Biology and Marine Biology

of their work in public, and
the implementation of
“mock” (practice) oral
exams with fellow graduate
students. Graduate
Advisory Council was also
charged with creating
specific strategies to
improve the performance of
our students and the two
student members of the
GAC were encouraged to
share discussions with other
students at BIO GSA
meetings. The faculty
discussed the option of
creating a test bank for
students to utilize in
preparation for the exam,
and after much thought and
conferring decided not to
adopt such a strategy but
instead that students would
be better served by
discussing expectations with
each of the committee
members. We also initiated
Masters of Science Learning
Outcome 1b (assessment
tool for this implemented in
2009; see 2008-09 report)
to evaluate the students’
ability to present and
discuss their research, in an
attempt to better
understand the poor
performance of the student
for SLO2.