The Special Topics Seminars (CMB 850) in Fall, Winter and Spring terms consist of student seminars at noon on Mondays. These seminars bring the Program together each week. All CMB students, including candidates, and CMB faculty, participate in and contribute to the student seminars. Precandidates in the CMB Program are required to register for the course. All candidate students are also required to attend (whether or not they enroll for credit). First year students in PIBS can attend CMB 850 seminars and may request an opportunity to present a seminar. The seminar date for each student is indicated on a schedule prepared by the Student Seminar Coordinator at the beginning of each academic year. To accommodate attendance by all CMB faculty while maintaining the personal nature of student-faculty interactions, each CMB faculty member is assigned at least three attendance dates during the academic year.

Precandidate students generally present a critical review of one or two related reports in the current scientific literature dealing with a significant advance in molecular/cellular biology. The presentation should be a critical evaluation of the work, not simply a summary of it. Coordination of paper choices with the topic of each term’s Short Course is scheduled just prior to the Short Course each term. Third year students generally serve as evaluators and chair the discussion session that follows the seminar. More senior candidate students present seminars on their own research. Precandidate students occasionally choose this option.

Students work with a faculty advisor, generally the research mentor, to prepare the talk and practice it formally before the actual presentation. A practice session is scheduled during the week prior to the scheduled seminar and is attended by the mentor, a faculty evaluator, a student evaluator and others invited by the student. At the seminar, discussion and criticism of the research by the audience is encouraged. Student discussants lead off and moderate the discussion, which includes students and faculty. At least one faculty member and a student evaluator discuss the presentation with each student at the end of each session.

Specifics of Seminar Preparation

1. At the beginning of each fall term, a schedule is set up for student presentations for the academic year. Each student is expected to arrange for a faculty mentor to help prepare for the seminar in the faculty member’s field of interest.
2. At least four weeks prior to the presentation, each student should begin preparations with the faculty mentor. They should discuss the topic, identify interesting papers, and the student should begin preparing the presentation with advice from the faculty member. In keeping with the broad approaches in CMB training, it is recommended that students select papers from the highest quality journals of broad interest rather than from specialty journals.
3. Two weeks prior to the seminar, the student should provide the CMB Administrator with the principal references (including pdf or url), relevant secondary references and a paragraph summarizing the topic (as a hard copy and electronically). This is distributed to faculty and students by e-mail a week prior to the presentation.
4. During the week prior to the seminar, students should schedule a formal practice with the faculty advisor. One of the faculty evaluators for the course, and the student evaluator also attend this practice and provide comments. In this way, the student has an opportunity to implement suggestions for the formal seminar presentation. For convenience, the seminar room is generally reserved on Fridays for rehearsals.
5. The student presents the seminar to assembled CMB students, faculty and other interested individuals, and answers questions from the floor. Audiovisual equipment is available or requested via the CMB office. An assigned student discussant/evaluator provides a professional introduction to the speaker, prepares questions to lead off discussion during the seminar and serves as moderator during the discussions. The discussant also provides a final evaluation to the presenting student following the seminar.
6. A faculty member from the Student Seminar Committee and one of the student discussants meet with each student immediately after the presentation to discuss strengths and weaknesses of the seminar. Written critiques from the evaluators are made available to the student and reviewed by the Student Seminar Committee.