1. Students will obtain an understanding of the core principles of neuroscience and the transdisciplinary nature of the discipline.

2. Students will develop critical thinking skills by learning and applying theoretical knowledge, scholarship, research principles, research skills, and data analytics in the neurosciences.

3. Students will learn how to effectively interpret primary neuroscience literature and communicate their findings orally and in writing.

4. Students will apply and integrate their knowledge of neuroscience to other areas of their studies and to everyday life.

NKU Mission: As a public comprehensive university located in a major metropolitan area, Northern Kentucky University delivers innovative, student-centered education and engages in impactful scholarly and creative endeavors, all of which empower our graduates to have fulfilling careers and meaningful lives, while contributing to the economic, civic, and social vitality of the region.

• The BS in Neuroscience will enable students to pursue innovative endeavors during and after college.  The program will be student centered and have a major focus on undergraduate research. 

NKU Strategic Priorities from Fuel the Flame (2013-18 Strategic Plan): Student Success; Talent Development; Academic Innovation; Community Engagement; and Institutional Excellence.  The BS in Neuroscience program supports all 5 startegic priorities.   

• Student Success: The program will provide a supportive, student-centered educational environment that promotes academic success, global awareness, and timely graduation.
• Talent Development: The program will enroll more students to increase educational attainment levels; recruit more transfer students into the programs; produce skilled graduates prepared for the workforce, advanced careers, and graduate education; and assist graduates in the transition from college to work and career advancement.
• Academic Innovation: Develop and expand transdisciplinary programs (of which neuroscience is one), courses, and research; expand applied and experiential learning opportunities across the curriculum; develop programs that meet the diverse needs of our student body; enhance the quality, relevance, and sustainability of the academic program portfolio; and expand relevant programs in high-demand fields to meet regional workforce needs.
• Community Engagement: Expand partnerships with business, government, education, and nonprofit organizations specifically to provide internships and co-ops for neuroscience majors.
• Institutional Excellence: A high-profile major like Neuroscience will help NKU recruit, retain, and develop outstanding faculty and staff.

CPE Strategic Agenda (Stronger by Degrees): College Readiness; Student Success; Research, Economic and Community Development; and Efficiency and Innovation.  The BS in Neuroscience program supports 2 of the 4 startegic priorities.  

• Student Success: The BS in Neuroscience program will increase the use of data, information, research, and technology to improve student learning and outcomes; and promote student engagement, undergraduate research, internships, and other educational opportunities that improve the quality of the student experience, develop leaders, and foster success after graduation.
• Research, Economic and Community Development: Advance Kentucky’s STEM+H agenda through ongoing leadership, advocacy, and collaborative efforts; strengthen and expand partnerships with business, industry, government, non-profit, and other educational entities to meet Kentucky’s workforce and community needs; support collaborations among postsecondary institutions to serve regional needs and planning efforts to raise the educational attainment level of the Commonwealth; and maximize the impact of  postsecondary education’s contribution to improving the health of Kentucky’s people.

CPE Strategic Implementation Plan (http://cpe.ky.gov/planning/strongerbydegrees/implementation.htm) The BS in Neuroscience program supports the Implementation Plan in the following ways:

• Accountability: The BS in Neuroscience program faculty will create and implement a rigorous program assessment plan to ensure we are achieving our program objectives and student learning outcomes.  Additionally, class sizes and course/lab materials will be monitored to ensure appropriate use of resources.
• Performance Metrics and Targets: Since Neuroscience is a STEM and health-related degree and the program will involve experiential learning in the forms of undergraduate research, internships and co-ops, the program will participate in all assessment efforts by the university and state (e.g., STEM-H assessments). 
• Balancing Quality and Quantity: The program is one of the expanded new programs referred to in this section.  We expect more than 150 majors within the first 5 years, increasing overall degree production at NKU and enabling students to earn high-quality credentials and to be successful in their work, life and communitities. Moreover, the quality of the program will be distinctive since we will strive to engage nearly all majors in some type of individualized scholarly experience and our coursework will be unique compared to national trends in neuroscience curriculum.

The Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) will be embedded within the Introductory and Major Core courses with a progression planned in accordance with best practices in assessment: Introduction, Reinforcement, and Mastering of the SLOs. Concepts and skills will introduced in the Introductory Core and reinforced in the Major Core. The curriculum requires an experiential learning experience and a senior-level neuroscience seminar course. These will be used to assess mastery of the five SLOs.

