Seminar Requirement - All Chemistry Degree Programs

SEMINAR REQUIREMENT - ALL Chemistry Degree Programs

Both MS and PhD students are required to enroll in CHGN560 each semester until they present. Seminar instructors should post the most current version of this document on the CHGN 560 Canvas page. Posted here is the September 2025 version of the seminar instructions. 

SEMINAR LOGISTICS

Fall 2025 Seminar Committee Faculty: Prof. Svitlana Pylypenko (spylypen@mines.edu), Prof. Samantha Johnson (samanthajo.johnson@mines.edu) 

Spring 2026 Seminar Committee Faculty: 

2025/2026 Sign Up Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qDObvin0u-ssXjzR_9T8naCWgHjrrv9WPg__yflWPFo/edit?gid=1466159996#gid=1466159996  

REGISTRATION:

Full-time graduate students should register for seminar (CHGN 560) during each semester of their first four years of graduate study.  Combined students should register for seminar starting in the semester in which they first take CHGN707 (thesis students) or CHGN699 (non-thesis MS students).  Transfer of credit for CHGN 560 is possible for a PhD student who has already presented a chemistry-based seminar as part of a prior graduate program where the student’s official transcript lists that seminar as a course having a passing grade (i.e. A, B or PASS).  CHGN 660 no longer exists, so even students who registered for CHGN 660 in the past should now register for CHGN 560.  

ATTENDANCE:

Full-time graduate students who are registered for seminar are expected to attend all seminars (both student seminars taking place Mondays at 4 pm and departmental seminars taking place Fridays at 9 am) unless excused by their advisor. Both Monday and Friday seminars will be held in Coolbaugh 209 (large lecture hall). There will be no virtual  option, unless seminar or an essential grader are remote. Valid excuses include illness, travel for professional reasons, family emergencies, and substitution of different research seminar for a Friday seminar in a given week. To be excused from a seminar, students must have a memo emailed by their advisor to the seminar committee faculty requesting that the student be excused and giving the reason for the student’s absence. The seminar committee considers more than 1 unexcused absence from seminar in any semester to constitute unsatisfactory seminar attendance and will result in that student being issued an unsatisfactory progress (PRU) for seminar and a reduction in the letter grade of their CHGN 560 seminar when it is presented.  Students should sign the attendance sheet distributed each week. 

TIMING: 

For students who matriculated Summer 2024 or later: The 560 seminar must be completed no later than the end of the student’s third year of graduate studies in the Ph.D. program in Applied Chemistry. These students are also expected to give an oral presentation at a conference before they graduate to complete their seminar requirement (the conference should be at least regional, not Mines-internal).  If this is not possible, they need to give a second departmental seminar (see directions for second seminar below). 

For students who matriculated Fall 2022 or earlier: These students should have completed a 560 seminar in their second year.  They have the option of getting the CHGN 660 requirement waived by giving two presentations (including one oral) at a regional or national conference.  If they are giving a CHGN 660 seminar, it must be presented before the student’s oral defense of the thesis, with the recommended timeframe of less than 6 month before the thesis defense. 

Students who matriculated after Fall 2022 but before Summer 2024 can choose either timing/requirement option above. 

Failure to complete these requirements will lead to assignment of a PRU grade in the seminar course.  Note that a PRU seminar grade will result in the student being placed on academic probation, and being issued a second PRU in either seminar or research can then result in discretionary dismissal of the student.

If a student needs to redo a seminar, they should schedule the redo as soon as possible. Seminar committee will accept requests for additional slots if all slots for the semester are filled, on the condition that the request is received in a timely fashion and is reasonable. 

SIGN UP: 

Prior to signing up for a seminar date, the student must receive approval for the chosen date from their advisor and from two members of their thesis committee (excluding their advisor), who will serve on the seminar grading committee.  On the sign-up, the student must provide the advisor’s name, which seminar they are presenting (MS (20 min) or PhD (40 min) or PhD2 (second PhD seminar, formerly known as 660, also 40 min), the seminar’s title, and the names of the two members of the thesis committee who will serve on the grading committee. Once a seminar date is chosen, the student must abide by that date.  Failure to provide all of this information means the student’s name may be removed from the signup sheet so that other students can sign up for this date.  In addition to the two members of the thesis committee, the grading committee will also include two other faculty members that were not selected by the graduate student.  

