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Selection
of a Major Advisor Prior to selecting a thesis Committee, a student must select a major (or permanent) advisor. The major advisor will be responsible for supervising all aspects of graduate training and thesis research. It is suggested that, in general, no more than three (3) pre-doctoral (Ph.D., or Ph.D./M.D.) students be allowed per faculty member regardless of rank. However, the choice of each student shall be given precedence dependent upon availability of space (and in some cases, funds) in any one faculty member's program. |
| Selection
of the Thesis Committee The student should contact each faculty member that he/she would like to have serve on his/her Thesis Committee to determine whether they would be willing to serve. The student, in consultation with his/her advisor, should provide a list of faculty members that he/she wishes to serve on his/her committee to the department chairman. A letter will be written by the Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology to the advisor and each faculty member, who has agreed to serve on the committee, requesting that they so serve. They should reply in writing to the departmental chairman indicating their willingness to serve. The committee shall be constituted of five (5) faculty members plus the Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology who shall be ex-officio member on all committees. If the Chairman is the student's major advisor, then at least two (2) other members of the committee shall be from the core faculty of the Department of Pharmacology. This is to ensure that the majority of the committee is from the Department of Pharmacology. The Thesis Committee is required to have two meetings per year, to be arranged by the student; one of these meetings is to follow the student's annual departmental seminar. It is the student's responsibility to set the time for the second meeting and remind the committee members about the date. |
| The
Thesis The thesis problem should be an in-depth problem in pharmacology utilizing up-to-date technology focusing on testing a hypothesis that has been developed by the student in conjunction with his/her advisor and thesis committee. The thesis problem should focus on a question, rather than the mere collection of data with one technique, and the student should use, if necessary, several techniques available in his/her advisor's laboratory or a special laboratory in another department which are necessary to answer this question. The student and advisor are encouraged to collaborate with other faculty members, within and outside of the department, especially when a new technique or a new area of expertise is available to assist them in answering the basic question which is essential to their thesis problem. The student should have a statement of his/her thesis problem very early in their training in order to make a decision about the technology that they must master in order to answer this question. |
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Final
Defense of the Thesis In general, the final defense of the thesis will be conducted in a manner similar to that of the oral preliminary examination. The preliminary drafts of the thesis shall be read and amended by the advisor and presented to a reading committee composed of the advisor and two other members of the Thesis Committee. Upon satisfaction of the reading committee, the preliminary draft of the thesis shall be submitted to the rest of the thesis committee for their approval. The final draft of the thesis shall be made available to the pharmacology faculty at least ten (10) days before the final oral thesis examination. The student should refer to the thesis guide published by the Biomedical Sciences graduate office in preparing his/her thesis. The thesis committee will initially vote on the final defense. No more than one negative vote of the thesis committee will be accepted for a passing grade. The recommendation by the committee to pass a student will then be presented to the departmental faculty and a simple majority rule will prevail to pass the student. Three copies of the final thesis are to be submitted to the department chairman. The original unbound copy will be forwarded to the Biomedical Sciences graduate office along with a letter signed by each member of the thesis committee and the departmental chairman indicating that the student has fulfilled all requirements for the Ph.D. or M.S. degree. Bound copies of the thesis are to be provided for the pharmacology library, the thesis advisor and the student. |