The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has approved the Virginia Tech School of Neuroscience, the first school of neuroscience in the country. The school will study disorders of the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury, and the mind itself, including decision-making, behavior and creativity, reports Virginia Business.
The school will have 15 faculty members and enroll 150 students. Neuroscience students will have the opportunity to become involved with biomedical neuroscience research in the recently launched Health Sciences and Technology Innovation District in Roanoke.
Bacon’s bottom line: Congrats, Virginia Tech. It’s good for Virginia universities to push into burgeoning fields of knowledge. And I like the economic development tie-in with Roanoke. At the same time, universities can’t be all things to all people. As universities expand into new fields, they should contract in older, less relevant fields experiencing shrinking class enrollment. Somehow, we never seem to read about universities pulling the plug on declining programs. Maybe it happens, but we don’t hear about it.
— JAB
