Interaction

Oct. 19, 2005

The evolution of Human Biology

Photo: L.A. Cicero

Students display the results of their final assignment, which was to read a scholarly article, illustrate
its methodology and findings on posters, and then suggest ways to advance the work.

The west corridor of the Main Quad was jammed with presentation easels early one Spring Quarter morning as sophomore human biology majors mingled with teachers and colleagues.

They were there to present the results of their final assignment, which was to read a scholarly article, illustrate its methodology and findings on posters, and then suggest ways to advance the work. One student looked at the correlation between violent video games and childhood aggressiveness, another looked at Transcendental Meditation and stress and intelligence levels, someone else studied autistic children's capacity for following gazes, and a future medical researcher reported on a study of breast-feeding vs. formula use among HIV-positive women in Uganda.

Professors, course assistants and friends moved from easel to easel to ask questions, congratulate the proud students on their presentations and critiques and, at least in one case, tell them to lose the gum. Though some may have grumbled at first that it felt like a high school science fair, psychologist Anne Fernald said that's exactly how scientists share their work, so they'll have to get used to it.

Without fail, professors in the Program in Human Biology proclaim they've got the best students around, so indeed it's likely this won't be their last science fair.

For more than 30 years, the program has been turning out gifted students for whom biological, behavioral and social sciences are inseparable.

Human biology students in 2004-05 studied bioethics, death, cell development, vaccines, health care politics, the death penalty, race, sports medicine, organ transplants and donation, vertebrate biology and linguistics, to name just a few. They'll become doctors, lawyers, teachers, researchers and policymakers. And they probably could not have received similar training anywhere else. Harvard and Cornell to some degree modeled their programs after Stanford's, and Indiana University recently invited biologist Craig Heller to give a lecture in anticipation of a new venture there. But the sheer interdisciplinary scope of Stanford's program, not to mention its longevity and spirit, is utterly exceptional.

It was founded in the late 1960s, when social unrest and student demands led to the establishment of new programs and departments in universities across the country. Most were interdisciplinary: area studies, ethnic studies, women's studies, environmental studies. It was a frightening time, as scientists perfected the weapons of war and the dangers of industrial pollution were first being decried. At Stanford, there were faculty members and students who believed that physicians, scientists, humanists and social scientists needed to work together in this brave new world. Human biology was jump-started by a teach-in in 1968, the same year Paul Ehrlich, one of the program's founders, wrote Population Bomb. It was declared an undergraduate interdepartmental program by the Faculty Senate in 1969, and the Ford Foundation started it off with a five-year grant of nearly $2 million.

"People then disagreed with the paths the government was taking, and somehow this was a way to respond," said one-time program director Heller, who went on to suggest that things aren't that different these days. "In a way, the program was an alternative to violence."

Its popularity overwhelmed the founders, who quickly fashioned it into a rigorous course of study starting off with two parallel core sequences emphasizing either the natural or the social sciences. With just four endowed half-chairs, professors were recruited from departments across the campus to participate, and course assistants were recruited from among the seniors. Instructors all were evaluated by students and, in a practice continued today, at least four faculty members read each evaluation. The excitement was such that professors found themselves attending each other's lectures.

By 1973 there were 320 majors, making it Stanford's third-largest major, and president Richard Lyman backed a new infusion of funding. That same year, biologist Donald Kennedy took over as program director. Kennedy eventually became provost and university president and today is the Bing Professor of Environmental Science and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Human biology in the mid-1980s was the second-largest major on campus after economics (rankings the two majors still enjoy) and was increasingly unable to handle the demand, having neither sufficient funding nor enough faculty. Heller took it upon himself in those years to develop new resources and expand the fieldwork and honors programs. But inadequate funding and an absence of teaching positions is still a problem. The second-largest major at Stanford has no faculty billets. Dollar for dollar to the university, there's no better deal, the program's biologists, physicians, psychologists and anthropologists point out.

The director from 1992 to 1995 was Bill Durham, to date the only professor actually hired (half time) by the program. He also is a member of the Department of Anthropological Sciences. On his watch, core courses were beefed up, course assistants' salaries were increased and new classes were developed to address sexuality, health, pollution, genetics and public policy. Field programs sent students to the Galápagos Islands and to Africa, to legal clinics, to inner-city neighborhoods and to elementary schools. Durham was followed by neuroscientist Russell Fernald. The current director is Jeffrey Wine, a former postdoc of Kennedy's, a member of the Psychology Department and a cystic fibrosis researcher.

Students today tend to arrive at Stanford more career-oriented than when the program started, Heller notes, which could make them less adventurous or creative. But they learn from each other and find role models among the more advanced students, who inevitably have loosened up, he says. Six junior and senior student advisers hold regular office hours; course assistants are still seniors. There is a student newsletter. Students and professors alike proclaim the camaraderie among the majors, and it was as visible in the Quad that spring morning as the brightly colored posters.

To celebrate its accomplishments, the program published a booklet in 2001 called "The First 30 Years" that includes tributes and some remarkable stories.

"At Stanford we sometimes take for granted all that Hum Bio offers," wrote 1999 graduate Laura Chyu, "but speaking with people from other schools has shown me how unique the program is."