Doctoral Committee
Each doctoral student must have an Advisor and a doctoral committee appointed before the written comprehensive exam is taken. The appointment of the Doctoral Committee shall occur prior to the scheduled comprehensive examination.
At minimum, a doctoral committee must consist of:
- a Research Advisor must be from within the program/discipline area; (and must hold Doctoral Research [DR] status);
- one additional faculty Committee Member from within the program/discipline area;
- one additional faculty Committee Member from within a related discipline or area of inquiry;
- a Faculty Representative (needs to be outside the program discipline)
All committee members must have at least Graduate Faculty (GF) status. The Doctoral Committee is subject to the approval of the program advisor and the Graduate School.
The student and all members of the Doctoral Committee will receive confirmation of the approved committee assignments. Unless the student or Research Advisor informs the Graduate School or the Graduate School informs the student of the need for a change, the doctoral committee membership will remain the same from the written comprehensive examination throughout the dissertation research stages of the program.
The Graduate School will confirm that the student’s requested committee is appropriate as a doctoral research committee each time the graduate school receives the Request to Schedule of the Doctoral Examination to schedule oral comps and dissertation defense and when they turn in their dissertation proposal.
The student should nominate a faculty representative from outside the program discipline to serve on the committee. The final approval of the faculty representative is the responsibility of the Graduate Dean. The faculty representative is a full voting member with all the rights and responsibilities of any other member and must be present at the student’s doctoral oral examination and dissertation defense. The faculty member must hold graduate faculty status and should be in a different program/discipline area than that of the student’s program/discipline area. The faculty representative is expected to contribute conceptual, theoretical, methodological and/or academic expertise from an alternative disciplinary perspective.
No faculty member will be appointed to a doctoral committee without his/her consent. University faculty who have not been appointed Graduate Faculty or Doctoral Research status by the Graduate Council shall not be appointed as members of doctoral committees. An Honorary member is not required, but is allowed when an off campus faculty member with research expertise related to the study is requested. The Honorary committee member is a full voting member with all the rights and responsibilities of other members of the committee and must be present at the student’s doctoral oral examination and dissertation defense. If there is to be a difference in the doctoral committee structure for the oral comprehensive examination and the dissertation research, the student must submit a change of committee membership form to the Graduate School. If a committee member or faculty representative is unable to be present during an oral examination or defense, the program area shall appoint a replacement committee member who has been previously approved by the Graduate School. The Graduate School must be notified of the replacement before the exam or defense. If a replacement cannot be appointed prior to the examination or defense, the exam must be rescheduled for a future date. The concerns and recommendations of all committee members, including the faculty representative, are crucial to the dissertation approval process.