Culminating Experience

knowledge through a culminating experience.

2.5.a. Identification of the culminating experience required for each professional public health degree program. If this is common across the program’s professional degree programs, it need be described only once. If it varies by degree or specialty area, sufficient information must be provided to assess compliance by each.

The culminating experience occurs through a three-tiered process. Students must satisfactorily:

1. Execute a scholarship/research project in a research course, and achieve a passing grade for the course.

2. Complete MPH 895, the MPH Capstone Course (1 credit hour).

3. Present their scholarship/research project in a way that demonstrates knowledge and mastery of selected public health competencies, and must achieve a passing score for the presentation.

Each of these components is described in more detail below.

Execute A Research/Scholarship Project.

Each student must satisfactorily execute a scholarship/research project through one of these courses, and achieve a passing grade in the course:

- CHE: HEA 880 Scholarship in Community Health (3 hrs.)

- EHS: EHS 890 Graduate Project in Environmental Health (3 hrs.)

Some aspect of the culminating experience must be original, whether it is the topic itself, an analysis of newly collected or extant data, the reinterpretation of others’ findings, or the design and completion of a community project.

Through this scholarship/research experience the student must demonstrate proficiency with core and option specific competencies. Thus, the student must synthesize and

integrate advanced knowledge and skills acquired in the Program, and apply those to some aspect of public health specific to community health education or environmental health science.

The faculty member who teaches the projects course supervises the students’ work (although in some cases more than one faculty member might collaborate to supervise the scholarship/research). For the projects course, students prepare a scholarship/research proposal and complete an independent assessment of core and option specific

competencies for which proficiency in the competencies can be developed through the execution of the project. A committee of two faculty is formed early in the semester, and these faculty review the student’s proposal for a study, particularly looking for the way in which it addresses core and/or option specific competencies. Faculty who direct the scholarship also help orient students to the culminating experience presentation. (See the EHS 890 and HEA 880 syllabi in the resource file).

research/scholarship project demonstrates proficiency in core and/or option specific competencies, and they prepare a presentation of their project that demonstrates their ability to synthesize and integrate knowledge acquired in coursework and through

completion of the project. (See the MPH 895 syllabus in the resource file for criterion 2.5).

Present the Research/Scholarship Project

All students must present their research/scholarship project that demonstrates their ability to synthesize and integrate knowledge acquired in coursework and mastery of

competencies through completion of the project. This presentation is an exit requirement for graduation and considered to be the oral comprehensive examination (GRD 888a).

Students must achieve a passing score for the presentation. At the end of each semester, the MPH Director schedules times for students to present their research/scholarship. The following procedures are utilized:

1. The presentations are announced and open to all College faculty and graduate students as well as invited practitioners.

2. Three or more faculty members (and at least one from each option) and students/peers evaluate each presenter. During the presentation, the audience uses a standard rubric to evaluate the culminating experience and presentation (See resource file for

culminating experience presentation evaluation rubric). The overall quality of the presentation is also evaluated in terms of organization, completeness, scope, and evidence of professional growth. Faculty evaluators assess the extent to which students demonstrated core and option specific competencies through the presentation.

Students gain an understanding of the rubric in the capstone course (MPH 895).

3. The MPH Director collects and summarizes the evaluations. Copies of such for each presenter are then provided to the supervising faculty member who meets with the student to review and discuss the overall evaluation.

4. A pass or fail grade is assigned for the culminating experience and is based only on evaluations by faculty. This information is also reported to the graduate school as an exit requirement (GRD 888a, the oral comprehensive exam).Therefore, students who do not pass are not cleared for graduation. If a student fails, s/he is allowed a second attempt, failure of which is considered a failure of the Program.

5. The MPH Director provides a summary report of evaluations of student presentations to the MPH Assessment Committee (AC) and to faculty and others at the annual Program Retreat. Subsequently, the AC reports to the MPH Curriculum Committee regarding compliance with Program culminating experience requirements.

2.5.b. Assessment of the extent to which this criterion is met and an analysis of the program’s strengths, weaknesses and plans relating to this criterion.

This criterion is met.

Strengths

- All students must complete a three-tiered culminating experience via a research or other scholarly project, a capstone course, and a presentation of the scholarly activity as it relates to public health objectives and competencies.

- The timeline and requirements for the culminating experience are explicit.

- Information on the requirements is stated clearly in the Student Handbook, and is reviewed at the new student orientation each semester.

- The three-tiered culminating experience has been in place since spring 2008 and based on routine data collection and assessment of the culminating experience, revisions were made in spring 2012 to the presentation requirements and evaluation rubric.

Weaknesses

- Several years of assessing the process of the three-tiered culminating experience and attendant evaluation components revealed some assessment requirements that were somewhat difficult to assess. Thus, the evaluation rubric was revised in spring 2012.

- Changes made to the assessment of the culminating experience necessitate the need for ongoing faculty discussions and orientation to the revised procedures. For example, a need exists to determine the threshold levels for passing the culminating experience presentation. As with any new measurement tool, it must be piloted before such thresholds can be determined.

Plans

- Refinement of the processes and materials used, including evaluation instruments and syllabi, will occur over time, based on student and faculty feedback.

- During Fall 2012, pilot the assessment tool to determine the thresholds for the minimum criteria to pass the culminating experience presentation.

- Continuing orientation of and discussions with faculty will be needed and planned.

2.6 Required Competencies. For each degree program and area of specialization within