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The Department of Biology at Georgia Southwestern State University provides students with a broad education in biological science rather than specialized expertise in one narrow discipline. Our faculty provide courses that include laboratory components, both in the lab and field, to provide hands-on experience in preparation for a career in a variety of professional disciplines.
Biology at GSW offers specialized tracts preparing pre-professional students for admission to Medical School, Dental School, Veterinary Medicine, Physician Assistant and Physical Therapy programs, Graduate School in the Biological Sciences, and others.
Biology students are given abundant resources for learning inside and outside of the classroom including access to collections of living and preserved species and varied outdoor settings for observation and research. Some of our highlighted assets include:
Department of Biology
Science / Roney Building
229-931-2135
deborah.standridge@gsw.edu
Monday – Friday: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Faculty & Staff
Elizabeth Taliaferro wins best poster presentation for her research titled “Abnormal proliferation of Intrahepatic bile ducts with NOTCH signaling in Biliary atresia.”
Student Highlight
Read More in the Breeze
The Department of Biology at Georgia Southwestern State University aims to provide students with a comprehensive education that cultivates lifelong learning through the application of scientific knowledge.
Students learn the fundamentals of biology and implement them through applied pedagogy and undergraduate research. Through this instruction they develop the critical-thinking skills necessary to assimilate, interpret and communicate scientific knowledge. The students become competitive for the best opportunities available following graduation, including professional and graduate school programs.
Known for its rigor, the GSW Biology program prepares students for a variety of careers including professional schooling in the fields of medicine, optometry, dentistry, and veterinary school. Opportunities for research provide experiential learning, and biology students often participate in the Undergraduate Research Symposium.
From a simple walk around campus to a weekend camping trip, learning outside of the classroom allows students to experience an entirely new perspective to the topic of biology. Field trips provide the opportunity to experience new habitats and to appreciate the diversity of the natural world while gaining hands-on learning.
Georgia Southwestern is located close enough for weekend trips to visit vastly different environments including the long-leaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem of Northern Florida, the lush growth of a temperate forest along the ridges and valleys of Northern Georgia, and the sandy shores of St. George Island.
Weekend trips are typically associated with field classes so most of these trips occur during the Spring semester. Student in the associated class are given first refusal, but if space allows other students can participate. There is typically a fee to cover food and campsite cost.
The GSW Herbarium has an impressive collection of over 13,000 cataloged specimen with the majority of the specimen being non-local flora and mostly from California and Utah. The bulk of the collection was donated to GSW by Dr. Robert A. Norris and is referred to as the Norris Collection.
Work in the herbarium has been focused on the digitization of the Norris Collection. Each specimen was imaged and the skeletal label information was entered into Symbiota hosted by SERNEC. Symbiota provides a web portal to the data so that it can be search by individuals around the globe. Access the entered collection information through the online portal and limit your search to the GSW Herbarium. This project is nearly complete with over 95% of the collection submitted to SERNEC. Work is ongoing to complete full entry of all label data for each specimen.
The student-to-faculty ratio at Georgia Southwestern gave me the opportunity to establish close relationships with my professors as well as my peers. As a biology major, GSW’s recognizable science program, along with the lasting relationships I have established with my professors, helped me achieve an in-depth understanding and high respect for biology.