Umbrella Program for Graduate Training in Molecular Life Sciences

Students pursue graduate education to receive specialized training in a particular field of study. We, the graduate students of The University of Arizona’s Physiological Sciences Graduate Interdisciplinary Program(PS GIDP), have authored this document to express our support for the PS GIDP’s current Master’s (M.S.) and Doctoral (Ph.D.) curricula, and our strong opposition to a recent proposal that would potentially impede our program’s ability to offer that specialized high-quality education.

Since its inception in 1989, the PS GIDP has awarded competitive M.S. and Ph.D. degrees to over 100 students. The PS GIDP M.S. and Ph.D. programs offer a competitive, well-rounded, and in-depth education that trains tomorrow’s most successful biomedical investigators; a majority of PS GIDP alumni have continued into positions at renowned research institutions, including Harvard University and the National Institutes of Health.

Recently, a White Paper was submitted to The University of Arizona’s Transformation Plan (http://provost.arizona.edu/node/128) proposing that life sciences-related GIDPs merge into a single Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program. The White Paper’s authors argue that such a merger would “simplify recruitment and admission of graduate students” to elevate the quality of students admitted to life sciences graduate programs at The University of Arizona, and reduce costs by “pooling [academic and administrative] resources and staff”.

The White Paper’s authors suggest that faculty attrition at The University of Arizona occurs because of lack of access to quality students. The PS GIDP produces students who have been very successful in both academic and industrial biomedical careers. Every year, the PS GIDP receives between 30-40 highly-competitive applications to our M.S. and Ph.D. programs, and of these, we admit 4-6 new Ph.D. and 10-12 new M.S. students from across the country and around the world. Contrary to the arguments made in the White Paper, the PS GIDP has found that our attractiveness to high-quality applicants comes from our program’s ability to offer focused coursework and research training in physiology, as well as training in ethics, experimental design, professional networking, career development, college-level teaching, and public speaking. Our most successful students are those who have already discovered their interest in physiological sciences, and many have even identified a mentor with whom they would like to work. In fact, when PS GIDP faculty are recruited away to other universities, it is because of insufficient financial support for research here at The University of Arizona, not inadequate access to excellent graduate students.

While some other universities have formed large biological sciences graduate programs akin to the one described in this White Paper, we have discovered that many of our best students applied to The University of Arizona precisely to avoid larger programs where they cannot receive the specialized coursework and mentoring critical to graduate education. At The University of Arizona, students pursue a degree in an academically diverse environment, where they have one-on-one access to the experience and guidance of 70 faculty from 5 different colleges. We fear that joining a more generalized Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program would discourage our most promising applicants from applying to the PS GIDP, cause first-year students to fall through the cracks, reduce the PS GIDP’s identity and autonomy, and damage our program’s national competitiveness.

The proposed Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program imposes an additional year of required coursework emphasizing cellular and molecular biology, i.e. Data Management, Proteins and Nucleic Acids, and Genetics. The PS program already offers classes that range from the molecular to the systems level, with a specific emphasis on physiology. Currently, PS GIDP students take two core courses: PSIO 503 Cellular and Molecular Physiology and PSIO 603 Systems Physiology, both of which are team-taught by PS GIDP faculty to provide a foundational education in basic physiology at a graduate level that would not be met with the more generalized coursework proposed. In addition, the UA Graduate College requires students to complete coursework for a Minor concentration, which usually requires at least an additional year of courses. Thus, current PS GIDP students already require 1.5 to 2 years of courses to meet our program’s current requirements. If the PS GIDP joined a proposed Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program, PS GIDP students would be required to take an additional year of general courses before PSIO 503/603 and our Minor coursework, delaying our students’ expected graduation date by a full year, potentially extending the duration of the program to 6-8 years, and needlessly adding to the cost of training for each student. Students agree that the PS GIDP’s consistent, and relatively short, time to completion (4.5 - 5 years) is a chief attraction of this program, particularly when students are deciding between multiple offers.

We are also concerned that several strengths of our program might be jeopardized by joining the proposed Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program. First and foremost, the White Paper proposal does not provide conditions for the continuation of the highly-successfully PS GIDP M.S. program. PS GIDP master’s students reduce university costs by serving as teaching assistants to several large undergraduate biology courses, and are an invaluable component of our program. In addition, all PS GIDP students receive training in college-level teaching. This dual emphasis on both research and teaching has been cited by many PS GIDP applicants as a particularly unique and attractive aspect of our program. It is unclear whether that training would (or could) remain a degree requirement under the proposed Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program.

