Ohio State University offered courses pertaining to crop breeding and hereditary behaviors in animals before the creation of genetic classes in 1965, such as “Poultry Genetics,” which was offered in 1941. Most genetic courses were offered in the College of Biological Sciences. Professors teaching the subject of genetics were not recognized by the Board of Trustees until 1935. The Institute of Genetics, “an interdepartmental organization,” was proposed at a Board of Trustees meeting in 1951 and completed in 1956. In 1963, the Board of Trustees moved to create a program in regards to the “development of genetics.” When the College of Biological Sciences became a single academic unit in 1967, Ohio State brought an “extension in defined fields of learning,” which included genetics. The official professorship for genetics was established in 1968; this meant that a professor of genetics was recognized as a faculty member. Finally, in 1971, the Department of Genetics was officially established in the College of Biological Sciences. In 1979, a professor in the Department of Genetics received a $232,316 grant to study molecular cloning. The Board of Trustees voted to change the name of the Department of Genetics to the Department of Molecular Genetics in 1987.