The proposed neuroscience major will be transdisciplinary, including core courses in nine different programs and guided electives from 11 programs. The tracks are designed to provide clear pathways to employment after a four-year degree in cognitive-behavioral research or computational neuroscience as well as structured pathways for those interested in graduate/professional schools.

N/A

Steely Library Resources include electronic journal subscriptions, SourceFinder, and searchable databases for scientific information. No new resources are needed to support this program.

In addtion to existing classrooms, teaching laboratories, and research laboratories in Biological Sciences, Chemistry, and Psychological Sciences, two neuroscience teaching laboratories, a neuroscience research laboratory, and a state-of-the-art vivarium are under construction as part of the Health Innovations Center-Founders Hall renovation project. These facilities will accommodate the projected growth of the Neuroscience major over the next several years.

The admission standards for all students pursuing degrees in neuroscience (all tracks) are: mathematics ACT 22 or greater and CPE minimum standards of 18 English and 20 reading, or successful completion of appropriate developmental courses. Transfer students must also meet these requirements before declaring a neuroscience major.

Students must complete 120 semester credit hours with the last 30h completed at NKU. Students must earn a C- or higher in all core courses, a cumulative 2.0 GPA in their core courses, and a cumulative 2.0 GPA in their track courses. Students must complete a semester-long experiential learning project and the final report associated with that project.

There are no articulation agreements with other existing neuroscience programs.

NKU has had the Neuroscience Minor since 2005.  As of today, there are 43 students enrolled in the minor, with 10-15 graduates each year.  Since discussion of creating a neuroscience major at NKU began, more than 30 students who are not enrolled in the neuroscience minor have expressed interest in the program.

In the Commonwealth, there are three active neuroscience majors (Morehead State, Transylvania University University of Kentucky). These neuroscience majors are similar in that they are made up primarily of existing courses in the disciplines of biology, chemistry and psychology. 

Research at similar institutions has shown that neuroscience major programs grow quickly.  For example, five years after starting their neuroscience major, the University of Nebraska at Omaha had an enrollment of 217 majors. The same trend holds for Central Michigan University (>200 students after 5 years). The overall sizes of both universities are similar to NKU, but they do have graduate (Ph.D.) programs in Psychology and Neuroscience, respectively, that may serve to increase enrollment. 

Initially, we anticipate many current neuroscience minors will self-select into the major along with current majors in biology, chemistry and psychology. NKU draws primarily commuter students from the Greater Cincinnati region, so this will be the primary pool for recruiting new students. NKU hosts regular recruiting events (e.,g, Welcome Wednesdays, Black & Gold Days),and the Center for Integrative Natural Sciences and Mathematics (CINSAM) has a STEM recruitment/retention specialist. We will use these outlets as well as NKU Web sites and social media to promote the program and recruit students. As a new program, we would also work with NKU Marketing + Communication to increase awareness of the program and career opportunities.

We will use the tools and resources described in the previous section to attract applicants. Admission will be based on the established minimum requirements for ACT scores or their equivalents.

In addition to incoming freshmen interested in this degree, primary feeders for the program include undeclared majors who become interested in neuroscience through the Orientation to Neuroscience course and those who transfer into the major from the current minor.

We anticipate an initial enrollment of 25 students starting in the Fall of 2017 with a larger enrollment (~50) for Fall 2018 once all recruitment efforts are underway and an increase of 25 student per year in the following three years.

Depending on the career students choose, neuroscience majors can pursue a master's degree or a PhD, with NKU being uniquely positioned as a feeder school for neuroscience graduate programs at the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville. There are also many positions for those with a bachelor's degree. Neuroscience majors become medical professionals (MD, DO, PA, PT, etc.), research technicians (in biotech, pharmaceutical, hospitals, etc.), educators (teachers, professors, etc.), and many other professions (such as business, psychology, healthcare, computational fields, public policy, speech/language, rehabilitation, etc.).  Neuroscience majors can enter careers in industry (biotech firms and pharmaceutical companies), government (NIH), law, and insurance).  While the Northern Kentucky region is ripe with these industries, it has also seen great growth in jobs where neuroscience majors would work.  For example, over the last 5 years, this area has observed a 10.3% increase in the number of jobs in the “Education and Human Services” category (translating to 10,300 new jobs during this time; http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh_cincinnati_msa.htm).

