Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2021-2022 Level: Graduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Major [UG] / Program [Grad]
Program Name: Biology PhD (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
First year students are required to give three rotation talks that demonstrate their communication skills and understanding of the research that they have undertaken. Due to the pandemic and the need for social distancing, the rotation system was modified in 2020 and 2021, with students giving a single rotation talk on one rotation at the end of the Spring semester. However, we anticipate returning to the old format in the 2022-23 academic year.
Second year students write an original research proposal that is evaluated by a committee of three faculty members and provides the context for an oral comprehensive exam to test their breadth of knowledge in various biological subfields. Outcomes can be pass, fail, or conditional pass in which students are required to address deficiencies seen during the exam.
Starting in their third year, students present their ongoing research annually in the departmental Data Club. They also have annual meetings with their thesis guidance committee that evaluates their progress. Unsatisfactory progress in two consecutive meetings can lead to termination from the program.
We conduct a survey of the faculty to obtain their impressions of how we are meeting learning objects based on the following three topics. 1) rotation talk quality, 2) comps exam quality, 3) annual committee meeting quality. This is the fifth year of the survey. We continue to see an improving trend. While, the major areas of concern are that students have difficulties conveying information about a specialized area of biology to either a lay audience or a broad biological audience, the majority of Biology faculty now feel that they are able to do so.
Placement and publication data for graduate students are collected annually.
We originally instituted an exit survey to ask how confident students are that they have achieved each of the stated learning objectives in addition to satisfaction. Annual averages of these surveys provided a sense of what to focus on in the program. However, because these surveys were filled out by a very small number of students and because the program they experienced is not the same as our current program, we updated the survey and ask third and fourth year students to fill it out.
We surveyed the graduate students with regard to outcome 4. The consensus is that the RSI program needs be more tailored to focus Biology students on issues specific to Biology. They also say that the IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) and ACF (Animal Care Facility) training was good.
To address learning outcomes 1 and 5, we started to keep a “three-year” running total of meetings attended, presentations, and publications by our grad students. The numbers below actually represent about 2.5 years from 2018 to the middle of 2020. However, because of the pandemic, we are going to wait two years to update these numbers due to the impact on meeting attendance and benchwork that fuels our publications.
Meetings attended: 124
Presentations at meetings: 89
Publications: 45
Review Process:
The faculty meets each May to discuss the progress of the first-year students. Individual Comprehensive Exam Committees and Thesis Guidance Committees evaluate the students with whom they interact. The graduate program committee meets over the summer to discuss the general progress of the graduate students and determine whether adjustments are needed to meet learning goals.
Resulting Program Changes:
Six years ago, we gave the fourth year students the responsibility of organizing the annual departmental retreat that takes place in August. The goal was to give them professional experience (with guidance and support from Biology faculty and staff) in organizing a small scientific meeting. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we had to cancel the retreat in 2020 and 2021. The 2022 retreat is in the planning stages.
Six years ago, we made the first year research rotations into 1 credit graded courses. This had a positive impact as it required the faculty to give a more clearly stated evaluation of the students and it sent the message to the students that the rotations are a central component of their education. We also added a line to the rotation reports that accompany the assignment of a grade to specifically address the quality of the rotation talk. The graduate students all agreed that this was a good change to the program. However, due to COVID-19, we had to modify the rotation system to increase the number of possible rotation periods in order to de-densify the labs. We reinstituted graded rotations for the 2021-22 academic year.
Also based on the meeting with rising 4th and 5th year students, we instituted a summer meeting with rising 3rd year students to discuss the expectations of the 3rd year with regard to participation in Data Club and the initiation of Thesis Guidance Meetings.
In response to our annual meeting with grad students, we updated our department Handbook to make it easier for students to find out about expectations and possible outcomes with regard to the Comprehensive Exams and the annual Thesis Guidance meetings. Students have many suggestions for further updates, which will take place this summer.
To address the issue of improving communication of research to a broad scientific or lay audience, we instituted a Workshop/Bootcamp on presenting data given by Dr. Heather Olins.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
Six years ago, we gave the fourth year students the responsibility of organizing the annual departmental retreat that takes place in August. The goal was to give them professional experience (with guidance and support from Biology faculty and staff) in organizing a small scientific meeting. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we had to cancel the retreat in 2020 and 2021. The 2022 retreat is in the planning stages.
Six years ago, we made the first year research rotations into 1 credit graded courses. This had a positive impact as it required the faculty to give a more clearly stated evaluation of the students and it sent the message to the students that the rotations are a central component of their education. We also added a line to the rotation reports that accompany the assignment of a grade to specifically address the quality of the rotation talk. The graduate students all agreed that this was a good change to the program. However, due to COVID-19, we had to modify the rotation system to increase the number of possible rotation periods in order to de-densify the labs. We reinstituted graded rotations for the 2021-22 academic year.
Also based on the meeting with rising 4th and 5th year students, we instituted a summer meeting with rising 3rd year students to discuss the expectations of the 3rd year with regard to participation in Data Club and the initiation of Thesis Guidance Meetings.
In response to our annual meeting with grad students, we updated our department Handbook to make it easier for students to find out about expectations and possible outcomes with regard to the Comprehensive Exams and the annual Thesis Guidance meetings. Students have many suggestions for further updates, which will take place this summer.
To address the issue of improving communication of research to a broad scientific or lay audience, we instituted a Workshop/Bootcamp on presenting data given by Dr. Heather Olins.
Attachments (if available)