Spurred by a recent increase in student demand for an undergraduate academic program in nutrition, a group of Tufts faculty has begun to explore the prospect of an interdisciplinary nutrition minor within the School of Arts and Sciences.
Current Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy Robin Kanarek is at the forefront of these efforts. She hopes to create an undergraduate minor in nutrition that offers two curricular options for students.
The first, a nutrition science?oriented approach, would focus on the biological effects of nutrients on physiological symptoms and diseases, while the second, geared at students interested in nutrition policy, would require courses in food policy and economics.
Kanarek believes that the minor would attract a diverse pool of students, including those interested in the international relations side of food policy, as well as students pursuing a career in medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine.
"All of these professions, I think, need people who have nutrition backgrounds in them so I think it could help students who are interested in those areas," she said.
Kanarek expects the nutrition minor to include classes from departments including Biology, Economics, Political Science, International Relations, Chemistry and Psychology, and believes that the minor can be created using resources that already exist at Tufts.
The university currently offers several courses related to nutrition for undergraduates, including Nutrition 101, a psychology course about nutrition and behavior and an anthropology course on food and culture.
The faculty group decided not to pursue a nutrition major because it would require the establishment of an entirely new department. Tufts' nutrition program is located at the Friedman School in downtown Boston and is therefore unable to offer an undergraduate major degree for logistical reasons.But an interdisciplinary minor would instead draw from existing departments at the Medford/Somerville campus, according to Kanarek.
The process of creating a new minor will require the installation of new classes and the approval of the Curricula Committee for the School of Arts and Sciences, which must approve all new courses and degree programs. The minor would also have to get the vote of the entire Arts and Sciences faculty, according to Kanarek.
Kanarek hopes to see new food policy course offerings added as early as next fall.
"Basically, right now there [are] just a few classes that students can take to introduce themselves to nutrition, and Nutrition 101 is such a broad class," Kelly Kane, assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, said. "We would all like to see students get more of a taste of what nutrition really is."
According to Kane, a nutrition minor would be applicable to many areas of study, including popular majors such as international relations.
"A lot of students [who do] fieldwork for their coursework in international relations are going to other countries and very often their research projects include nutrition, and they don't feel like they have any nutrition skills," Kane said. "I think that the nutrition minor might be able to ... give students more tools to approach their work both here in the United States and in any kind of international work."
Student enrollment in Nutrition 101 has seen a dramatic increase in recent years, indicative of rising student and faculty interest in the field, according to Kanarek.
"There does absolutely seem to be an interest on the part of the students," Kane said. "I've heard informally from students, having taught Nutrition 101 for the past couple years, that they always have an impression that Tufts is a big nutrition school ... But on the undergraduate level there aren't a lot of options available."
"I've been at Tufts since the School of Nutrition started and undergraduates have always been interested in nutrition, but I've seen over the past several years a distinct increase in student interest in nutrition," Kanarek said.
"And I think we're also at a point where faculty from the School of Nutrition we have are also very interested in teaching undergraduates."
Food 4 Thought, a student group interested in bringing more food?related course offerings to the Hill, has found that interest in food classes at Tufts is high.
"We've been collecting signatures, we've been talking to professors, and just trying to gauge the interest," sophomore Emma Scudder, co?president of Food 4 Thought, said.
A petition requesting more food?related classes has garnered nearly 200 undergraduate signatures, according to Scudder.
She listed several concepts that she would like to see explored in courses at Tufts, namely the economics of the global food business, biology of food, sustainable agriculture and the history of food in a certain context.
"We see it as multidisciplinary," Scudder said.
Ultimately, Kanarek hopes to see a nutrition minor that satisfies student demand.
"I hope to see it meet student need, because it is something that students seem to be very interested in," Kanarek explained.
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