This week, the Academic Science Program Task Force is hosting four forums to gain feedback on University science programs and suggestions for improvement.

The second forum took place in Cox Hall on Wednesday.

The chair of the Task Force, Margery Overton, detailed the forum’s purpose and the work that took place in advance.

“We are calling a faculty forum to get [their] input or at least to give them the opportunity to speak on issues relative to the Academic Science Task Force,” Overton said. “The Task Force was set up in May; we worked all summer, and we’re working this fall. Then we’re supposed to conclude and give a report to the provost by the end of the semester.”

Marielle Pocan , assistant to the Provost for Internal Communications, aided in setting up the Task Force’s meetings and forums.

“[The forum] is one of a couple ways were trying to gather information…We also have surveys [online], and we’ve gotten a lot of responses through the survey. So we just wanted to make sure we were as inclusive and open and transparent as possible,” Pocan said.

Though the forums were not designed specifically for students, they are also welcome to contribute.

Overton added that students might not recognize changes being made in the broader sense, but adjustments within their majors might be important to them.

“If it were a change that increased course offerings or their ability to get into a program or the connectivity between their program and some other things of interest, I think it could be something that they [should] pay attention to,” Overton said.

Though there were practically no students in attendance at the forum on Wed., faculty members that were present debated the convoluted nature and lack of details in the Task Force’s rough plan for restructuring.

Topics such as multiple PhD tracks being available to graduates, flexibility, and money were also discussed at the forum.

“We have to go from where we are to where we want to be. It’s an evolutionary step,” Overton said. “Last year, we had strategic planning efforts, strategic realignment efforts, and there’s been a great effort put in to try and get faculty input, student input, staff input – all of these, as we think about our future and things were going to change as opposed to a top down approach on what we should do.”

Overton added that financial details would follow after the Task Force’s recommendations to the provost.

Daniel Solomon, dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, attended the forum and called on the Task Force committee to consider merging departments.

“It’s radical in the sense that it’s very hard to do, there’s very little history of it [being done] and that’s why I referred back to when the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences was created in 1960, in which it created a set of departments and then took faculty who were already here – in engineering or agriculture – and moved them.” Solomon said.

Overton said, “The theme that flows through our discussion is that many of the problems that we’re interested in looking at and solving take lots of different sciences to solve them and there are a lot of sciences that are starting to work as the boundaries of their specific disciplines – the biology and chemistry, biochemistry – that seems to be emerging perhaps more so…that people have given it a name – they’re calling it convergence science.”

“The research world has changed quite dramatically over the last couple decades. The really important and interesting problems of the world occur at the interfaces of many of the disciplines; the life sciences and the physical and mathematical sciences,” Solomon said.

Trudy Mackay, a professor of genetics, who also attended the forum on Wednesday, believed it will have some effectiveness.

“It’s a committee; it’s a limited number of individuals,” Mackay said. “[They said] here’s the issue; here are some of the potential solutions. But the more we hear, the better it will be.”

The Task Force’s last two forums will take place Nov. 3 and Nov. 4 from 3 to 4: 30pm at Biltmore Hall and Williams Hall.