2025/2026 Sign Up Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qDObvin0u-ssXjzR_9T8naCWgHjrrv9WPg__yflWPFo/edit?gid=1466159996#gid=1466159996  

SEMINAR CONTENT & GRADING

ABSTRACTS:

Seminar abstracts must be e-mailed to Megan Paulson (mpaulson@mines.edu) and the Seminar Committee faculty no later than one week before your seminar.  Abstracts must be sent as a Word document and include a title and references. Failure to abide by this deadline may result in your seminar being canceled. 

CONTENT OF ABSTRACT:

The abstract should concisely describe the content of the upcoming seminar. The abstract should provide sufficient information to the reader such that if the reader had a choice of attending the seminar or not, they could make an informed decision regarding attendance. The abstract should provide the reader with an outline of the main points or important conclusions that will be presented in the seminar. A list of relevant references, some of them very recent, must accompany the abstract to demonstrate the student’s coverage of the literature. 

The overall purpose of both the seminars is to ensure that students have the ability to give a high quality, technical presentation to a broad audience, of a standard that would be expected at a well-respected technical meeting, such as the national American Chemical Society and American Physical Society meetings. There are a number of aspects which are critical in delivering a high-quality presentation. This document will outline some of those aspects but is by no means a complete list. Students are encouraged to work closely with their advisors when preparing their seminars. The experience of their advisor, in regards to what constitutes a high-quality presentation, will be invaluable in the preparation and review of the seminar before it is given to the department.

Chemistry seminars are presented to a mixed audience of chemists of all subdisciplines, geochemists, materials scientists, and others. The audience consists of students, faculty and guest attendees. All seminars should be presented in a style consistent with this diverse audience and in a manner that is understandable to the audience. This requirement does not have to compromise the sophistication of the presentation or diminish the level of technical content. Rather, this approach provides the student an opportunity to enhance their communication skills. As a professional, you will be required to make presentations to quite diverse audiences.

While the subject matter of the seminar should consider the diverse nature of the audience, the technical content of the seminar should be at the academic level of the audience, at a level fitting a Masters or PhD presentation. In addition, the subject matter must be presented in an organized manner such that the audience is not only educated in the topic to be covered but can also clearly follow the speaker’s interpretation of the results and the resulting conclusions. There is no unique manner for presenting a seminar on a given topic; ten different people could present ten very different seminars on the same topic and all could be excellent. This fact allows students an opportunity to exercise creativity in the planning of their seminar.  Nevertheless, many seminar presentations follow the general sequence of: Title, Outline, Introduction/Background, Statement of Goals/Hypotheses (in a research seminar), Body of presentation, Summary/Conclusion, Acknowledgments.

An essential part of any high-quality presentation is the ability of the speaker to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter by effectively answering questions from the audience. Indeed, the ability to clarify any uncertainty the audience may have, in regards to any part of the presentation, by successfully answering questions can dramatically improve the quality of the overall presentation. Conversely, the inability to answer questions or provide clarity to audience confusion will significantly detract from the overall quality of the presentation. While a student’s capability in answering audience questions is an important part of grading the seminar, in no way should this be misinterpreted by other students as a reason not to ask questions. In reality, the ability to ask questions is an extremely important skill for all students to develop and, more often than not, a lack of questions from the audience can be sign of a confusing or poor presentation. Since successfully answering questions from the audience can considerably improve the quality of a seminar, audience members can actually help the speaker by asking questions.

