General Policies

Students are responsible for obtaining and maintaining compliance with all required training as is necessary for their work in laboratory settings. 

Such training includes, but is not limited to, lab safety, HIPAA, and UCAR protocols and procedures. 

Professional conduct is expected of all trainees and faculty. Professionalism training can also be found on the URMC website, e.g., SMD Peer to Peer Professionalism Program. Unfortunately, the SMD Ombudspersons Program has been discontinued. However, the Dean can provide advice regarding interpersonal conflicts in the academic environment that cannot be taken to the mentor, Program Co-Directors, Program Coordinator, or Thesis Advisory Committee. See also Resources below.

Per NIH requirements for institutional training grants, all trainees are required to obtain an Open Researcher and Contributor Identifiers (ORCID) ID. 

The ORCID ID is a “persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher and supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities, ensuring that your work is recognized.” 

There is no fee to establish an ORCID profile and it can be linked to the one that you maintain within eRA Commons. A profile can be established via a link in Commons or by visiting the ORCID website directly: www.orcid.org.

The Program Coordinator will assign 1^st year students a desk from the general departmental “pool” of office space. Once a research advisor has been chosen, the student will be given a desk in the advisor’s area.

Daily attendance in the laboratory is required unless you are in class, attending a journal club, seminar or other on-campus event, or you are ill, there is an illness in the family, or you are attending an off-site research conference. 

Students should discuss expectations regarding work hours and attendance with the faculty member who runs the lab they are in. Scientific research often requires workdays that are longer than the traditional 8-hour workday. Sometimes work will need to be performed on Saturdays and Sundays to initiate or complete research projects. 

Unexplained absences of a continuous nature may result in loss of laboratory privileges, reduction to or loss of financial support, or a failing grade on research credits (which would result in expulsion from the program).

Keys, ID cards and electronic access codes to laboratories and other rooms at the University and Medical Center are never to be loaned out or given to other individuals. Sharing your keys or ID with another person, even if they work at the University, can result in loss of access privileges.

Students are encouraged to present their research at scientific conferences. The costs for attending the meeting in which a student presents research are generally paid by the student’s mentor; however, this is not guaranteed. When possible, and with advanced approval, the Toxicology Training Program can sometimes help with these expenses. Costs to attend meetings in which the student is not presenting are typically not supported by the mentor or program.

Generally, each student traveling needs to contact the Program Coordinator in advance of submitting abstracts, registration, or making any travel plans, so that the proper payment methods are followed.

Failure to do so may result in the student paying for his/her own expenses, and not being reimbursed until the completion of their travel. While traveling, make sure to retain all pertinent receipts, including conference registration receipts, airline ticket receipts, parking, taxi, meals, and housing. Expenses not covered include alcoholic beverages, internet access fees, in-room services (including meals), and family member expenses. Reimbursement for travel by personal vehicle requires prior approval. Travel receipts for reimbursement are due to the Program Coordinator within one week of return.

The following section outlines rules and regulations that pertain to student travel. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in the student or mentor not being reimbursed for expenses.

• Discuss your interest in attending a specific conference with your mentor well in advance of deadlines. Discuss anticipated expenses and plans to cover expenses.
• Prepare abstracts well in advance of submission deadlines, and never submit abstracts without review by and approval of all authors on the abstract.
• Abstract submission fees, meeting registration fees, and airline tickets, should be discussed with your mentor and with the Program Coordinator well in advance of the deadlines. Not doing so could result in not being reimbursed until after travel is completed (or not being reimbursed at all).
• Itemized receipts for all meals, taxis, and all other expenses are required. Failure to provide itemized receipts will result in not being reimbursed for these expenses. This is a policy of the University.
• As a guide to reasonable daily costs for meals, the University is willing to reimburse for meals up to $40-50/day, depending on the meeting location. Excessively expensive meals may not be reimbursed.
• Alcoholic beverages are not reimbursable expenses. If they are included on the receipt, please cross them out with a pen and deduct this cost from the total on the receipt.
• Non-meal related incidentals are not reimbursable (e.g., snacks, bottled water, in room Wi-Fi access)
• Students should advise the hotel when making their reservation that separate bills (folios) need to be prepared for each occupant when a room is shared. This alleviates confusion at the time of reimbursement, since travel reimbursement forms are submitted for individual travelers.
• Many research conferences and scientific societies offer student travel awards. Students should apply for these awards in order to relieve pressure on the limited travel funds available from mentor’s grants and the training program.

Graduate students are expected to be engaged in full-time study for the entire 12 months of a calendar year. 

Graduate students do not follow the University break schedules for undergraduate students. 

Graduate students are entitled to official University Holidays and may receive up to ten days (two weeks) of personal time off per year (July 1 to June 30). 

All absences need to be approved by the student’s mentor or by the Program Directors for those students that have not yet selected a mentor. Any student who takes an unauthorized leave risks having his/her stipend terminated. 

The Program Coordinator’s Office must submit monthly time reports on all graduate students and these are subject to close scrutiny by auditors from both the governmental accounting office and the University. Unjustified absences can jeopardize our already sparse funds and can lead to academic probation or termination of stipend support.

You may consider using your cell phone, laptop, or other electronic device to be a personal right without any consequences. However, legal and privacy issues that may protect you as an individual do not apply when working in an office or laboratory. 

In addition to research-related communications, you may use the university e-mail system for brief contact with family or friends. However, you should limit personal use of university e-mail accounts, using your home computer and home internet service provider to conduct communications that are not related to your academic, research, and professional development activities. 

