Student Seminar Presentation Policy
All graduate students are required to present two (2) quality technical research-based seminars in addition to the final defense of their PhD Dissertation as part of their Ph.D. training experience. These should be presented in their 2nd and 4th years after joining the Department.
In general, these seminar talks are expected to follow a conference presentation format, with an introduction, discussion of methods, results obtained and overall discussion for the presentation and then end with the integrative section. Students are strongly encouraged to practice the entire talk before mentors or group members prior to the actual seminar. Research mentors are expected to assist the student in the preparation of the presentation as it will be graded.
Seminar Schedule
Departmental seminars are currently held on Monday afternoons from 4:00 P.M.-5:00 P.M., during the academic school year months (i.e., September through June). The general method of assigning seminar dates for the Department is as follows: all students beyond their first year of graduate training will be scheduled to provide a seminar each academic year. A seminar number will be arbitrarily assigned to each student. Open dates in the seminar schedule will be filled in numerical order. The seminar calendar may be lengthened or shortened to accommodate the number of seminar-eligible students in the Department.
More Seminar Information
Tentative Schedule
A tentative schedule will be distributed at the beginning of the Spring and Fall semesters. The Fall 2026 seminar schedule can be found here.
Seminar Evaluation
In addition, at least 3 faculty members need to evaluate a student's seminar.
Seminar Waiver
Students may request a seminar waiver for scheduled seminars under certain circumstances. Waiver requests must be made at least 2 months prior to the assigned seminar date (contact the seminar coordinator), and approved by the student's faculty advisor. Additionally, the department chair will be notified of any student seminar cancellations.
Exchange of Seminar Dates
Seminar dates may be exchanged between students as desired. Notification of a date-exchange must be delivered to the seminar coordinator no later than two weeks before the earlier of the two exchanged dates.
Department Seminar Attendance
The Department hosts graduate student seminars during the Fall and Spring semesters, except during holiday breaks. The scheduling of PHCEU Seminars will be limited to 15 hours per semester (this includes the annual State of the Department presentation, guest speakers, College of Pharmacy seminars, and student presenters). It is mandatory that all graduate students attend these seminars, though official registration in PHCEU 7890 is not required except for those students presenting. Research faculty, research associate and postdoctoral researcher attendance, participation, critique, input, and leadership are also expected.
Attendance Expectations:
- Students are allowed 3 “no questions asked” absences per semester.
- Students may request 2 additional absences for either PhD project-related travel or experiments that cannot be scheduled at another time. These must be approved by the Department Vice Chair for Graduate Education. Please reach out to the Department Vice Chair directly when requesting these and inform staff if they are approved.
- Attendance is in-person only.
- Attendance will be tracked via sign-in-sheet as well as a feedback survey, and recorded by department staff.
Accountability & Enforcement:
- Four or more unexcused absences will trigger a meeting with the PHCEU 7890 instructor.
- This meeting is intended to discover why the student missed four or more seminars, and should clarify whether the student is facing challenges and needs additional support, or if the situation should be escalated according to the University’s Student Code (Policy 6-400).
If the absences are not satisfactorily explained, the student must submit a two-page write-up on the missed topic to the PHCEU 7890 instructor. If this requirement is not followed, the case will be escalated as appropriate.