PRESENTATION STYLE:

While there is no specific way a seminar must be presented, there are some general pointers to follow in order to improve the quality of the seminar. The presenter should always speak clearly and in an understandable manner. The speaker should show enthusiasm for their topic, as speaker enthusiasm generates interest from the audience. This does not mean a speaker has to be ‘over the top’ in their enthusiasm but should speak with interest and hopefully passion about their topic. The speaker should address the audience, not the blackboard or projection screen. Any slides, demonstrations or visual aids used by the speaker must be of high quality, easy to read or see, non-confusing or cluttered, and be applicable to the seminar topic.  

CONTENT OF 560 SEMINAR: 

A expected format for a PhD student’s seminar is:  a ~20-minute literature overview plus a ~20 minute research presentation,  followed by a 5 to 10 minute Q&A.

The first part of a seminar should consist of a detailed, critical evaluation of the literature pertinent to the thesis research, and it also should provide background and motivation. The second  part should provide a discussion of the graduate student’s own research and should include the following elements: approach, methods, results, critique of results, future plans. Think of it as a talk similar to a conference research presentation but with more background because we have a more diverse audience than you typically see at a conference.

MS students are expected to give a 20-minute seminar followed by 5 minutes Q&A. For thesis-based MS students, the CHGN 560 seminar must be a research seminar. This seminar should be presented at a time when the student is able to present and competently interpret the thesis data. The student should present their research goals placed in the context of the existing literature, followed by methods, findings, and their interpretation.  For non-thesis MS students, the CHGN 560 seminar will consist of a detailed, critical evaluation of the literature pertinent to their independent study project. If the student’s independent study project includes original research, the seminar should also include a presentation of their research methodology and results. 

CONTENT OF 660 SEMINAR:

Content of 660 or second departmental seminar (if not waived). This seminar should be a 40-minute presentation followed by a 5 to 10 minute Q&A. The seminar should be presented at a time when the student in able to present and competently interpret the thesis data. The student should present their research goals placed in the context of the existing literature, followed by methods, findings, and their interpretation.  When delivering the seminar, it is important to remember that the audience may not be familiar with the background material for the topic. It is therefore recommended to spend roughly 10-15 minutes of the seminar on introduction and background material.  This leaves roughly 20-25 minutes for the research discussion. As such, while it is important for a student to include a detailed discussion of research findings and their interpretation, it is unwise to attempt to discuss everything that has been completed during one’s PhD studies. Focusing on one, or possibly two, areas of the PhD work will allow the student to provide a thorough discussion of the research and interpretation of the important findings, in conjunction with the necessary background material. If the student only shows one or two areas of the PhD work, they may choose to include highlights of the rest of the work, to give the audience a sense of all major directions of their PhD research and their complementary nature.

GRADING:

Seminars are graded by several faculty members. While general guidelines can be set for presenting seminars, there is, of necessity, some degree of subjectivity in judging seminars, and such subjectivity is unavoidable. Our experience over many years of grading seminars is that there is generally a very high degree of agreement in faculty opinions on student seminar presentations, and it is seldom that the faculty graders have difficulty arriving at a consensus on a seminar grade. See below for a copy of the rubric that will be used. 

SEMINAR FEEDBACK SHEET

Student:   Name                  Date of Seminar:   Date        Type of Seminar:    MS / PHD / PHD2

Seminar Title:   Title

Grader Name/Signature:

Please score each item on a 1 – 4 scale:   1 = poor, 2 = average, 3 = good and 4 = excellent

I.                 Technical Content:

Abstract                                                                                           1   2   3  4

Importance of topic, big picture                                            1   2     3  4

Literature overview                                                               1   2     3 4

Key concepts (Results if relevant) clearly presented          1   2   3 4

Conclusions/Summary clearly stated                                  1   2     3 4

Organization of information                                                         1   2   3 4

Overall level of detail                                                                     1   2   3 4

II.                 Presentation:

Slides quality                                                                                1   2     3  4

   Professional voice/confident delivery                                  1     2    3    4

Enthusiasm and engagement                                           1   2     3 4

Ability to answer questions                                               1   2     3 4

III.              General Comments (Please feel free to add comments on the back of this form)

IV.              Committee evaluation:      Pass                                    Redo