Just a few days old, the 1997-99 Iowa State Catalog has a lot of people talking.

Several changes have been made in the new catalog that promise to have a considerable effect on students in the upcoming years.

A significant adjustment to the catalog is the addition of the U.S. diversity and international perspective requirements, said Roger Smith, chairman of the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee. Under this requirement, students must complete three credits in each area — six credits total — to graduate.

Several changes in graduation requirements were also made within individual departments and colleges.

Among the most notable is the chemical engineering department. Department officials removed 10 core credits from their requirements.

Glenn Schrader, chairman of the Chemical Engineering Curriculum Committee, said the changes are designed to help students better prepare for careers. “The job market has changed a lot in the last five to 10 years. We are responding to that need.”

The reduced credits will allow students to develop special areas of interest, such as biochemistry, biotechnology and microelectronic processing,” Schrader said. These specialties are becoming increasingly important in the chemical engineering field, he said.

The 10 credits eliminated from the curriculum include fundamentals of mechanics, a semester of physical chemistry and a professional elective, reducing the total number of required credits to 124.5.

Jason Minion, a freshman in chemical engineering, heard about the decreased credits.

“My second major is biochemistry, so reducing the required credits will help me graduate earlier,” he said. Minion now expects to graduate in 4 1/2 years under the new catalog.

Schrader said the department has been looking at ways to “streamline” the program. “We have been focused on updating the graduation requirements for several years. It’s really oriented to better serve the students.”

Schrader said the department was not necessarily responding to pressure from the university to reduce the number of credits.

However, Smith said administrators are “concerned about the length of time it takes people to graduate.”

“We want to get them through in four years,” he said. “Anything we can do to try to minimize [the length of time] is positive.”

Students can follow the requirements of the new catalog, or one of the two previous catalogs as long as they have been enrolled at some point during the catalog period. Students can get a free copy of the catalog in Alumni Hall through April 18, when the catalogs will go on sale in the book stores for $3.