If you were a first-year student studying civil engineering at U of T in 1860, your classes would include Euclidean Math, Statics and Dynamics, Astronomy, English, French, Chemistry and Chemical Physics, and Elementary Mineralogy and Geology. If you did well enough, you could also receive a scholarship worth thirty British pounds. 

Over 150 years later, studying at U of T is an entirely different experience. But one might wonder how this unfamiliar past has shaped the present. 

BIO courses without a biology department

The naming of first-year and second-year courses in life sciences is a common area of confusion. The Department of Biology at UTSG no longer exists; it was officially renamed to the Department of Zoology in 1941 and later underwent further naming changes. 

Then why does BIO120: Adaptation and Biodiversity, a course taken by nearly all first-year life sciences students, have a ‘biology’ course indicator? What about BIO230: From Genes to Organisms? 

As U of T biologist Edward Horne Craigie writes in A History of the Department of Zoology, the Department of Biology kept its name for many years despite earlier changes that had, in practice, split it up into the Departments of Zoology and Botany. Craigie writes, “The apparent anomaly of the name of the department was explained on the basis of the existence of a course […] in which botanical as well as zoological materials were presented.”

By the 1964–1965 school year, courses were organized methodically, receiving a ‘subject number’ within their relevant faculties or schools. Course codes as we know them today were first included in the 1969–1970 course calendar. This is also when we first see BIO120, described in the academic calendar as “a biology course relating the study of plants and animals to evolution.”

By this point, Botany and Zoology were separate departments with their own courses and course designators, though some required BIO courses as prerequisites. Course designators are the first three letters of course codes, and can indicate which department, program, or college offers the course. 

And so, the BIO course designator lives on. As the 2000–2001 course calendar put it, “Biology courses are taught by members of the departments of Botany and Zoology […] Each department offers its own programs and courses, but also jointly teaches Biology courses.” Much like evolution’s vestigial traits taught in BIO120 and BIO220, the BIO designator has remained. 

Evolutionary biology: Baked into history

Many iterations of BIO120 and BIO220 begin by justifying why life sciences students are required to take evolutionary biology courses. The quote by the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” is often featured. 

But this focus on evolutionary biology at U of T is far from new. Ecology is mentioned in the course calendar as early as the 1914–1915 school year, with a note reading, “as form becomes intelligible only in the light of a knowledge of function and adaptation, it is advisable that the physiological and ecological studies should be taken up in appropriate connection with the morphological.” 

The focus on evolution continued with undergraduate courses such as The Morphology and Evolution of Plants offered in the 1940–1941 school year; and Plant Systematics and Plant Ecology, and Animal Ecology offered in 1960–1961. In 1974–1975, even more courses were offered, from Advanced Plant Ecology to Chromosomes and Evolution. 

Ecology and evolutionary biology only continued to grow as major areas of focus at the university. In 2006, the Department of Zoology and the Department of Botany became the Department of Cell and Systems Biology (CSB) and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB). 

Today, there are dozens of EEB courses offered at U of T at the undergraduate level. EEB research is also flourishing at U of T, with hundreds of graduate students and dozens of faculty who have collectively published hundreds of scientific papers.

Problematic history

Flipping through old course calendars and drawing connections to today’s courses offers a gentle foray into the university’s past. But lest we get carried away, the university’s past also contained problematic figures and decisions.

For instance, Ramsay Wright — whose eponymous building has seen nearly every life sciences student — was a supporter of human eugenics, a subfield of genetics that advocated for racist, discriminatory beliefs and experiments under the guise of ‘bettering’ humankind. He was also a long-time professor at the university, working his way up to the Dean of Arts and Vice President of the university.

In the 1930s, the university used Horatio Newman’s 1921 Readings in Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics as a reference text in an animal sociology class. The textbook covered topics we continue to discuss in classes to this day, like Mendelian genetics, but also contained theories of eugenics that disparaged immigrants as having “bad germplasm.” 

The university has undoubtedly undergone a lot of change over the past two centuries, increasing its offering of courses, expanding the variety of departments and fields of study, and, perhaps most importantly, leaving behind damaging teachings. A look into the past offers answers to some of our curiosities and serves as a stark reminder of just how much things have changed.