Plan for Environmental Chemistry Graduate Students

M.S.:

1. Complete the general university degree requirements and the Master’s Degree requirements as described in the catalog.  These requirements entail at least 30 credits.  The student must file a Graduate Study Plan with the Graduate School.  Annually, the student must complete a committee meeting and submit the Report of Committee Form to the Graduate school (see useful information at the bottom of this document).  There is no written comprehensive examination, an oral comprehensive accompanies the thesis defense (see 3). 

2 (Classes) The core classes are required.  There are two sets of core classes, depending on emphasis.  For students in atmospheric focus area, the core is Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry (605), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Fundamentals of Atmospheric Science (601), and Environmental Fate and Transport (631).  For students in the terrestrial/aquatic focus area, the core is Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry (605), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Introduction to Geochemistry (GEOS 618), Environmental Geochemistry (609), and Environmental Fate and Transport (631).  In either focus area, you must take two graduate seminar courses, Chemistry Seminar (692), and Research Presentation Techniques (691).  We encourage students to take Chemistry Seminar their first year, and Research Presentation Techniques in their second spring semester.  We encourage participation by students from diverse backgrounds; however, those who do not have the equivalent of a BS in chemistry may be required to make up deficiency courses as part of their Graduate Study Plan.  These courses will be selected in consultation with the student’s academic advisor and the department chair at the start of their program.  Additional course work will be determined in consultation with the student’s committee.

3 (Comprehensives) Near the completion of their degree, the student gives an oral defense on their thesis work.  They defend their thesis work in a public session followed by an examination session with their committee.  In this examination session, the committee examines their thesis research as well as their general knowledge in Environmental Chemistry.  This examination session acts as their comprehensive exam for the M.S. degree. 

4 (Thesis) The student must write a thesis that must be approved by the student’s advisory committee, and further needs the approval of the Chemistry department head, and the dean of the college.

Ph.D.

1. Complete the general university degree requirements and the Ph.D. Degree requirements as described in the catalog.  These requirements entail at least 18 credits.  The student must file a Graduate Study Plan with the Graduate School.  Annually, the student must complete a committee meeting and submit the Report of Committee Form to the Graduate school (see useful information at the bottom of this document).

2 (Classes) The core classes are required.  There are two sets of core classes, depending on emphasis.  For students in atmospheric focus area, the core is Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry (605), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Fundamentals of Atmospheric Science (601), and Environmental Fate and Transport (631).  For students in the terrestrial/aquatic focus area, the core is Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry (605), Atmospheric Chemistry (606), Introduction to Geochemistry (GEOS 618), Environmental Geochemistry (609), and Environmental Fate and Transport (631).  In either focus area, you must take two graduate seminar courses, Chemistry Seminar (692), and Research Presentation Techniques (691).  We encourage students to take Chemistry Seminar their first year, and Research Presentation Techniques in their second spring semester.  We encourage participation by students from diverse backgrounds; however, those who do not have the equivalent of a BS in chemistry may be required to make up deficiency courses as part of their Graduate Study Plan.  These courses will be selected in consultation with the student’s academic advisor and the department chair at the start of their program.  Additional course work will be determined in consultation with the student’s committee.

3. (Comprehensives) The comprehensive examination process begins with the written examinations (section 3.1).  The student must pass the written examinations to stand for the oral presentation of research proposal (section 3.2).  Completion of both written and oral sections advances the student to Ph.D. candidacy.  Re-examination is considered in section 3.3.  Written comprehensive exams must be attempted at the “normal” time, which is the summer following the student’s second full year in the program.  Failure to take the exams by this “normal” time automatically shifts the student into the MS program.  The exams may be attempted earlier in the case of a student with a good background, and may be retaken later, as described in section 3.3.

