Another CC member said he planned to vote for the proposal, but the distinction between math and statistics, or studio art and art history seem finer to him than, say, for biology and mathematics, for example. He would not want to see biology doing this as well because biology issues might get diluted with other disciplines within the Division. Math has split off another discipline once before with computer science. A CC member wanted to know what the prevalent patterns are within UMM's peer institutions. On a small campus, we cannot afford to split out all of the areas that could be separate.
Many schools have a completely separate discipline for anthropology.
Korth said that at larger institutions statistics is a separate area. The question at smaller institutions is whether the distinction is warranted by need. The Division will have three statistics faculty whether the courses are split into a separate discipline or not. This is a reflection of the need on our campus. One CC member asked if there would be a shifting of courses from lower division to upper division over time.