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Elizabethtown College is adding new programs and majors to better support student needs and interests. The new neuroscience program is active this semester, and the physician assistant (PA) program will begin December 2020.
The neuroscience major was approved last semester and is a collaboration between the biology and psychology departments. According to professor of psychology and Department Chair Dr. Jean Pretz, several students are already intending to declare neuroscience as their major.
“Neuroscience is an area of study of great interest [for Etown students],” she said.
She discussed that neuroscience has been growing as a field since the 1990s as “exciting, cutting edge” tools have been developed. Students will learn about how the human brain works at both a cellular and behavioral level, as well as how it’s structured and how it develops. Students will take foundational courses in biology, psychology and chemistry. The cellular/molecular, behavioral and computational concentrations are available for upper-level students. The computational concentration is unique in the way that it incorporates computer science. Both biology and psychology faculty will be teaching the courses, as well as new Etown professor and neuroscientist Dr. Robert Wickham.
Pretz emphasized that the neuroscience major will provide “a clearer path for students” interested in the field.
Upperclassmen interested in neuroscience can still take neuroscience elective courses. At this point, the College has no plans for a neuroscience minor, but students can minor in cognitive science, which has courses in biology, psychology and philosophy. The cognitive science minor has been established for several years.
Starting December 2020, Etown will include the PA program. Physician assistants order diagnostic tests, perform certain medical procedures, interpret medical results, prepare treatment plans, prescribe medications and assist doctors and surgeons with more advanced medical procedures and techniques.
“A need was identified that Etown could promote [PA],” Founding Director of the PA Program Dr. Lynn Eckrote said in a recent phone interview.
She also said that the student demand was “quite high” for a PA program. The program has two options for students entering: a 25-month master’s degree for students who already have a bachelor’s degree or a combined BS/MS degree over five and a half years for incoming first-year students. Around 20 students will be accepted into the accelerated pre-PA program for incoming first-year students.
The first year of the program will be a didactic year, so it will feature structured classes and labs. The second year is clinical, in which students will go through clinical rotations to different medical settings and sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware (for now). Students will spend four weeks at each clinical location.
“Things are going very well,” Eckrote said about the program becoming approved for professional accreditation. The application for accreditation is due in November, and there will be a site visit February 2020.
Eckrote is not alone in planning the PA program curriculum. Etown has a clinical coordinator, Larissa Whitney, who is building the curriculum for the second year clinical rotations, as well as a full-time faculty member creating the first year didactic curriculum. There is also an administrative assistant and a part-time medical director.
Eckrote said she is especially looking forward to implementing the PA program because it follows Etown’s mission to Educate for Service. She wants the program to center on service and interdisciplinary learning.
“We’re really excited to bring [the PA program] to Etown,” she said.
