Current Students

Rebecca Dailey

Dave Edmunds

Amanda Fluegel
[Research]

Brandy Nagamine [Research]

Laura Meadows
[Research]

Jake Lowry

Giulia Vernati

Department of Veterinary Sciences Graduate Program Contact

    This is a supplement to the Graduate Bulletin.  It is your responsibility as a graduate student to read and adhere to procedures and deadlines established by the Graduate School and the Veterinary Sciences department.   It is necessary that each graduate student officially agree to these departmental policies by the start of their second semester. There is also a useful document, the graduate student handbook, to help guide you uneventfully past the Scylla and Charybidis that is your graduate program.

     The Veterinary Sciences offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Animal and Veterinary Science. Mrs. Beth Howell maintains a list of current Veterinary Sciences graduate student local and e-mail addresses. Please be sure to get your home and e-mail address to Mrs. Howell as soon as possible so that you can be notified of deadlines, changes in policy, jobs, and seminars. If you have questions regarding Veterinary Sciences policies, protocol or procedures, or suggestions for improving our graduate program, please discuss these with your graduate advisor or the head of the department.

If you are interested in our program and want information about it, please contact Dr. Lee Belden, professor in this department.

Graduate Committee

   The graduate committee's major role is to offer guidance regarding coursework needed for your specific degree requirements and to assist you in formulating your study design and interpretation of results. A student should select his or her graduate committee by the end of the first full semester of registration.  The term "full semester" means either the fall and spring semester. The committee is composed of members of the University of Wyoming Graduate Faculty. Occasionally, scientists who are not part of the UW faculty may be chosen to be part of the graduate committee. Appointment of a non-UW faculty member should be discussed with the committee chair (= your advisor(s)) and the head of the Department before an offer is made to join the committee.   Students who have an off-campus research faculty member as chair MUST have a Veterinary Sciences academic co-chair.

·         A Master of Sciences committee shall consist of no fewer than three members, including the chair (i.e., your main advisor(s)). At least one member of the GAC must be a UW graduate faculty member from a department other than Veterinary Sciences.  The external committee member cannot hold a joint (adjunct) appointment in Veterinary Sciences.

·         A Doctoral committee must have at least five members, including the chair(s). At least one member must be a UW graduate faculty member from a department other than Veterinary Sciences.  A graduate faculty member is someone who has been approved by the Graduate School to serve on graduate committees.  The external committee member cannot hold a joint (adjunct) appointment in Veterinary Sciences.

   The graduate committee is the authoritative entity regarding the terms of your program of study, research proposal and defense exam (i.e., no administrative structure can overrule the graduate committee regarding the content of these items).  The head of the department, with input from the major advisor, nominates the members of the committee, and this is submitted to the Graduate School on its committee composition form.  Final approval is given by the Dean of the Graduate School.  The committee members are likely to be useful mentors throughout your career, and important sources of references for jobs. They will be helpful advisors to insure your graduate experience reaches its full potential. Therefore, it is in your best interest to choose the committee members wisely and to keep the various members of the committee informed regarding the progress of your program.  It is a useful practice to ask around in the department and college to insure that potential members of your committee would be a good 'fit,' given your research top and personality, and other members of the committee.

   A petition may be filed if it is necessary to change your committee's composition.  This requires the signatures of the all current members of the committee, plus that of the Department Head. Final approval is given by the dean of the graduate school.

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Program of Study

   A Program of Study is the list of formal course work, seminars, research and thesis hours that is required to successfully complete your degree.  It should be developed with, and approved, by your graduate committee.  Following approval by the committee, it must be submitted to the Graduate School for final approval and filing.  Courses on degree plans vary between students depending upon their background and career objectives. The degree plan is a contract between the student and his/her graduate committee. It is in the student's best interest to have the Program of Study approved as soon as possible.  This should be done BEFORE the start of the second full semester. A benefit of filing a Program of Study in a timely manner is that doctoral students will have their graduate assistantship augmented by $279/year from the Graduate School, based on available resources. Students are not eligible to receive funds managed through the department (e.g., assistantships or travel funds) beyond the start of the second long semester until a degree plan is approved and on file in the department.

   A student's program should emphasize graduate-level work, but undergraduate course work may be included to address academic deficiencies, particularly for research skills and techniques. The amount of undergraduate (= 4000 level) courses that will count towards the M.S. or Ph.D. degree is limited to 8 credit hours. If critical deficiencies exist, your committee may require you to take additional undergraduate courses that do not contribute to the graduate degree requirements.

   A M.S. non-thesis option student must take at least 30 credit hours of course work. A M.S. thesis option student must take a minimum of 26 credit hours of course work and four hours of 5960: Thesis Research.

