The list of current Standing Committees, including a description of the purpose of each Committee, is given below. Unless otherwise noted, the roles of the student members on each Committee are identical to those of faculty members.
Curriculum
The Curriculum Committee is responsible for proposing the general standards of the Program’s core curriculum requirements for consideration by the Steering Committee and/or Program faculty. The Committee makes both broad and specific recommendations regarding course sequences and requirements, and it evaluates the appropriateness of a specific course for fulfilling these requirements.
Ethics
This Committee has the responsibility for meeting the NIH mandate that all students supported by the federal government shall receive annual instruction in the responsible conduct of research (scientific ethics).
First-Year Student Advisory
The First-Year Student Advisory Committee serves in lieu of an Advisory Committee for all first-year students in the Program, and the Committee is responsible for first-year students until they choose a major professor. The Committee advises students on all aspects of the Program throughout the first year, from orientation in the fall to choosing a major professor in the spring. It is also responsible for handling any student issues that may arise after the first year, including academic, personal, or disciplinary problems.
Diversity Enhancement
The Program makes vigorous efforts to encourage applications of admission by qualified minority students and to recruit these students to the Program. The Diversity Enhancement Committee oversees the Program’s Diversity Enhancement Speaker Series, arranges visits by minority students from high schools and colleges, attends area recruitment fairs, helps coordinate the Program’s participation in the IBS-SRP Neurobiology program and sends representatives to schools with large minority enrollments in an effort to increase the number of minority student admissions. Members of the committee also participate in the Biosciences Opportunities preview weekend (BOPs), an annual preview weekend hosted for prospective underrepresented students at UW-Madison.
Seminar Topics
This committee is responsible for the choice of seminar topics on the ballot for the Neuroscience seminar series, which is then selected by vote of the faculty and students. This entails surveying students and faculty for interesting topics and, when necessary, recruiting faculty to organize these seminars.
Neuroscience & Public Policy Program Steering Committee
This committee is responsible for exploring ways to increase program visibility and recruitment of top applicants, exploring funding opportunities and the faculty on the committee review N&PP applicants and advice the NTP Admissions Committee on suitability of applicants to the N&PP programs. The Chair of this committee, elected by the committee, will serve as the N&PP Director for a 3-year term that is renewable once.