A team of 20 faculty in more than 10 departments representing four ISU colleges have worked to create a new minor – emerging global diseases – that was approved by the Board of Regents at the September meeting.

The new minor is designed to give students in a variety of majors practical and unique experience.

Jeffrey Beetham, associate professor of veterinary pathology, wrote the proposal for the Board of Regents meeting. He said the program, possibly the first of its kind, has a lot of potential for students.

“To our knowledge, this program is novel,” he said.

Through the cooperation and collaboration of the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine and Family and Consumer Sciences, the minor in emerging global diseases will give students an intense look at all aspects of disease.

According to Beetham’s proposal, all of the classes required for the minor already exist at Iowa State. The minor will just organize them for students, making it easier to design a program that will fit each student’s interests and goals.

Robert Barak, interim executive director of the Board of Regents, said using existing classes will provide students will more options and opportunities “without expending a lot of extra funds.”

The minor will be open to all undergraduate students, regardless of their major.

“We will start with the broad picture and then tailor course- work to each student’s interest in the best way possible,” Beetham said.

Classes involved will be both hard and social sciences, he said.

“There will be fundamental science, but also epidemiological, cultural and societal studies are necessary,” Beetham said. “The program doesn’t relate only to the host as a biological system, but also to the host’s environment and culture.”

The minor will be tailored to each student’s interest because, as Beetham explained, the faculty involved realize the interests for an anthropology or economics student are most likely very different than the interests of a pre-medicine or pre-veterinary medicine student. The minor will be applicable to those majors as well as several others, he said.

Although there was no specific student focus group, Beetham said about 40 students have expressed interest in the minor.

“This is topical – there is awareness out there of how serious the problem of emerging diseases is,” he said. “This impacts a lot of people.”

Students in the emerging global diseases minor will be encouraged to study abroad, Beetham said.

“The university has a real emphasis on globalizing the curriculum,” he said. “This fits in with that mission of global experience very well.”

As the program grows, plans will be put in place to involve faculty at both the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa.

Barak said the regents like this sort of collaboration of universities, because it can enhance quality.

“We like to see them working together, because the expertise at one university often compliments the expertise at the other universities,” he said.