Several changes will be proposed during Iowa State’s upcoming Board of Regents request address, including major identification changes, center creations and a new program.

A human computer interaction master’s program (M.HCI) will be requested for approval to be added to the graduate college. If it’s successful, its implementation is projected for August 2017.

With more than 200 students enrolled in the standard human computer interaction graduate program, approved by the regents in 2003, it is currently the largest interdepartmental major at Iowa State.

In 2008, the HCI program was given an online capstone course path in response to its general popularity. By the third year of its implementation, the university is estimating a total of 60 enrolled graduates within the program.

Established more than 40 years ago, the current women’s studies major program at Iowa State is proposed to be renamed as the women’s and gender studies program. The change is meant to better reflect the educational content currently available in the major compared to when it was created, as well as match up with other similar program at other institutions.

Another name change will affect the Center for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education and be proposed to the Center for STEM Education in the College of Human Sciences.

According to Iowa State, the current title does not accurately reflect the education associated with STEM majors. The new name will be unique to Iowa State as well as all other regent universities and is expected to further engage educators from a variety of disciplines in research and scholarly activity.

Set to be established in May of 2017, if approved, the newly proposed Crop Bioengineering Center will look to establish Iowa State as a premiere location for seed and crop-based research.

Through its existence, Iowa State hopes to bolster its strengths as a provider of crop bioengineering expertise, services in plant transformation and advanced genome engineering. It also hopes to provide for the growing issue of worldwide hunger through new crop producing methods and sustainability efforts.

The center will be funded through a series of grants and contracts, meaning no external funding such as tuition dollars will be used for the project. This includes a portion of allocated indirect cost recovery from the center’s external research funds, around $154,000 initially.

Much like the Crop Bioengineering Center, a newly requested Iowa State Nanovaccine Institute will be funded entirely by grants and contracts.

The institute will work to create new research toward both the medical and veterinary field. Meant to house the current 65 researchers, much of the research will go toward creating life-saving vaccines for both humans and animals.

If approved, the institute will also be established in May of 2017 in conjunction with the Crop Bioengineering Center.

All requests will be submitted during the two-day Iowa Board of Regents meeting beginning April 19.