Student Evaluation
In addition to deadlines, students are informed of specific requirements and forms during the registration period of the first year. Each student’s progress in the program is then evaluated on an annual basis.
This is done by having students complete a form that indicates their progress in academic, research, and professional activities. They discuss this annual report with their advisor, who summarizes this report with his or her overall evaluation of the student during a meeting of the quantitative faculty at the end of each spring semester.
During this meeting each quantitative faculty member provides evaluations of her or his experiences with the student including classroom performance, TA performance, research performance, and service.
For each student a decision is made as to whether this student is (a) in good standing, (b) is in danger of not being in good standing, or (c) not in good standing. This evaluation is summarized as feedback to the student presented informally by the student’s advisor and formally by the program director.
The formal feedback is in the form of a letter to the student from the program director summarizing the student’s strong and weak points, as well as outlining the next steps that the student needs to make in order to remain in good standing and on–track for successful completion of the Ph.D. degree.
If the student is in danger of not being in good standing or is not in good standing, a series of steps is outlined for the student along with deadlines for completion of these steps such that the student may remediate to being in good standing. Loss of good standing means that the department–supplied funding for the student will end at the end of the then–current semester.