The Literature and Languages Department will be offering a course on beekeeping in the 2015 spring semester.

The course will be taught by associate professor Lauri Chose.  It will be funded by a $3,000 Faculty Development Grant from the School of Arts and Letters.

Chose has no direct experience in beekeeping, but has studied this field for several years. She has been working side by side with the “Two C’s and a Bee Beekeepers Association,” and will continue to work with this organization while teaching the course.

The course is part of SFU’s environmental studies curriculum and will serve as a core class to students of varying majors. Chose is hoping to add advanced beekeeping classes in the future.

“The course was envisioned to help the new environmental studies major,” said Chose. “My goal is to teach students how they could leave this course and go home and have a beehive in their backyard.

“If everybody does that, we could help the bee population.”

Chose hopes that the course will spark some students to double as beekeepers.

“Honey bees are endangered in this country and we are losing millions of bees every year,” she said.  “It’s called the Colony Collapse Disorder.”

Students in the course will handle beehives, which will be place behind the Stokes Center, next to a field of golden rod.  The bees will be delivered to SFU once warmer weather arrives in March or April of next year.

“I am excited (about the course),” said social work major Jill Clark.