Introducing How to Ask a Professor to Be on Your.
The members of the Committee, initially selected for the Comprehensive Examination process, ideally should remain on the Doctoral Committee throughout the dissertation and final defense. The composition of the Committee should include at least one member from the student's department, and at least one member from outside the primary field of study.
An expert from outside the University may serve on the doctoral dissertation committee upon the recommendation of the committee chair, and approval by the department chair and the graduate dean. The request, along with the Graduate Faculty Membership Application and reader’s curriculum vita, must be submitted to the College of Graduate Studies for approval prior to committee appointment.
The student and research supervisor should agree upon members of a Thesis Committee and propose a Committee to the appropriate Graduate Program Committee Chair. During the summer of the second year, the student must submit the PhD Thesis Committee form to the Graduate Committee Chairs (Prof. Bathe, copy to Academic Office) to request approval of the Thesis Committee membership.
Some committee members may require a draft earlier than that. The student should discuss this with each committee member well in advance of the defense date to be sure that the committee member's requirements in this regard are known. For more details about the dissertation and dissertation defense, see the Ph.D. Dissertation page.
The Chair of the Dissertation Committee must be a member of the Graduate Group. For a list of current members, click on the Graduate Group link on the left side of the screen. The Dissertation Committee is responsible for approving the candidate’s plan of dissertation research and the format of the dissertation and for determining the acceptability of the completed dissertation.
Eligibility for Service on Dissertation Committees. Nominations for dissertation committee service are made by means of the Dissertation Committee form, which must be signed by the chair of the doctoral candidate’s program. All nominations must be approved by the Graduate School and are subject to the following guidelines.
The Dissertation Committee is composed of the advisor or chair, who must be a tenure track Category P Graduate Faculty member in the College of Nursing, and at least two other graduate faculty members, one of whom must be Category P and the other who must be either Category P or M. Dissertation committee members can be different from the Candidacy Examination Committee members.