History of the College

The College of Natural and Health Sciences was established on July 1, 2005. The result of a reorganization spurred by the University’s Charting the Future planning process, the College was created through the merger of biological, mathematical, and physical science disciplines formerly in the College of Arts and Sciences with a pre-existing College of Health and Human Sciences. A fundamental element of the University’s restructuring activity was the replacement of academic departments with schools, many of them larger and more complex than their predecessors, and each headed by a Director. In the former College of Health and Human Sciences, the School of Human Sciences was created from the former Departments of Communication Disorders, Community Health & Nutrition, Criminal Justice, and Human Services. The Schools of Nursing and Sport & Exercise Science were carried over from that College into the new College of Natural and Health Sciences. The former Departments of Biological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences were designated as new Schools. The Departments of Chemistry, Earth Sciences, and Physics, previously stand-alone units in the College of Arts & Sciences, were merged to form the School of Chemistry, Earth Sciences, & Physics. In July 2008, the School of Chemistry, Earth Sciences and Physics was reorganized into two separate schools to form the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Earth Sciences and Physics. With seven schools and approximately 132 full-time faculty members, the College of Natural and Health Sciences constitutes the largest of the University’s academic colleges by both numbers of academic schools and full-time faculty.