3.1 (Written Examinations) The student must take written comprehensive examinations on four subjects.  The subjects are parallel to the academic courses that the student has completed, although the student is expected to synthesize between their courses to provide good answers to the exams.   The professor who taught the class to the majority of students being examined writes the questions for the examination.  This same professor grades the examination questions they wrote.  It is permitted for a faculty member outside Environmental Chemistry to prepare and grade test questions.  The student must take three comprehensive examinations from subjects in their core classes plus one other examination on a class of the student’s choosing (subject to the approval of the committee Chair).  The professor writing the exam assigns a grading structure to their exam.  For overall written comprehensive examination grading, the professor’s scores are converted to grades of unsatisfactory, marginal, satisfactory, and excellent, based upon a scale defined by the professor. For example, a possible grading structure could be: below 50% is unsatisfactory, below 70% is marginal, 70% to 90% is satisfactory, and above 90% is excellent.  The grading structure is defined by the examining professor and must be written on the exam.  For a student to pass their written comprehensive examinations, they must have no unsatisfactory exams and maximally one marginal exam.  Written comprehensive exams are offered once per year, in early June, based upon faculty availability.  Each (of the four required) exams is one half day (4 hours) in duration.  The exams are to be scheduled so that each student only needs to take one test in a single day, if possible.  It is policy that neither the test questions nor the student's test question answers are to be kept by the student, but rather they are returned to the faculty.  However, the student may go over the exam in the presence of the faculty member responsible for the examination questions.

3.2 (Oral Examination) The student must give an oral presentation of their thesis research plan.  This presentation must demonstrate to the committee that the student has a viable research project and background knowledge sufficient to pursue a Ph.D. degree.  The student’s committee attends, along with an outside examiner (as described in the catalog) and grades this presentation.  The grades are pass, conditional pass, and fail.  In the case of a conditional pass, the committee must describe the areas that must be remedied, and if the student completes these requirements, their grade is converted to pass.  In the case of failure of the oral examination, the student may be re-examined (see below).

3.3 (Failure of Comprehensive Examinations) The student is allowed to re-attempt the written comprehensive examinations only once. If a student has scored unsatisfactory or marginal in two or fewer subjects, the student only has to re-take these one or two examination subject tests.  If a student scores unsatisfactory or marginal in more than two subjects, they must re-take the whole suite of four subject tests. If a student is in the end unable to pass their comprehensive exams, they are shifted into the M.S. program, where they must then satisfy the degree requirements of the M.S. program to get an M.S. degree.

4. (Thesis) The student must write a thesis and make a public presentation summarizing his/her findings.  The student’s thesis must be approved by the student’s advisory committee, and further needs the approval of the Chemistry department head, and the dean of the college.

5. Transfer Students

5. 1 Masters and Ph. D. transfer students are required to take the Environmental Chemistry core courses, unless the same or equivalent courses were already successfully taken, as determined by the students’ advisory committee chair and the Chemistry department head.

5. 2 Students entering the Ph. D. program after passing (in whole or part) the comprehensive examination at another department of the UA system or University are evaluated by the advisory committee at the time of the oral presentation to determine if any parts of the Environmental Chemistry comprehensive exam need to be taken or retaken.

Useful information

Financial aid and fellowships:

Students may wish to apply for financial aid.  Forms may be found at:

http://www.uaf.edu/gradsch/general/financial/index.html

Numerous fellowships inside and external to UAF are also available, for example:

EPA STAR fellowship: http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/2004/2005_star_grad_fellow.html
DOE GREF fellowship: http://www.atmos.anl.gov/GCEP/GCEPinfo.html
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship: http://www.nsfgradfellows.org/
Global Change Fellowships: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/ProgramElements/proposals/default.htm
UAF Global Change Fellowship: http://www.cgc.uaf.edu/student_grant/2005-competition.htm

Reports:
It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that all reports are submitted by their respective deadlines.  Forms and additional instructions may be found at:

http://www.uaf.edu/gradsch/students/index.html

Maintaining Good Standing

http://www.uaf.edu/catalog/current/academics/regs2.html#Good_Standing

If you have further questions, please contact one of the program coordinators.