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Message from the Department Head

Welcome to the Department of Biology at Valdosta State University. We have continued our third year of double digit growth in the number of freshmen biology majors enrolled at VSU. We started the fall 2008 semester with just over 750 majors overall, which continues to make us the most popular undergraduate major on campus. Our records indicate we have more than 1000 declared biology majors at VSU, although not all are enrolled each term. Our MS in Biology degree program is now two years old and we graduated our first group of students in the summer of 2008. The fact that so many students choose our programs is a clear testament to the quality of the degrees students earn here at VSU and also to the quality of the faculty we have here in the Department of Biology.

We hired three new biology professors this year (seven new assistant professors in the last three years) which brings us to a total of 26 faculty. We are hoping to be able to hire two more to join us next fall. One new student club was created last year, the Student Society for Stem Cell Research, and we are currently looking for a group of students to take over leadership of this club as the founders all graduated last spring. In addition, we are in the process of creating a student chapter of The Wildlife Society. This will give us a total of four student clubs housed within the department. We hope you will follow the link below for students and get involved with these clubs.

If I can be of any help to you as a prospective or current student please e-mail me at rlgannon@valdosta.edu.

Robert L. Gannon, Ph.D.

Professor and Head of Biology