Above all, the proposed Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program fails to meet The University of Arizona’s Transformation Plan goal to save university administrative costs. The majority of our program’s funding comes from training grants awarded to our program for our success in providing specialized and diverse training to students in physiological sciences. Merging our program into a larger umbrella graduate program would not only jeopardize our ability to obtain the highly-specialized training grants our program depends on, but would not save any administrative costs as most of our program’s operation costs – currently covered by training grants – would still be necessary under such an umbrella program.

The Physiological Sciences M.S. and Ph.D. graduate students oppose the White Paper proposal to form a Molecular Life Sciences Graduate Program. Should such a program be formed, we strongly oppose the PS GIDP Executive Committee taking steps to join such an umbrella program. In undertaking this year’s general transformation of university structure, we must not be distracted by the promise of cutting costs, and in so doing endanger a program that has repeatedly demonstrated clear academic quality and success.

Any questions regarding this document may be directed to Jennifer Fang (jfang@email.arizona.edu), PS GIDP Executive Committee Student Representative.

Sincerely,

The M.S. and Ph.D. Graduate Students of the Physiological Sciences Graduate Interdisciplinary Program

The proposed umbrella program may be suitable for some areas of molecular biosciences, but as director of a GIDP in Physiological Sciences (PS), which receives support from several NIH training grants, I believe it also has significant disadvantages.

1) The proposed common first-year curriculum would force programs either to increase the number of courses required of their students or dilute the courses in the program area.

2) In competition for NIH Training grants, a focus on a specific area of bioscience and a coherent training program addressing that area is vital. Such focus would be lost in the proposed umbrella program. Another, important criterion for funding TG’s is the quality of students applying and matriculating. We consistently bring in students of high caliber interested in Physiology which allows us to populate our training grants. Participation in the proposed umbrella program would weaken both the recruitment and programmatic basis for these existing training grants.

3) With respect to ‘developing critical mass” to strengthen recruiting: the PS GIDP has 70 participating faculty from 5 colleges thereby providing a wide range of choices within the context of a clearly defined discipline. Many students comment that they came to our program for this very reason.

The existing structure of departmental and interdisciplinary programs has substantial benefits, which should be recognized and considered in the discussion of the proposed umbrella program.

1. We have tried moderately joint recruitment activities in the past, they were
chaotic and resembled a cattle call. Biochemistry pulled out.

2. For years Biochem and MCB have jointly recruited, but with the type of student to whom offers were made was somewhat narrowly defined and many faculty could not find students with the appropriate backgrounds. This led to the creation of the Biological Chemistry Program, which involves interested faculty from Biochemistry, Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry. This yields a much richer pool of appropriate students and a training grant.

3. I don't get the concept, the best students have a pretty good idea in the field they want to work in - Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Neuroscience, Physiology, Pharmacology, Immunobiology, etc - joint recruitment limits the time for discipline specific interactions during recruiting visits.

4. I don't see the savings, each discipline would want to bring in all the students with interests and background appropriate to their discipline, would presumably have to fund campus visits at the same level, and contribute to social activities about the same amount of cash. Once in a particular program the students would be subject to the same oversight and requirements that currently exist. In the end the students have to get a degree in something.

5. The claim is that integrated would improve the quality of students. In my experience our largest problems in competing with MIT, Yale, Chicago, UCSD, Chicago, etc. are stipend levels, the inability to offer stipends guaranteed for multiple years, and the fact that we do not have either the reputation or overall quality of faculty that MIT, UCSD, Chicago etc.

6. Building on point 5, in my experience we get a high quality pool of applicants, but the best students take the best offer. Integration does not address the major issues as noted in point 5.

7. The GIDP approach has been a hallmark of our success, recruits very high quality students and addresses the integration issue, albeit more narrowly, the constraint on GIDPs is not the model, but the extremely limited resources noted in point 5. A more logical approach would be to build on the GIDP approach (or the Biological Chemistry Program approach which is a variation) by moving significant resources to the GIDPs (that is, TAs and RAs) and increasing stipends to a competitive level.