The college will be renamed as the College of Computational, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences on May 1, 2024.
Recently Dean Grant Jensen made a historic announcement. The College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences will become the College of Computational, Mathematical, & Physical Sciences. Here are specifics about the change.
- Why rename the college? This college has changed tremendously in the last 50 years including adding statistics, mathematics education, and computer science to the college. In recent years, CS has grown, and over half of our students are now computer scientists. In addition, computing has also changed many of our departments. For instance, our Mathematics Department has a strong applied and computational mathematics program that combines math and computing skills. We hope this new name will make it easier for students, alumni, and employers to find these programs and see BYU's strength in computing.
- When does it go into effect? The name goes into effect May 1. This April graduating class will be the last class of graduates from the College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences.
- What is our nickname? Computing, Math, & Science
- What is our new acronym? CMS
- When is it appropriate to use each version of the name? Official documents should use the full college name. Computing, Math, & Science can be used for the second reference and in places where the full name doesn't fit well. Computing, Math, and Science is also great to say verbally when describing the college. The acronym should be used sparingly simply because acronyms take a long time to gain any meaning.
- Why isn’t it just called the College of Sciences? We aren’t the only science college on campus. Our friends in the College of Life Sciences have many science programs and other colleges also have social science programs.
- Which departments are in this college? Our college oversees the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Computer Science, Geological Sciences, Mathematics, Mathematics Education, Physics and Astronomy, and Statistics.
- What is the history of the name of the college? Fifty years ago we were in one large College of Physical and Engineering Sciences. We split with the College of Engineering at that point due to growth and have been the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences since then.
- Does the name need to be updated everywhere? In order to stay consistent, we would like to update our name everywhere possible. If your BYU unit uses our name in any way, please fill out this form and we will work with you to make the updates.