UVSC adds 4-year biotech degree

Here is a piece describing UVSC's latest degree in today's Page One that was sent out to all campus employees:

New Bachelor Degree in Biotechnology Offered at UVSC

Utah Valley State College’s 56th baccalaureate degree is a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biotechnology.

Biotechnology is technology designed to work with biological systems. This includes research, development, quality control and manufacturing in fields such as genetic engineering, medicine, agriculture and forensics. UVSC’s program will be laboratory intensive and will give students hands-on experience in biotechnology that will better prepare them for future careers. This will make students more marketable to the growing biotechnology industry in Utah.

“Typical biology graduates accepting jobs in industry, take up to a year to reach a productive level due of their real lack of hands on experience, regardless of which school they come from,” said Mark Bracken, chair of the biology department. “Now, instead of taking a year or two to train, these students can be independently productive in just a few weeks to a few months. This makes them more competitive not only in the industry, but with graduate schools as well.”

With this approval, UVSC is the only institution in the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) with a baccalaureate program in biotechnology.

“Graduates of this program will have the opportunity to continue into graduate course work and degree programs at the University of Utah and Utah State, neither of which have baccalaureate program in biotechnology,” said Karl Worthington, interim vice president for academic affairs.