Job titles and salaries are based on searches of recent postings on Greater Cincinnati career web sites and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only jobs for B.S. degree students are listed. Students pursuing graduate or professional degrees would expect significantly higher salaries.

Research assistant: $36,565

Clincial lab technician: $38,970

Medical laboratory scientist: $45,200

Statistical programmer: $$42,342-$45,848

Lab animal technician: $20,399-$46,828

Medical writer: $65,913

Social science research assistant: $39,940-43,470

Neuroscience was one of the first transdisciplinary fields made of contributions from biology, psychology, chemistry, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, etc. The common object of study is the nervous system, which figures into a wide range of scientific and social problems.

This Neuroscience program will also teach students the skills employers want (Forbes & AAC&U LEAP): ability to work in a team, decision-making and problem-solving skills, analyzing quantitative data, process information, computer proficiency and more. Key components to a transdisciplinary undergraduate neuroscience structure include a problem-centered curriculum, requiring cognate courses from different disciplines, and a transdisciplinary capstone, research, or internship. Additionally, finding collaborative space where neuroscience faculty and students can work is vital. The new Health Innovation Center has lab, vivarium, and work space designed to be collaborative.  With a transdisciplinary design, this type of program will draw students, faculty, administrators, and employers together to drive a program that promises to help all stakeholders accomplish their goals.

We will assess program effectiveness at three levels: Introduction, Reinforcement and Mastery. Rubrics will be developed to assess each SLO. Since many of the introductory core courses are included in existing program assessments (e.g. biology and psychology), we anticipating using or modifying the existing rubrics for those courses. Unique rubrics will be developed for the upper division core courses.

We will focus our assessment efforts on the required courses in the Introductory and Major cores: Neu 150, Bio150/Bio150L, Psy 100, Bio 291W, Psy 311/Psy311L, Phi 340, Phi 345, Neu 301/301L, and Neu302/302L, Neu 493, and the experiential learning course.

We will collect baseline data from NEU 493 in the first year, because this course is well-established from the neuroscience minor. We will collect baseline data from the new NEU 150, NEU 301/301L and NEU 302/302L courses when they are first offered. We will develop or modify rubrics for the remaining courses during the first year of the program and implement a rotation schedule for evaluating each SLO by year two of the program.

Course-level data will be collected each time the listed core courses are offered. Except for the baseline data, data will be analzyed on a rotating schedule so that each SLO is assessed at least every 3 years (i.e. 2 SLOs analyzed each year).

Course-level data will be collected using pre-established assignments and artifacts appropriate for each SLO. These would include course-embedded questions, papers, presentations, and team reports. CITI ethics modules will be used to assess SLO 5 at the Introductory level, and course artifacts from PHI 340 and PHI 345 will be used for the Reinforcement level. Surveys will be used to assess Mastery during the experiential learning course. Mastery of SLOs 1-5 will be assessed using assignments in NEU 493 and completion of a final report and reflection for the experiential learning course. Surveys of research mentors and employers will supplement the student's final report.

As previously stated, we will assess using the I-R-M model of introducing, reinforcing and mastering of each skill and concept. A detailed assessment plan is attached.

The baseline data will provide guidance on development (new courses) and modification (existing courses) of assignments and content in the introductory and mid-level courses. Once the program is fully implemented, we discuss the data with faculty and our advisory board to identify areas where further modifications are needed. It's anticipated that the mid-level reinforcement courses would require the most attention, because introductory level courses have been frequently assessed at the programmatic or GenEd level.

Teaching effectiveness is measured using semesterly course evaluations, peer consultation and evaluation, and annual performance reviews. Course-level and program-level assessments will also provide indicators of teaching effectiveness. Student success measures include graduation rates and job/graduate/professional school placement.

The university's Quality Enhancement Program will be a key vehicle for identifying areas in need of improvement and developing strategies to address those needs. There are multiple opportunities at the university for professional development in teaching: Teaching Effectiveness and Enhancement (TEEC) workshops, the annual Meet, Greet, Grab an Idea workshop, and the CINSAM STEM-learning community. Affiliated faculty will also work together routinely to share assessment data and identify areas in need of improvement or modification.

We will have an advisory board, which will also be used to help place students in internships as well as identify employment opportunities. We will track student placement in graduate programs and jobs,using a graduation exit survey. We plan to maintain connections with graduates through annual e-mail surveys and the use of professional social media sites such as LinkedIn. We will also survey graduate program directors and employers where our graduates are enrolled or employed.