Similar guidelines apply to usage of your cell phone, tablet, or other devices that are your own property. These cannot interfere with your daily work or classes. Therefore, text messaging and phone conversations with friends and family need to be kept to a limited basis while in the laboratory or classroom. In other words, brief and limited email/texting/phone calls with friends and family is permitted. However, it is not acceptable to pay your bills, shop on-line, hangout in social networking sites, plan vacations, etc., while in the lab, or to conduct extensive cell phone or text- message conversations with friends or family while in the lab (regardless of who owns the computer/device).

Social media sites that are not affiliated with the University should also be used judiciously. When you are in the laboratory is not the time to communicate with friends via Facebook, Twitter, etc. Regardless of ownership of the device you are using, spending time at these sites, posting or reading posts from others, should be very limited while you are in the lab. Also, be advised that any posts that you make could unknowingly be viewed by others and could ultimately affect how others perceive you, including potential future employers.

Please see the Program Coordinator for access to Printing and Copying. The advisor’s account should pay for work-related items. Use of university copy accounts for personal use is not permitted.

The federal government has indicated that all fellowships and scholarships are taxable. 

It is the student’s responsibility to file federal and state tax forms.

At the present time, University and grant funds will support an individual student for a maximum of 6 years. If a student does not complete his/her thesis within this period and completion is imminent, the student’s advisor will be expected to provide the necessary documentation and any necessary funding support. However, the student should realize that even with satisfactory progress, funding beyond a 5-year period is not guaranteed.

Honesty is the cornerstone of academic integrity and scientific inquiry and suspected infractions will be treated with utmost seriousness. Academic misconduct includes cheating on exams or assignments, plagiarism, or providing false information. Scientific misconduct includes a deliberate attempt to alter existing data, creating data that did not exist, knowingly misrepresenting data to support an idea or to perform additional experiments, or violating human subjects or animal use protocols. Scientific fraud includes deliberately denying the existence of an experiment because its results did not meet expectations, confirms the hypothesis, or were inconsistent with previous results. These descriptions are not exhaustive.

Any concerns regarding possible academic misconduct should be brought to the attention of the Program Co-Directors, who will refer the matter to the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Studies. At their discretion, the matter will be forwarded to the Standing Conduct Panel for investigation with all affected parties participating. The panel will present the results of the investigation, along with recommended punitive or remedial action, to the Dean of Graduate Studies, who will make the final decision regarding outcome. For additional University guidelines regarding academic misconduct, please refer to the University of Rochester’s “Regulations and University Policies Concerning Graduate Studies.”

Consequences may include the loss of research assistantship and/or employment with the University. Depending on the findings, it may also be necessary to notify state and federal agencies, which may need to conduct further review of the case. Any publications that include fabricated data will be corrected by notifying the journal editors. If work was conducted on a government grant, the governmental agency funding the study will be notified. This may restrict or prevent future employment on any government- funded research project.

Specific procedures to be followed in order to resolve cases of harassment or discrimination are described in the University of Rochester’s “Regulations and University Policies Concerning Graduate Studies”.

Graduate school and postdoctoral fellowships can be stressful in many ways. There are many people and resources to help you navigate your education and training and to help you with any professional and personal struggles you may encounter along the way. In addition to faculty, staff, and students in the Toxicology Program, there are several other resources available to you, including:

myHub supplements scientific graduate education in the Program with additional professional and career development opportunities and workshops: (https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/education/graduate/myhub-professional-development.aspx).

You should explore the myHub website to learn about their range of offerings and about personalized assistance that is available. This can be a particularly useful resource if you are thinking about internships or if you need to develop better writing skills in advance of submitting a paper, your qualifying exam proposal, a fellowship application, or your dissertation. Pay attention to the email broadcasts from myHub, too, for updates and new programming.

University Counseling Center (UCC) provides a comprehensive initial assessment and an individualized plan. Based on the initial assessment, a treatment plan is developed by the clinician that addresses your unique needs and concerns. This plan may include recommendations such as, but not limited to: group therapy, workshops, brief therapy, referrals to community provider for specialized treatment or longer-term therapy services, Therapist Assisted On-line (TAO), case management services, psychiatry or other campus services. For detailed information on services, contact information, please check out their website for more details on their many resources: https://www.rochester.edu/ucc/

The University Health Services (UHS) provide health care services to students and is available to all matriculated students. Please review information on their website (https://www.rochester.edu/uhs/) to learn more about UHS services and health care providers.

The CARE Network allows all members of the University community to express concerns about a person, incident, or issue by submitting a report online (https://www.rochester.edu/CARE/).

The University plans to commence and conclude classes on the dates indicated in the academic calendars. But unforeseen circumstances or events may occur that require the University to temporarily close or otherwise make adjustments to its student life, residential housing, class schedules and format, method and location of instruction, educational activities, and operations because of reasons beyond the University's control. 

For example, such circumstances or events may include but are not limited to inclement weather, the onset of public health crises, being subject to government order(s), significant safety or security concerns, faculty illness, strikes, labor disturbances, sabotage, terrorism, war, riot, civil unrest, fire, flood, earthquake, acts of God, malfunction of University equipment (including computers), cyberattacks, unavailability of particular University facilities occasioned by damage to the premises, repairs or other causes, as well as disruption/unavailability of utilities, labor, energy, materials, transportation, electricity, security, or the internet. If any of these or other unforeseen circumstances or events outside of the University's control occur, the University will respond as necessary and appropriate, and it assumes no liability for any interruption or adjustments made to student life, residential housing, class schedules and format, method and location of instruction, educational activities, and operations caused by these or other unforeseen circumstances or events. And the University shall not be responsible for the refund of any tuition or fees in the event of any such unforeseen circumstances or events, except as may otherwise be expressly provided in the University's Leave of Absence and Withdrawal Policy or its published tuition refund schedule (Payments and Refunds - Office of the Bursar (rochester.edu)).