PROPOSAL: Prior to admission to the Ph.D. program, graduate students enrolled in two or more courses in any given semester may not miss more than 1 week of classes for research-related reasons.

• student performance following such absences frequently drops

• most students have proven unable to make up this work

• graduate students “so good in lab” perform poorly academically

• What impression does a faculty request that a student miss class have? What does it imply about the value of course work?

• students lead to believe if they find an advisor & start research right away, they don’t need to worry about courses. •Pendulum may have swung too far toward emphasizing lab work at the expense of academic course work.

Passed May 3, 2005

PROPOSAL: The faculty votes on graduate student admission to the PhD program by ballot rather than a showing of hands.

• high number of abstentions on the poor performing students; ( 9 in one case this past February!) • awkward to be objective when the research advisor is in room (particularly for untenured faculty)

• votes in the open difficult when a vote against a student may be felt to hurt a colleague’s research program

Passed May 3, 2005

Advanced Qualifying Exams

1 comprehensive written exam (no oral exam)•covering PHYS 911-917•offered twice annually

•January and May/June•decision on passing known by end of 2nd year

•to be taken as soon as student completes core sequence (typically January of student’s 2nd year)•e.g. 8-12 questions / 3-4 hours (1 night? 2 nights?)

Pass/fail decisions made blindly by (Graduate? Exam?) committee with cut-offs fixed by guidelines

CONTENT randomly representing core of fundamentals•determined by faculty consensus•large pool of standardized problems

“…whose purpose is to test the student's understanding of physics at the graduate level.”

Not simpler questions but fairer questions• eliminate problems that rely on remembering cute tricks to simplify• focus on single specific objectives, fewer linked parts

Reduce writing burden on Exam Committee grading burden on faculty• (ultimately) pool of standardized questions• shorter exams, more focused problems (no oral!)

Enable us to offer the exam twice a year:

Students know earlier if they will continue in the programdecision on passing usually known by end of 2nd year

Three Primary Goals

1.

2.

3.

02/15 Current, recent, regular Submit list of testablePHYS 911-917 instructors objectives (example problems)

02/28 Graduate Committee Collate/combine return toauthors to iterate/converge

03/15 PHYS 911-917 instructors Finalize list

04/15 All interested faculty submit comments on lists

05/01 PHYS 911-917 instructors adjudicate disagreements if any& Graduate Committee

05/31 Faculty approve list (post list for students)

SUMMER Exam Committee, Grad Committee draft example problems for each objective

a work in progress…

Given the form of any (real) hydrogen-like wave function (1s - 3d )(be able to do any one, two or three of the following) 1. find the normalization factor (can be given if testing remaining questions) 2. calculate the probability distribution for the electron’s momentum 3. obtain the expectation value of px

2

4. calculate x2

5. verify the uncertainty principle for this state.

For the wave packet calculate

1. <x> and <p> or 2. x, p and then x ·p

Possible examples:

2

2

002 4

)(exp

2

1

xx

xpi

Have no interest in launching some major reform, investing year or more developing, only to lean

Hey this isn’t working!

PROPOSAL 1: Effective January 2006 the Department of Physics & Astronomy drop the requirement of an oral exam as part of its Advanced Qualifying Exam.

Although it is always very interesting (sometimes disappointing!)to have the chance to observe student think on their feetI (personally) have never seen an instance where the performance on an oral proved to be a deciding factor in passing.

Oral exams are - highly variable - highly subjective

Students should have many other opportunities to develop their presentation skills - if we are concerned we can always consider requiring an oral component to the Comprehensive Exam (standardize the exam requirements:“put some teeth into it”).

Graduate School Requirements

“When a student has substantially completed studies…, he/she must pass a written comprehensive examination. (This is) not a repetition of course examinations but an investigation of the student’s breadth of understanding of the field of knowledge (of their subject).”

“At the discretion of the supervisory committee, the student may also be required to pass an oral comprehensive examination.”

PROPOSAL 2: This January 2006 we run a non-binding non-permanent trial of an advanced exam of shorter focused single-objective problems.

As a short step toward the “Retreat Recommendations”

Assumes our faculty contribute carefully written exam questions vetted by colleagues.

comments from Bob Hardy

Done in this 1st pass without the benefit of a question pool or list of common course objectives.

The 2nd exam will be run for a shorter period of time: 2 nights of 2 hours each or 1 night of 4 hours.

2a: We will administer a normal Master’s Level exam the first night Tuesday, January 18th.

2b: A blind performance ranking and cut-off score (seeing only scores and coded names) will be set by the combined Exam and Graduate Committee. Decisions to be made final by faculty vote.

Same format, i.e. 8 problems.

This process is then evaluated by the faculty at a follow-up meeting before we go to the next step.

If satisfactory• fix the procedure and timetable for building pool of questions to be used for next year’s exam.

• revisit the final form the advanced written exam should take:

Master’s Advanced Exam (1 night? 2 nights?)

(number of questions?)

PROPOSAL 3a: The initial decision of a cut-off score for the written part of the Advanced Qualifier is made blind (seeing only the scores and coded names). Only students within a range (determined by faculty consensus) of this passing score are considered separately in open discussion.

• decision making becomes far more objective

• limiting open discussion to marginal cases streamlines the entire process

PROPOSAL 3b: A single committee of 3-5 faculty (assigned by the Exam Committee chair, whose membership rotates every 2 years) give all oral exams. Oral committee members do not grade exam problems. This allows a standardized ranking of oral performance. Oral rankings and even comments on performance, identified only by coded names, could also be used in consideration, blindly, in the decision to pass.

PROPOSAL 3c: The research component will be consideredonly for those marginally performing students whose status is open for discussion.

Final decision still made by ballot as covered by PROPOSAL 1.