Academic

The academic subcommittee was established in 2012 to work together with the department and the faculty graduate committee to improve the academic curriculum and administrative requirements for BME graduate degree programs, based on the feedback and concerns of current graduate students. The two chairs of our committee serve as liaisons between the graduate student body and the faculty by attending student town hall meetings, faculty graduate committee meetings, and meetings with the department chair to provide graduate student input on all relevant academic and administrative decisions.

Accomplishments

• Revamped course curriculum for BE 605 Molecular Bioengineering, which is a PhD course requirement
• Restructured lab portion of BE 605 to review sessions with the teaching assistants (TAs)
• Changed the third topic of the PhD qualification exam to focus on a set of scientific papers
• Drafted curriculum for and helped establish Departmental Math Course BE 700
• Helped restructure the new Departmental Math Course into modules after the first year
• Provided the impetus to revamp BE 606 Quantitative Physiology, which is a PhD course requirement
• Established written policy regarding additional non-technical electives for PhD students in the BME student handbook (the department will pay for these classes but they will not count toward degree requirements)
• Helped change BE 792 Critical Literature Review to pass/fail
• Re-structured the Qualification exam from a written exam to an oral qualifier exam that tests the students’ ability to read, understand and critically evaluate scientific literature.
• Suggested and helped establish BE 700 Proposal Writing Course to provide formal grant writing training.

Continuing Work

• Engage with the BME Graduate Committee to provide a student voice on academic decisions
• Gather feedback from the graduate student body and facilitate conversations regarding academic requirements and processes during the Departmental Retreat
• Improve student and faculty alignment on committee formations and meetings throughout the Prospectus process
• Help to continuously provide feedback and suggest improvements on the procedures and assessment criteria for the Oral Qualification Exam
• Conduct anonymous exit interviews with graduating Masters and PhD students to complete the feedback cycle