   A Ph.D. program requires a minimum of 72 hours of credit from UW or another approved university. This 72-hour requirement may include graduate credits earned while working toward the M.S. degree in the same area but in that case at least 42 hours of the 72 must be earned through formal course work. Additional credits toward the 72-hour requirement may include additional formal course credits such as 5980: Dissertation Research credits. Of the course work hours mentioned above, it is desirable that a minimum of about 12 hours be selected from Veterinary and Animal Science course offerings associated with the degree title.  In unique circumstances (e.g., exceptional disciplinary academic background before arriving at UW, or special targeted career objectives) the committee may allow that fewer disciplinary courses be taken at UW in lieu of other specialized coursework.  Conversely, the committee may require additional hours for the degree or additional hours within the discipline, depending on the scope of the research problem and previous course work.  Please see the Graduate Bulletin for further specifications regarding degree program requirements.

   A petition may be filed if it is necessary to change the Program of Study.  This requires the signatures of your committee,  the head of the department and the graduate school.

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Retention

   Graduate students are required to maintain a 3.0 GPA or better. A student who falls below a 3.0 GPA has ONE semester to reestablish a satisfactory GPA or face loss of assistantship funding and dismissal from the department. Once accepted, a student is allowed ONE probationary semester. 

   Although a 3.0 GPA is the criterion for retention, progress toward a degree and commensurate academic accomplishments are expected. If a student earns a D, F, or U in a course on their degree plan, the class or course must be repeated and a C (or better) or S achieved. A committee may write a provision into the Program of Study that certain classes require at least a B (i.e., courses that are so important to the degree that at least a B level of mastery is required).

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Time Limits

   Master’s students have 6 calendar years to complete their degree from the beginning of the first course taken that is listed in the Program of Study. Doctoral candidates have 4 calendar years after successful completion of their preliminary examination to complete their degree.

   A student has one calendar year after the final oral exam to submit the thesis or dissertation.

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Minimum Registration

   All graduate students are required to maintain continuous registration (even those without assistantships) until they complete all requirements for graduation, unless a specific leave of absence is granted to a student in writing by the Department Head and the Dean of the Graduate School. The Graduate School requires graduate students to be enrolled for a minimum of 1 credit hour for M.S. and 2 hours for Ph.D. candidates each fall and spring semester. Any condition that requires a higher minimum registration would supersede this Graduate College minimum registration standard. Master's candidate graduate students with University of Wyoming teaching or research assistantships must be registered for 9 hours during the fall and spring semesters unless:

·         They have a program of study on file AND

·         90% of their coursework is complete AND

·         They are working full time on their thesis or a Plan B paper.

   Additional requirements for students with loans, fellowships and visas may exist.

   If a graduate student holding a graduate assistantship drops some courses which result in the student being registered for less than the required minimum number of hours (i.e., 9 hours in Fall and Spring semesters), the student shall not be required to add additional hours to replace the dropped hours provided the student drops after the 12th class day. Such students could maintain their graduate assistant position with a memo supporting the drop signed by the department head. Please consider these and other possible implications (e.g., some insurance programs have special enrollment considerations) when attempting to drop below the minimum hour requirements for full-time classification.

   Foreign nationals should be aware that less than full-time during the spring and fall semesters may cause problems with some types of student visa requirements. Foreign nationals should be certain to never allow the time indicated on their IAP-66 or I-20 to lapse! It is usually a fairly straightforward procedure (working with International Student Services) to get the time period indicated on the form to be extended if the paperwork is started months before the time period expires.  it may be difficult to get the forms re-issued if the time period has expired.

   Please contact the graduate school if you have questions on these topics.

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Plan of Study Seminar by MS Candidates

   During the second full semester, the graduate student will make a formal presentation of plan of study, along with a review of the literature, to the department.  The purpose of this is to encourage the student to work on his or her research proposal (see below), and to ensure that it is sound and meets the standards of the department.

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Preliminary Examination for PhD Candidates

   A formal preliminary examination is required for all Ph.D. students.  The student is not be eligible to take the exam if the current GPA is less than 3.0.  The committee may administer the preliminary exam when the student is within approximately 6 credit hours of completing formal courses specified on the degree plan. The preliminary examination must be given no later than the semester following the completion of the formal course work on the degree plan and at least 15 weeks prior to the final defense of the dissertation.

   Preliminary examinations will cover all areas within the scope of the student's doctoral program. They usually involve a written exam from each advisory committee member followed by an oral exam administered by the committee as a whole. A majority affirmative vote by the committee is required for a student to pass the preliminary examination. Students who do not graduate within 4 years of their preliminary exam are required to retake it.

   A student's committee and the Graduate School may grant permission for one re-examination to a student who failed the preliminary exam. A period of at least one semester, but no more than four semesters, must elapse before the retest may take place. 

