Summary of
Graduate Program Changes
1. Graduate committee membership for Ph.D. students.
To be consistent with the
2. Dissertation outline. To promote
communication between the doctoral candidate and the graduate committee, all
doctoral students are required to submit a formal outline of their dissertation
to committee members at the beginning of the semester they intend to
graduate. The outline must be in sufficient detail to satisfy the
committee. At times where the expected dissertation differs greatly from
the approved dissertation proposal more detail is appropriate. Students
graduating in May would be required to submit an outline to their committee by
the end of January, students graduating in August by the end of April, and
students graduating in December by the end of August. All committee
members would need to sign an approval form stating the outline meets their
expectations.
3. Proposal defense and internal funding. No
internal funding (i.e., T.A., Love Fellowship, Rucker Fellowship, etc.) will be
made available to M.S. students who do not successfully defend their research
proposal within 2 semesters. No internal funding will be made available
to Ph.D. students who do not successfully defense their research proposal
within 3 semesters.
4. Graduate Seminar. All graduate student
defense seminars must be completed during a noon seminar on Wednesdays (or
another day that is determined at the start of the semester) during either the
fall or winter semester. Seminars must be arranged through the Director
of Graduate Studies. The graduate student must provide at least 1 week’s
notice of the seminar through e-mail and posted flyers to all faculty and
resource agencies in
5. Preliminary and Comprehensive Exams.
Doctoral students entering our program in Fall 2007 or
after will be required to complete a written Preliminary Examination. The
exam will be administered within two months of the beginning of the semester
the student enrolls. Students will select 5 separate areas of
specialization (e.g., quantitative ecology, conservation biology) and spend one
day per area answering questions prepared by faculty with expertise in those
areas (e.g., Millspaugh would write questions about quantitative
ecology). The faculty member responsible for questions will evaluate the
quality of the responses and the exam results will be made available to the
student’s committee.
All doctoral students will be required to defend their
dissertation proposal (currently the preliminary exam experience) within 3
semesters of enrolling in the doctoral program. Upon successful
completion of the proposal defense, the student must submit their approved
proposal and a cover page containing the signatures of all committee members to
the Director of Graduate Studies. The proposal presentation is open to
everyone.
From now on, the Comprehensive Exam will be administered
after all coursework is complete and will include both a written and oral
component. Doctoral students will either (1) craft a mock grant to
continue some phase of the Ph.D. project, or other appropriate line of
investigation; (2) write a position statement suggesting policy change; (3)
write a position statement justifying the creation of a new program; or (4) a
similar activity determined by the committee that requires creativity and
integration at the level of a scientist with an advanced degree. A
component of any option would require the student to directly relate the
investigation to conservation and management and to discuss how the work
relates to public policy. It is expected that general knowledge questions
would also be asked at the oral portion of the comprehensive examination.
6. Voting on Ph.D. committees. To be
consistent with the