Admission and Degree Requirements
The preliminary training of students seeking a graduate degree should include courses in the following fields: inorganic chemistry with laboratory, organic chemistry with laboratory, biochemistry with laboratory, vertebrate or human physiology, cellular and molecular biology, statistics, and nutrition. The Graduate Studies Committee may recommend that some or all of these courses be completed as a prerequisite for admission to the program or in addition to the courses required for the graduate degree. For students who wish to combine the advanced degree with courses and experiences meeting the requirements for registration eligibility with the American Dietetic Association, additional courses may be required.
A handbook available from the graduate coordinator gives details of policies, procedures, and requirements.
Master of Arts
The Graduate Studies Committee must approve the Program of Work before the student is admitted to candidacy for the master’s degree. Thirty semester hours are required, distributed as follows: (1) eighteen hours in specified nutrition courses; (2) six hours in a minor or supporting field such as biology, anthropology, biochemistry, immunology, educational psychology, curriculum and instruction, health education, public health, pharmacology, or kinesiology; and (3) six hours in the thesis course, involving an original research project. The eighteen hours in nutrition must include at least three hours in research methods, at least three in research problems, at least three in seminar, and at least six in recent advances; the remaining three hours may be in either research methods or recent advances.
A degree program with report is also available, for students seeking a terminal master’s degree. In this program, Nutrition 398R and three additional hours in either research methods or recent advances replace the thesis course.
Doctor of Philosophy
The doctoral program typically requires four to five years of full-time study. Students are expected to meet the following requirements for admission to candidacy by the end of the second year: (1) completion of courses conditional to admission; (2) eighteen semester hours in nutrition, including the following courses with a grade of at least B in each: Nutrition 390 (Topic 1: Advances in Nutritional Sciences I), 390 (Topic 6: Molecular Nutritional Sciences), 390 (Topic 7: Advances in Nutritional Sciences II), and 394 (Topic 1: General Nutrition); (3) six hours of graduate coursework outside nutrition in fields germane to the dissertation research, such as biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, educational psychology, curriculum and instruction, health education, and kinesiology; (4) presentation and defense of a dissertation research proposal and satisfactory response to questions on nutrition and related sciences; and (5) approval by the Graduate Studies Committee of the proposed course plan and proposed dissertation research program. Further supporting work in nutrition or related sciences is usually needed to augment the program. All doctoral candidates must write a dissertation based on the results of their original research and must make a formal oral defense of the dissertation. The Graduate Studies Committee must certify that all of the degree requirements have been completed.