   The results of the preliminary examination must be provided to the graduate school and a standard form is available from it to record this.

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Thesis/Dissertation Proposal

   The research proposal represents a contract between the student and his/her graduate committee. The student should work with his or her advisor to develop the research proposal and submit it to the graduate committee for approval before their third full semester of study. The title page must be signed by the student, all members of the committee, and the Department Head. One copy of the proposal with a signed title page must be submitted to the Department Head. Copies should also be given to members of the graduate committee. Research involving animal subjects requires additional approval forms. Students will not be eligible to receive funds managed through the department (e.g., assistantships or travel funds) beyond the start of their third long semester of study until their research proposal is approved and on file in the department.

   The narrative of the research proposal should be approximately 10 double-spaced pages in length and contain:

·         Justification and rationale: Summarize previous research on the subject, provide literature citations, and identify the particular problems your study will help resolve.

·         Statement of hypothesis: Specify questions your research is designed to answer.

·         Procedure: Describe the experimental design and identify the methods of data collection and analysis to be used to definitively answer your hypothesis statements.

·         Time line: Set targets of when different components of the data collection, analysis and presentation of findings will be completed.

   The committee should approve the proposal before the student begins the research. In some cases the nature of the study may require that the research begin before the proposal is approved. In such cases it is very much in the interests of the student to understand the subtleties of the research objectives and methods so that misunderstandings between the student and his or her advisor are unlikely. The student should report regularly (i.e., at least once or twice a year) to the advisor and the advisory committee regarding research progress in order to avoid last minute surprises or misunderstandings, and to gain approval of any redirection.

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Thesis and Dissertation Deadlines

   Deadline dates for filing the thesis/dissertation are announced each semester by the Graduate School. The research project should be designed to produce one or more publishable papers in a refereed journal. Students are encouraged to organize the document into chapters that represent stand-alone publications.

   A polished draft of the thesis/dissertation in proper format should be delivered to the graduate committee for review only after the student and his advisor agree upon technical and editorial content. Committee members have the right to reject documents with grammatical errors or papers that fail to meet high standards of scientific style. Signatures can be obtained on the thesis/dissertation only when changes recommended by the committee have been incorporated.

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Final Examination

   Although the final oral exam tends to focus on the thesis, dissertation, or M.S. non-thesis professional paper, additional issues may be addressed as a follow-up to the preliminary exams (Ph.D. candidates) or as an outgrowth of the discussion of the student's research, coursework or professional activity. The final exam is to be scheduled only after the graduate committee agrees that the thesis, dissertation, or professional paper is ready for public defense. All students must schedule a final Thesis or Dissertation defense seminar in conjunction with the final oral exam (see Seminar section below).

   A student must make formal degree application to the Graduate School before the final oral exam can be scheduled. The degree application and fee must be submitted within the time frame indicated in the Graduate School Bulletin. A student must be enrolled in the University in the semester in which the final examination is taken. A student's GPA must be at least 3.00, and there must be no unabsolved grades of unacceptable grade (e.g., D, F, X or perhaps C; please see program of study section for more explanation) for any course on the program of study.

   A memo requesting permission to conduct the final oral examination must be sent to the Graduate School at least two weeks prior to the proposed date and only after all committee members issue approval to schedule. Requests for scheduling which include a petition for changes to the degree plan or to the advisory committee must be submitted at least 5 weeks prior to the final defense date.

   A majority affirmative vote by the graduate committee is required for a student to pass the final examination.

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Defense Seminar

   All students will present a Final Thesis or Dissertation Research Seminar prior to the final examination. The final defense seminar must be approved by the department head at least 2 weeks prior to the scheduled date. The student should post the date and time of the seminar in the Agriculture Building and should distribute copies of the seminar announcement to all Veterinary Sciences faculty, graduate students, and staff at least one week in advance of the scheduled date. The graduate committee will administer the final oral examination after the seminar audience has been excused.

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Submission of Thesis and Dissertation

   To meet deadlines for graduation, students need to begin the final defense process months in advance. Due to other commitments, particularly teaching, faculty members are often busy at the end of semesters. The student should allow adequate time to allow the graduate committee to review of the thesis and sufficient time for corrections to be made.

   Students should be in close contact with advisory committee members so that travel schedules can be accommodated and planning adjusted accordingly. It is the student's responsibility to initiate and to coordinate this process. Professional courtesy dictates that ample time be allowed for each step in the process if academic standards are to be maintained. It is inappropriate for students to pressure their committee members to short-circuit this process to meet graduation deadlines.

    The student should schedule time for the following sequence of steps:

1.    Student submits draft of document to major professor. Allow at least 2 weeks for

        review.

2.    Major professor returns draft to student for revision. Normally, several drafts will

       be required to produce a document acceptable to the committee.

