Shared expectation forms, 1st committee forms, and 2-N committee forms are here: https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/current-graduate-students/forms.aspx

• Super important - attend at least two 1st guidance committee meetings of your peers so that you are aware of the expectations!
• Audience - just your committee members
• Goal - convince your committee members that you understand the motivation, background, and context of your proposed research (it is not just something that you are doing because your PI said so)
• main presenation
• backup slides
  1. historical timeline
     1. when/where did you graduate college from
     2. when did you join MSU PA as a grad student
     3. when did you join the research group (list all groups and dates)
     4. when did you finish your subject exams
  2. coursework
     1. list all classes taken and scores
     2. list all subject exam courses and scores
     3. list classes currently being taken
     4. list plan for classes to be taken in the future if any
  3. research goals for the upcoming year (you will show this at your next annual committee meeting with status and updates)
     1. list quarterly goals
     2. plans for writing/submitting papers
     3. plans for conference attendance
  4. overall graduate school plan - timeline
     1. when did you start grad school
     2. when did you finish your subject exam classes
     3. when did you do your first committee meeting
     4. year by year research plans - general
     5. target defense date (just year and semester)
     6. career goals after PhD
  5. cumulative list of papers (with status) and conference attendance

• Audience - just your committee members
• Goals
  1. convince your committee members that you are making adequate progress on your PhD dissertation research
  2. raise any real, impending, and/or potential issues with your committee members during the part where I am out of the room
  3. raise awareness of your career goals so that your committee members can proactively search for opportunities to enable these goals
• schedule committee meeting for 60 minutes
• presentation should be no longer than 20 minutes
• main presentation elements:
  1. brief review of motivation/background - include tentative dissertation title
  2. enumerate stated goals from last committee meeting
  3. update last year's tasks with new tasks plus a summary of present status of all tasks
     1. green check mark is done
     2. yellow circle is in progress
     3. red x is not started
  4. now go into details about each completed and in progress tasks
     1. slide 3 of task, what is the main conclusion conveyed via a plot
     2. slide 2 of task, how was this plot made
     3. slide 1 of task, why did you make this plot in the first place
  5. proposed list of tasks for next calendar year with estimated deadlines
     1. should be tied to grant proposal milestones if available
     2. if there is an unstarted/uncompleted task that you are no longer going to do, list this but indicate so and strikethrough the text
     3. list of (intended through complete) publications and status
  6. summary of completed and upcoming professional development opportunities (conferences, outreach, etc.)
  7. intended timeline to graduate with intended career goals on a yearly basis plus include the intended semester and year of PhD defense
• backup slides
  1. historical timeline
     1. when/where did you graduate college from
     2. when did you join MSU PA as a grad student
     3. when did you join the research group (list all groups and dates)
     4. when did you finish your subject exams
  2. coursework
     1. list all classes taken and scores
     2. list all subject exam courses and scores
     3. list classes currently being taken
     4. list plan for classes to be taken in the future if any
  3. research goals for the upcoming year (you will show this at your next annual committee meeting with status and updates)
     1. list quarterly goals
     2. plans for writing/submitting papers
     3. plans for conference attendance
  4. overall graduate school plan - timeline
     1. when did you start grad school
     2. when did you finish your subject exam classes
     3. when did you do your first committee meeting
     4. year by year research plans - general
     5. target defense date (just year and semester)
     6. career goals after PhD
  5. cumulative list of papers (with status) and conference attendance

• https://grad.msu.edu/gradplan
• https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/graduate-handbook.aspx
• https://grad.msu.edu/recr
• https://veritiesinitiative.msu.edu/

All graduate students (master’s and doctoral) must complete a set of CITI online modules as well as complete 6 hours of discussion-based training by the completion of their comprehensive exam. Doctoral students must also complete 3 hours of refresher training annually starting in their third year until completion of their degree. The CITI modules and any Graduate School RECR Workshops will be tracked in Gradplan. The completion of the discussion-based training will be recorded in Gradplan.

• All graduate students will complete the 4 following CITI online modules:
  • Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research
  • Authorship
  • Plagiarism
  • Research Misconduct
    • Information on how to complete the CITI modules can be found at https://grad.msu.edu/recr.
• (1.5 hour discussion-based training) During orientation week, all incoming students will attend a 1.5-hour discussion within the PA department covering the following topics:
  • Honesty, accuracy, efficiency and objectivity
  • Authorship, publication, and data ownership and sharing policies
  • Research documentation and reproducibility of results
• All incoming students will participate in 1.5 hours of training provided as part of the VERITIES (Virtue-Based Education for Responsibility and Integrity To Increase Excellence in STEM) initiative

• Master’s Plan A and doctoral students will complete the 3 following CITI modules:
  • CITI Collaborative Research
  • CITI Conflicts of Interest
  • CITI Data Management
• All master’s (both Plan A and Plan B) students must have 3.0 more hours of discussion-based training to satisfy the university requirement of a total of 6 hours. This must be fulfilled by a combination of the following::
  • (1.5 hours) Attend a 1.5-hour RECR workshop offered by the Graduate School (see https://grad.msu.edu/recr).
  • (1.5 hours) Attend training aimed at 2nd year students provided as part of the VERITIES (Virtue-Based Education for Responsibility and Integrity To Increase Excellence in STEM) initiative (https://veritiesinitiative.msu.edu/). These trainings will be announced through department-wide emails.

• Doctoral students must complete 3 hours of refresher training annually which is fulfilled by a combination of the following:
  • (1.5 hours) Attend a 1.5-hour RECR workshop offered by the Graduate School (see https://grad.msu.edu/recr)
  • Complete two CITI online modules (1.5 hours) that have not been completed before such as:
    • CITI Financial Responsibility
    • CITI Mentoring
    • CITI Peer Review
  • (1.5 hrs) Attend training aimed at students beyond their 2nd year provided as part of the VERITIES (Virtue-Based Education for Responsibility and Integrity To Increase Excellence in STEM) initiative (https://veritiesinitiative.msu.edu/)
  • Participate in training provided by the Advisor of the student, for example as part of group meetings.
  • Other opportunities for RECR training with approval from the Graduate Program Director

By the end of Year 2, doctoral students will have at least 6 hours of discussion-based training even. Note that annual refresher training is mandatory even after achieving the requirements at the time that the comprehensive exam has been passed. For practical details, please visit: https://pa.msu.edu/graduate-program/current-graduate-students/rcr.aspx

As a graduate student, you can check your RECR training status through MSU's Student Information System (SIS). Once you log in, click on Academic Progress and then click the RECR option on the sidebar on the page. On this page, you can see whether your trainings are complete and what date they were completed. See the collection of images below to accompany this paragraph (up-to-date as of 2025-01-27)