Two forensic science courses are being proposed at Delta: AJ 35, Introduction to Forensics and ANTHR 13, Forensic Anthropology. Both courses are expected to be added to the course catalog next year or in 2027, possibly arriving in Summer 2026 at the earliest.
There are no records of forensic science courses ever being offered at Delta.
“Many colleges offer [forensic anthropology], I was kind of surprised when I saw that there was no history of it being offered here because it’s become sort of a standard to teach it at most larger institutions,” said Dr. Monique Fortunato, associate professor of Biological Anthropology and proponent of ANTHR 13.
Fortunato proposed ANTHR 13 in the early half of this year around February; AJ 35 was proposed in October by Administration of Justice co-chair David Main. The Academic Senate approved both courses in November, which are now awaiting approval from Vice President of Instruction & Planning Dr. Charles “Kale” Braden before they can receive final approval at a board meeting.
ANTHR 13 is expected to slot into the Social Science TrAC and the Natural Science section of Area B of California State University General Education (CSU-GE) requirements, as well as the Physical and Biological Sciences section of the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC). AJ 35 is expected to be a restricted elective in the Administration of Justice program.
The proposal for AJ 35 came from faculty noticing heightened student interest in forensics over the last several years, which Main attributes to the representation of crime scene investigations in television shows. Similar reasons also influenced the proposal of ANTHR 13, with shows like “Bones” and the surge of true crime podcasts and videos cited as examples of public interest in forensic anthropology.
“[AJ 35] came as a result of students showing a tremendous interest in this area, so we thought it might be a good idea to include a class in this so they can kinda pursue it maybe a little bit further and see if it’s something that might interest them and that they could take it farther if they transferred,” Main said.
Fortunato plans to instruct ANTHR 13, while an instructor would need to be hired to teach AJ 35.
AJ 35’s course outline, despite being an Introduction to Forensics course, will focus more on crime scene investigation according to Main. The course covers various processes during crime scene investigations, such as the sketching, photographing, video, collection and preservation of evidence, as well as lab work and how evidence is submitted to a lab.
ANTHR 13 would be an on-ground, hands-on lab class where students simulate investigating skeletal remains to identify information such as the cause of death, time of death, species, age, gender and such.
“Forensic anthropology is — by definition — forensic means the legal realm and anthropology means applying biological anthropology, which is where you learn all the bones of the human body, bone biology, development and and how to determine age, sex, stature, trauma, individual identification and you do it all in the framework of the legal realm,” Fortunato said.
Fortunato has been developing the lab for the ANTHR 13 since she started teaching at Delta four years ago. Prior to Delta, Fortunato has taught the Forensic Anthropology course at Cosumnes River College, which ANTHR 13 will be modeled after.
“I took several classes related to forensic anthropology, paleopathology — I was qualified to start teaching it at [Cosumnes River College], but [Cosumnes River] … they already had a forensic anthropology curriculum … And so it wasn’t really a challenge, like even though I had never taught it before, I was able to sort of piggyback off of the work of people who had done it and I was able to reach out to people,” Fortunato said. “So when I taught it at [Cosumnes River], a lot of it was me sort of taking inspiration from those who came before me and making it my own.”
Currently, the lab for ANTHR 13 consists of various forensics equipment and skeletal casts sourced from osteological reproductions company Bones Clones. Some of the casts had already been at Delta when Fortunato was hired, later casts were acquired through funds from resource allocation monies received internally according to Fortunato.
Skeletal casts in the lab include: a skull with blunt force trauma from a hammer, a skull with a gunshot wound, an abnormal sternum and a rib with a bullet lodged inside.
The lab also has casts used for comparative anatomy, such as: a skeletal set of a human hand and a bear paw, a male and female pelvis, a set of jaw casts across various ages from infanthood to adulthood and articulated skeletons of an infant, a five-year-old, a 14-year-old and adult male and female. The lab has casts for pathological examination as well, including: a femur with bone cancer, a femur with a poorly healed fracture and a skull with South American cultural modifications of deliberate cranial deformation and healed trepanation.
The ANTHR 13 lab is currently awaiting new flooring, as well as a variety of skull casts including: a skull for facial reconstruction lab experiments, an elderly skull, a skull marked with craniometric landmarks, a hypermasculine female skull and a skull with hydrocephalus. The materials are expected to arrive before the latter half of December.
To see more photos of the planned ANTHR 13 lab, visit https://deltacollegian.net/2025/12/09/planned-forensic-anthropology-lab-collects-skeletal-casts/