3.    Repeat steps 1 and 2 until major professor agrees to send document to graduate

       committee. Allow 2 weeks for the committee to review.

4.  Student makes formal application for the degree in the Graduate School.

    Applications must be submitted within the first week of the semester in which the

    final examination is to be taken. See Graduate School Bulletin for deadlines.

5.    After each member of the committee has approved the document's general form

    and content, the major professor requests permission from the Graduate School to

    conduct the final oral exam.

6.    Student posts defense seminar announcement at least one week in advance of

       the proposed final oral exam date.

7.    Upon approval of the Graduate School, the thesis/dissertation seminar is

       presented, and the final defense is held.

8.    Students passing the final oral exam may be required to make additional changes

    to the thesis/dissertation document before the committee gives final approval. A

    student who fails the final defense may request permission to retake the final exam

    after a 6-month waiting period.

9.    Student submits the thesis/dissertation complete with committee and Department

    Head approval signatures. 

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Peer-Reviewed Publication of Research

   Peer-reviewed publication is research's coin-of-the-realm.  It defines whether your graduate work met the standards of the discipline.  Students are strongly encouraged to submit findings from their research to refereed journals.  They should discuss order of authorship with their advisor and with relevant parties early in their program. Scientific publications greatly enhance your career opportunities.  They are an important return on investments of faculty, Departmental, and University resources in you and your graduate education.

   A final bound copy of the thesis/dissertation should be submitted to the department for use in the departmental library. It is good form that a bound copy be given to each member of the committee.

   In many cases, the grants and contracts which support a student's project stipulate timely publication of research results. Faculty members responsible for acquiring these funds may have professional and/or legal obligations to publish. Data collected from research sponsored by grants, assistantships, and departmental projects are the property of the Department of Veterinary Sciences. The student's advisor may assume control of research results and make a final decision on re-directing authorship for students who do not make a reasonable attempt to publish within six months of their defense. Students may publish portions of their thesis/dissertation prior to the final oral exam.

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Other Veterinary Sciences Policies and Procedures

   Copy and fax machines are for Veterinary Sciences department business only; they are not for any student's class work or personal use.  Use of University mail services or long-distance phone calls for personal matters is prohibited. Use of secretarial staff or equipment for work related to degree plans, proposals, dissertations, theses, or professional papers is also prohibited. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with rules pertaining to use of University vehicles and equipment. Personal use of University vehicles is prohibited and is a violation of State law.

   Under no circumstances should Beth Howell be annoyed.  If this occurs, and you think you were responsible, bring home-made chocolate chip cookies immediately.  This paliation this sometimes works.

   All faculty, staff and graduate students have assigned mailboxes. If you are going to be out of town for several days, please arrange for someone to retrieve the mail from your box and store it. If you will be gone for an extended time period, please leave a forwarding address with your advisor and the secretaries in the front office so that your mail can be sent on to you.

   Regrettably, parking regulations are strictly enforced on campus. Failure to pay fines result in registration blocks, denial of permission to conduct the preliminary exam and defense, and withholding of transcripts and diplomas.  Please familiarize yourself with current rules and protocol, or else make sure you are not caught.

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Participation in Professional Meetings

   The Veterinary Sciences Department encourages students to attend local, regional and national professional meetings to present their research papers. It will assist when it can afford it to defray part of the costs of attending these meetings. The Graduate School will usually contribute up to $300 for this purpose as long as funds are available.  Please make your case to the head of the Department if you wish to secure departmental funds to attend a professional meeting. 

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Summary of Deadlines

1.      Select graduate committee and submit Plan of Study before the beginning of the

         second full semester.

2.      Present plan of study with literature review in a formal seminar to Department in

         second semester

3.      Finalize a research proposal with advisor's assistance before the start of the

         third full semester.

4.      Begin research after graduate committee approves proposal.

5.      Ph.D. students take preliminary examination within 6 coursework hours of

         completing formal degree plan course work, or within one semester thereafter.

6.      Make formal application for degree to the Graduate School according to schedules

         issued each semester by the Graduate School office.

7.      Submit draft of thesis/dissertation document to advisor for evaluation and input.

8.      Present polished draft of thesis/dissertation to committee only after major

         advisor agrees the document is ready.

9.      Schedule final defense after committee has approved document (the  

        Graduation/Title Form must be filed by the deadline set by the Graduate School

        (approximately midterm–check Graduate School schedule) for the semester in

        which graduation is planned.

10.   Advertise defense seminar.

11.   Pass final oral exam.

12.   Submit thesis/dissertation to the Graduate School.

13.   Schedule an exit meeting with the Department Head.

14.  Develop a time-line with your major professor for submitting journal article(s)

      resulting from the graduate research. It is highly desirable that the manuscripts

      resulting from your research be submitted within 6 months of final examination.

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