Biology-Mathematics Interface (REBMI), has an organizational committee that includes biomathematicians (J.G.M., A.E.R., L.G.dP.), a computer scientist (A.H.L.), and a certified project management specialist (D.F.B.). To meet these challenges, we have developed an undergraduate research program to prepare biology and mathematics students to work effectively in interdisciplinary teams. For example, biology professors typically supervise multiple, distinct senior thesis projects: Could this process be improved by utilizing project management skills so that the professor's time would be effectively distributed to meet the needs of his or her students? Interdisciplinary teams require some form of project management to be successful ( Kraut et al., 1987 Hensey, 2001 Portny and Austin, 2002 Collins et al., 2003 Nokes, 2007): What are the goals and deadlines, what are the steps needed to accomplish the goals, how are the different parts of the project to be coordinated, and how are problems to be identified, corrected and even anticipated? Although most educators tend to identify these questions solely to industrial, large-scale type research projects, the very same problems arise in the setting of a liberal arts college.
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It is not surprising that employers are increasingly focused on skill sets not emphasized in traditional educational institutions, namely, productive team work, critical thinking, problem solving, project management, and effective communication-the very aspects of an education that are typically neglected. Whereas educators have traditionally selected for students who are creative, independent thinkers, rather than collaborative team players, the dramatic success of large teams of investigators to solve major problems, such as the human genome project ( Collins et al., 2003), is undeniable. The rapid pace of science and technology makes it impossible for an individual to possess the entire skill set to complete large-scale projects: holes in skill sets translate into missed opportunities.
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What is the educational challenge? Simply put, undergraduate biology and mathematics students must be prepared to function within interdisciplinary teams. After all, how were these educational changes to be implemented? More to the point, how was the combination of mathematics and biology to be translated into technology, jobs, and more? Blaming the faculty or the students is unfair. Despite two seminal reports on the need for educational reform in biology at the undergraduate level ( National Research Council, 2003 Steen, 2005), most undergraduate students continue to view mathematics and biology as “the two solitudes: together, but separate alone, but together” ( MacLennan, 1945).