All CNS-NRT students are require to take two (2) Research Rotation courses (3 credit hours each) involving distinct IUNI-affiliated faculty members.
At least one of the research rotation courses must be completed with a faculty person outside the home program, from one of the domain-specific PhD programs. The faculty integrates the student into his/her research group with a formal agreement of goals (i.e., a learning contract) consistent with the chosen research area to be mastered by the student during the rotation.
Minimally, the student must engage in readings and apprenticeship work with the faculty and other students in that group or on a particular project.
There are two main training goals in a research rotation:
- Students will engage in research with the faculty (typically at a beginning level) and decide if faculty is a potential advisor or co-advisor for their dissertation work.
- Students will work with faculty to ensure that they have a view of the research area from at least two disciplinary perspectives with the hope that their dissertation will integrate the two perspectives.
To facilitate this latter goal, students may not study with the same primary professor across two research rotations.
The research rotations do not add time to regular PhD degree completion. They are already required in the home CNS PhD program at SICE, and have simply been adapted to allow mentorship by faculty in the domain-specific programs in the College of Arts and Sciences (CoAS), where they also fit as part of research practice elective or required courses. The research rotations must occur in the first two years of training.