Food and Agriculture

Each student’s Graduate Advisory Committee will decide the required number of
credits. Students with a Master’s degree are expected to take 15-18 credits in the major
field of study to expand their knowledge in that discipline. At least 12 of those credits
must be taken as a doctoral student, excluding seminar and thesis credits. Students
with previous degrees in a different field of study need additional courses to gain
proficiency. Such students may want to take related classes in their new field at the 400
level, which senior undergraduates typically take. Up to 6 credits of 400-level classes
taken in the doctoral program may be applied to meet the minimum number of credits in
the field. No more than 30 credits from the Master’s degree may be applied to the
doctoral program of study.
Students who have only a BS degree are expected to take 45 credits beyond their
undergraduate studies (including lecture classes, seminars, and statistics classes). Two
classes on experimental design or statistics are required for all students. However, MS
students may apply one statistics class taken during their Master’s program as long as a
grade of B- or better was earned. Students are advised to gain experience in both
quantitative and qualitative statistics. Graduate classes taken while an applicant was an
undergraduate student cannot be used to satisfy the minimum number of credits in the
major field. Four seminar classes must be completed to document communication skills.
Up to two credits of seminar classes may be transferred from the MS.

Responsible Conduct of Research Training
All students must complete a Responsible Conduct of Research course and complete
training in the protection of research animals and human research volunteers,
depending on the nature of the research project. The RCR class must be taken before
students register for their fourth FSN 699 (graduate thesis) credit. RCR classes typically
taken by our students include FSN 524 – Responsible Design, Conduct and Analysis of
Research (3 credits) (may also be used to fulfill the statistics requirement). INT 601 –

Responsible Conduct of Research (1 credit), BIO 505 – Professionalism in Biology (2
credits), and SMS 691 – Marine Science Seminar (1 credit).

Residency Requirement
According to the Graduate School’s Policies and Regulations
(https://umaine.edu/graduate/facultystaff-resources/policies-and-
regulations/#residence), “The minimum residence requirement for doctoral programs is
met by registering for courses or thesis research through The University of Maine for
four semesters beyond the baccalaureate degree.  Students entering doctoral programs
with a Master’s degree must register for at least two semesters of coursework or
research at the University.  For the purposes of satisfying residency, the summer
session may count as a semester.”

Admission to Candidacy and Time Limit for Completion of Requirements

Candidacy is a status that means that a student has completed most of the
requirements for the Ph.D. Students must be admitted to candidacy within four years of
their first registration, and all work for the degree must be completed within four years
after the admission to candidacy. There are three requirements for the admission to
candidacy:
✔ Successful passing of both written and oral comprehensive examinations.
✔ Completion of all course and skill requirements, except for the dissertation.
✔ The student’s committee has approved the research proposal.

Special Skill
The special skill requirement is intended to provide students with useful skills unrelated
to their dissertation research or academic classes in their field of study. Special skill
areas must be pre-approved by the student’s graduate advisory committee. This
requirement may be met through classes or supervised activities. Topics for the skill
may include statistics, electron microscopy, innovation engineering, marketing, online
education, foreign languages (other than English and the student’s native language),
gerontology, and advanced qualitative and quantitative chemical analyses. Typically two
3-credit classes at the 400-level or higher are considered adequate to meet the skill requirement; a graduate
certificate is not required. The requirements for meeting the skill should be provided in
the plan of study.

Doctoral Examinations

Doctoral students must pass a written and an oral comprehensive examination. If one
version of the exam is failed, the student may re-take the exam. However, if students
fail more than once, they cannot continue in the program. If significant progress has
been made to justify an MS, then the student may complete a terminal MS. Re-application to the doctoral program is not allowed. The examinations should not be
taken sooner than two years after starting doctoral studies and completing all required
classes. Written examinations are taken first. If the student passes, then an oral
examination is scheduled.

The examinations may be evaluated by only faculty in the student’s main field of study,
with committee members in other fields assessing the student in the final examination.
In some cases, all advisory committee members will be involved in comprehensive
examination assessment. Details of the comprehensive examination structure should be
agreed upon within the first year of study so that students may take classes to make
them successful in their first attempt at the examination. The graduate committee
members identify themes/topics for the comprehensive exam and recommend class
notes or other readings to help each student succeed.

Two options for comprehensive examinations are possible. The traditional option
involves the student taking 0.5-1.0 days per topic to answer written questions from each
of the 3-5 committee members. The other option is preparing a detailed grant proposal
on a topic unrelated to the student’s dissertation or M.S. thesis. The proposed research
must include novel assessments that are not part of the student’s research; ideally, new
statistical analyses will be proposed. The student will have no more than 14 days to
complete the proposal, which will be checked for plagiarism. Students may not base
their proposal on a published study. An oral examination follows both options for the
comprehensive examination. Students may not select the test option; the graduate
advisory committee will decide which testing approach best suits the student’s career
plans.

At least one semester (four months) must pass between the comprehensive and final
examinations. The final examination is scheduled after all advisory committee members
have read and approved the dissertation draft. The advisor(s) must have at least one
month to read the dissertation. Committee members typically have at least two weeks to
read and edit the dissertation. A public seminar presenting the dissertation must be
scheduled in person or via video conference. After the public has asked questions, the
second phase of the examination begins. Committee members ask questions about the
details of the dissertation and the student’s prior academic experiences, such as
research methods and courses. Only one failing vote is permitted.

Publications
Peer-reviewed publication of research findings is an expected outcome for a doctoral
student, but publication is not a graduation requirement. However, an advisor may
require manuscript submission as part of a graduate research assistant’s funded duties.
The choice of journal for manuscript submission should be made jointly by the advisor
and student.