Welcome Message from Dean David Maynard
On behalf of our faculty, staff, and students, welcome to CSU San Bernardino College of Natural Sciences. We are excited about your interest in our programs and our campus.
The College of Natural Sciences, composed of nine departments and various subprograms, offers bachelors, master's degrees, and curricula for preprofessional students in medicine, veterinary medicine, nutrition, physical therapy, and dentistry. The science curriculum is enhanced by research centers that provide field experience as well as special seminars with guest speakers. Programs within the College of Natural Sciences can prepare you for a science-related job in the public or private sector, a career in teaching, a graduate or professional education, or a variety of other science-related careers. Science plays an increasingly important role in our society. The College seeks to educate the next generation of scientists as it does science-literate citizens who make informed decisions in daily life. The College educates teachers who effectively teach our children. Students in this College are provided a broad-based, fundamental education in the natural sciences and allied health fields and are challenged to think critically, analytically, and creatively.
Our departments are well equipped with modern computers and scientific instrumentation, so that students graduate from our programs with state-of-the-art skills. Faculty and staff of the Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geological Sciences, Health Sciences, Kinesiology, Mathematics, Nursing, Physics, and Science Education are committed to providing outstanding educational experiences for majors. Alumni of the College demonstrate that its graduates are well prepared to enter graduate and professional schools or to assume responsible positions in industry or government.
The curricula offered in the College of Natural Sciences combine fundamental education in science with a broad human outlook, which develops the student's mental horizon beyond the limits of his/her immediate vocational objective. Each curriculum is designed to prepare graduates for specific professional positions in industry, government and teaching or for graduate and professional work in their disciplines. The four-year sequence covers the basic major courses and has sufficient free electives to allow students to develop specializations within the major and closely related fields.
General education courses are offered for all students. The need to understand the concepts of modern science and their relationship to life in our present world is important. The College of Natural Sciences also offers basic supporting courses for students enrolled in the professional and technological degree programs in other colleges of the university.
Few places in this country can match the California Inland Empire for the depth and caliber of scientific research. The College endeavors to help its students interact with this distinctive environment-to gather the educational benefits from it, and then to make their own contributions to it through research, internships, cooperative education and other training placements, and shared facilities.
We offer a strong and diverse faculty, many of whom are experts from industry or the research community, with a growing staff of minority and women professors and mentors, an important component of a university. Many of our students are first-generation Americans. Many are the first in their families to go to college. More than half of our students are members of minority groups, and one quarter are from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. CSUSB is nationally recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution.
Providing the means for people of exceptionally diverse backgrounds to come into their own is a major part of our identity. The College of Natural Sciences has been a leader in increasing the number of underrepresented minority students in the science-based fields, from elementary to graduate school.
