Individuals holding a doctorate degree but not employed in a tenure track faculty position in the College of Arts and Science at Boise State University may request affiliation with the Biomolecular Sciences (BMOL) Graduate Programs. Individuals will make a written request to the program director, include their CV, describe their research funding plan to support a BMOL PhD student, and a description of the proposed research project. Requests must demonstrate that the research project is BMOL-centered, and that sufficient funding is in hand to support the doctoral student for at least three years.
Around November the program contacts research faculty to gauge whether they are potentially interested in taking on a new graduate student for the upcoming fall. This is done so that the program’s webpage can be updated and applicants can list which faculty labs rotations they are interested in on the applications. As the top applicants are being selected, the program’s faculty steering committee will review affiliate faculty appointment requests. This evaluation will occur in time for incoming students to know which laboratories they can rotate through, and ideally before offer letters are sent out. If a student picks an affiliate faculty member as their major professor, the student is eligible to receive two years of program funding provided they remain in good standing. The major professor is expected to provide the remaining years of support for the student to complete their degree. Often, the affiliate faculty member’s funding is used at the beginning of the student’s program of study, and the BMOL funding “banked” until later.
Once granted affiliate faculty status, faculty will be asked to send a brief email update to the program describing any changes that could impact their ability to serve as affiliate BMOL faculty and/or major professor, and indicate whether they are potentially interested in serving as a major professor for a new student in the upcoming year. If they are, a brief description of the research project should be included as well as a full funding plan.
Affiliate faculty are limited to one new BMOL PhD student joining their program in any given year, and to a maximum of two BMOL PhD students at any time, unless the faculty is able to fully fund a student for the duration of their degree.
If an affiliate faculty is able to fully fund a BMOL graduate student, the student will not be required to go through lab rotations. The doctoral student could either be selected from the available pool of admitted students or from an applicant that the faculty member brings to the steering committee who meets admission standards.
Affiliate faculty can serve as mentors for BMOL MS students provided that the student meets admission standards and that the faculty member has funds to support the student, or the student is self-supporting. The BMOL program has no funding to support MS students, only doctoral students. BMOL students in the MS program can apply to roll over into the BMOL PhD program, but their acceptance into the PhD program is not guaranteed and will be evaluated along with all of the other PhD applications for that year.
BMOL affiliate faculty are expected to attend BMOL seminars from time to time, adhere to the student’s funding plan presented to the steering committee (years of funding, and which years grant funds are used, unless the BMOL program grants a plan change), serve on some BMOL student supervisory committees, serve on some comprehensive examining committees, and participate in the faculty rotations to provide a brief written review of BMOL 605 student proposals (~24 BMOL faculty and 5-9 PhD student proposals needing review per year). Failure to do so can result in the loss of affiliate status.