[Plsfaculty] Please vote: School policy re. journal clubs

[Betsy Arnold]

Dear colleagues,

The Graduate Student Program Committee has three related proposals on which
we would value your perspective. All center on journal clubs. Please read
the points below, and then go online to vote (yes, I agree; no, I
disagree). Space for comments will be provided.

*https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XWN7YRB*

Voting will close on Monday at noon. Results will guide our policy for
graduate curricula for our majors, especially with regard to our incoming
class of new students.

Note: GSPC members, *please vote* in this faculty poll.

Thank you,
Betsy



We propose as a School:

*1. To offer a school-wide Plant Sciences Journal Club every spring*, led
by two faculty who will collaborate to ensure that it serves all students
who are enrolled with a breadth of topics and quality of experience. Its
dual aims: teaching students to evaluate the literature; exposing students
to recent research of relevance across our school, including microbial
(viral, bacterial, fungal, and nematological) and plant-sciences topics,
computational biology, etc..

*2. To encourage students to take the Plant Sciences Journal Club* by
making it the primary way in which students fulfill their journal club
requirement. Special petitions can be made by students and their faculty
advisors to substitute other journal club courses, with approval from the
DGS as part of the MS or doctoral plan of study. This allows out-of-school
and other within-school options but also encourages cohesion. At the
moment, MS students are required to take two semesters of journal club, and
PhD students are required to take four units -- something achievable either
through the Plant Sciences journal club alone, or through that with
additional 'research discussions' courses (see below).

*3. Under this scenario,* *we welcome faculty-led discussions (usually
one-credit journal-club like courses) outside of this Plant Sciences
Journal Club, offered ad hoc as faculty wish, with a gentle preference
(when possible) for such courses to be held in the fall. *Such courses are
things like 'research topics in X' or 'research discussions.' Offering them
in the fall (when possible) will give students a curricular balance between
the two academic terms.


-- 
---------------------------------
A. Elizabeth (Betsy) Arnold
School of Plant Sciences
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

http://arnoldlab.net
arnold at ag.arizona.edu
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