Structuring and Supporting Excellence in Undergraduate Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education: The ASBMB Degree Accreditation Program

17:le2, 1 To the Editor: We were interested to read a recent CBE—Life Sciences Education (LSE) article by Matyas and coworkers describing the role of life science professional societies in supporting undergraduate education (Matyas et al., 2017). For this study, the 34 life science organizations that comprise the Professional Societies Alliance for Life Science Education (www.aibs.org/education/life_science_societies.html) were surveyed to identify their undergraduate-focused activities and how those activities have changed over time. Survey results revealed extensive engagement in undergraduate education through a range of activities including awards, opportunities for undergraduates at meetings, and online educational resources and publications (Matyas et al., 2017). Although all of the surveyed societies engage in a diversity of activities, only four responding societies report a “national network of undergraduate degree programs in the society discipline” (Matyas et al., 2017). The American Physiological Society supports the Physiology Majors Interest Group, which is a national consortium aimed at connecting undergraduate physiology programs and working collaboratively toward a unified vision for the physiology major (www.physiologymajors.org). The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the Ecological Society for America also reported undergraduate degree program networks, but these networks do not have a visible online presence. The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is unique among life science professional societies in providing an undergraduate degree accreditation program (www.asbmb.org/accreditation). Launched in 2013, the ASBMB degree accreditation program strives to serve students’ and educators’ needs through providing the following: