Graduate Affairs Committee Policy Changes Effective 31 May 2007
The policies below were approved by a faculty vote of 11-2 on 31 May 2007. The vote
and these recommendations were sent to all faculty on that date.
1. Graduate committee membership for Ph.D. students. The latest Graduate School
policy reads: The doctoral program committee shall be composed of a minimum of four
members of the MU graduate faculty and will include at least three members from the
student’s doctoral degree program and an outside member from a different MU program.
At least two of the doctoral committee members must be MU doctoral faculty. Additional
committee members with specialized expertise who do not meet the criteria for the MU
graduate faculty or doctoral faculty may serve on a doctoral committees as a fifth or sixth
member, with special permission of the vice provost/dean of the Graduate School. This
policy will be in effect for students who begin their doctoral programs during the 2005
Fall Term.
Recommendation. Our department currently requires 5 committee members. To be
consistent with the Graduate School policy, we recommend that F&W doctoral
committees be comprised of four members of the MU graduate faculty, including at least
three members from F&W and an outside faculty member from a different MU program.
To be consistent with the Graduate School, we recommend this change for those doctoral
students that began during the 2005 Fall term or after.
2. Availability of 8000-level courses. With implementation of the new course number
system we have noted a lack of 8000-level courses for doctoral students. Fifteen hours of
the 30-hour minimum for doctoral students must be selected from courses numbered at
8000 or 9000 level; no more than 40% of the 30-hour credit requirement can be satisfied
by a combination of research, readings, and/or problems courses.
Recommendation. We suggest developing several generic 8000-level workshop courses
for our students. For example, we could develop a course titled “Quantitative Methods in
Fisheries and Wildlife” with variable credit from 1-3 for on-campus workshops such as
the MARK recently presented by Steve Dinsmore. We would need faculty to help
organize these activities and be responsible for arranging the workshop and assigning
credit hours for the course. The cost for these activities can handled through graduate
student fees, as approved by the Chair. We recommend the development of these
workshop courses immediately (possibly 1 per semester).
3. Dissertation outline. Communication between doctoral students and committee
members is often inadequate resulting in: (1) dissertations being submitted to committee
members with little time for review; (2) “surprises” at the time of submission because the
student has not fully communicated changes to the dissertation; and (3) requests for
additional analysis and writing.
Recommendation. To promote communication between the doctoral candidate and the
graduate committee, we recommend that doctoral students be 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. We suggest this policy be implemented immediately.
4. Proposal defense and internal funding. Current requirements for timely completion
and defense of the research proposal are often ignored without consequence. For
instance, sometimes internal funding sources continue to be made available to those
students not completing their research proposals or showing appropriate degree progress.
Recommendation. We recommend that no internal funding (i.e., T.A., Love Fellowship,
Rucker Fellowship, etc.) be made available to M.S. students who do not successfully
defend their research proposal within 2 semesters. We recommend that no internal
funding be made available to Ph.D. students who do not successfully defense their
research proposal within 3 semesters. We suggest this policy be implemented
immediately.
5. Graduate Seminar. Seminars presenting culminating results of M.S. and Ph.D. work
are often bunched together the final week of each semester. In addition, there are
problems with advertising, timing, and appropriate notice of seminars, and summer
graduates cannot give seminar during the summer semester.
Recommendation. We recommend the following: (1) graduate seminars be completed
during a noon seminar on Wednesdays (or another day that is preferable to faculty)
during either the fall or winter semester; (2) seminars be arranged through the Director of
Graduate Studies who will send the seminar schedule to all faculty and graduate students
within two weeks of the start of the semester; (3) the graduate student provides at least 1
week’s notice of the seminar through e-mail and posted flyers to all faculty and resource
agencies in Columbia (USGS, MDC, Forest Service, etc.); and (4) this policy be
implemented immediately.
6. Preliminary and Comprehensive Exams. There is no Preliminary Exam to gauge
doctoral student deficiencies early in their program. The Comprehensive Exam, which
often occurs late in the degree program, has been used to identify deficiencies. We need
a mechanism early in the process so we can consider strengths, shortcomings and career
goals and appropriate steps to best prepare students for the terminal degree.
Recommendation. We recommend a written Preliminary Examination for all doctoral
students. The exam would 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 would 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. We recommend the proposal presentation
be open to everyone.
The Comprehensive Exam would be administered after all coursework is complete and
would include both a written and oral component. We recommend that Ph.D. students
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.
This process would facilitate: (1) a better understanding of deficiencies early in the
program so corrective actions may be taken; (2) an opportunity for students to identify
specific areas of specialty; (3) an even playing field with respect to doctoral
comprehensive examinations; and (4) improved communication among doctoral students
and faculty. The primary purpose of this change is to identify deficiencies early and
ensure highly qualified students at the end of their degree programs.
7. Voting on Ph.D. committees. Currently, our departmental policy is inconsistent with
the Graduate School related to the number of votes required to fail the preliminary and
comprehensive exams. Currently, the Graduate School requires two “fail” votes for
failure and F&W requires only a simple majority to pass.
Recommendation: To be consistent with the Graduate School, we recommend that failure
of a preliminary or comprehensive exam require two “fail” votes.
Areas of Specialization for Ph.D. Preliminary Examination
With input from the major advisor and graduate committee, the Ph.D. student would
identify five of the following areas of specialization. Exam questions pertaining to an
area of specialization will be administered concurrently.
Avian Ecology*
Aquatic Ecology
Behavioral Ecology
Bioenergetics
Conservation Biology
Community Ecology
Disease Ecology/Parasitology
Ecosystem Ecology
Effects of Climate Change on Fish and Wildlife**
Evolution
Fisheries Management
Herpetology
Human Dimensions
Ichthyology
Invertebrate Zoology
Landscape Ecology
Limnology
Mammalogy
Physiology
Plant Ecology
Population Ecology
Population Genetics
River and Stream Ecology**
Quantitative Ecology
Urban Ecology
Water Quality/Pollution
Wetland Ecology**
Wildlife Management
*Replaced “Ornithology” on December 19, 2014 based on faculty vote.
**Added on December 19, 2014 as new areas of specialization based on faculty vote.
Figure 1. The figure above outlines procedures regarding satisfactory and unsatisfactory
performance on the preliminary exam. These procedures were unanimously approved by
faculty during a faculty meeting on 11 April 2011. This revision supersedes voting on
preliminary exam as approved under number 7 above.