SMART Grant Update

By Matt Brauer

PT reader TW points to Sam Kean’s CHE update. In brief, Evolutionary Biology is a valid major.

There has also been a press release from the Dept. of Education:

PRESS RELEASES Statement from Chief of Staff David Dunn on Eligible AC/SMART Grant Majors

FOR RELEASE: August 24, 2006 Contact: Chad Colby Samara Yudof (202) 401-1576

David Dunn, Chief of Staff for U.S. Department of Education, today issued the following statement on eligible majors under the Academic Competitiveness/SMART grant program:

“Recent news reports have suggested that Evolutionary Biology is not an eligible major under the new SMART grant program. This is incorrect and in fact the opposite is true. Evolutionary biology is a major eligible to receive SMART grants under the ‘Ecology, Evolution, Systematics and Population Biology’ category of majors.

“The misunderstanding occurred as the result of a draft document that omitted evolutionary biology from a list of majors put forth for use by colleges. As soon as the omission came to our attention, we took steps to correct it. However, regardless of its omission on that one document, evolutionary biology was and continues to be SMART grant eligible.

“The Department is making the necessary correction which will be in place before final guidance on AC/SMART grants is issued.”

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No word yet on the fate of HVAC engineering.

Further update: Jon Swift channels the wingnutosphere, which is suggesting that Science be removed from the list altogether because, you know, science, like history, is dead, dead, dead.

Jon Swift wrote:

Now that two of my least favorite subjects in school, science and history, are dead, I’m hoping that the Bush Administration will redouble its efforts to kill off two other subjects I didn’t much care for, Math and Geography. While important strides have been made, I still think more can be done to send Math and Geography to the dustbin of History, which, course, has itself been sent to the dustbin of . . . something else, I guess. I’m not ready to declare victory until our schools are teaching only two subjects: Religion and Gym.