Dissertation Committee

By the end of the fifth semester of study, students should finalize their PhD committee which is responsible for planning, scheduling, supervising, and evaluating work leading to the Ph.D. degree.

In most cases the degree committee chairperson, who is primarily responsible for administering the various formal stages of the student's education, is also the student's thesis or dissertation advisor, i.e., the member of the faculty whose specialties correspond most closely with the student's own and who is thus primarily responsible for providing the student with intellectual guidance. It is within University policy, however, to divide the functions of committee chairperson and dissertation advisor between two persons if there is a sound reason for doing so in a particular case.

Along with the committee chairperson, who must be a tenured, tenure‑track, or adjunct member of the department, the committee should include two additional members of the History faculty. These three core members of the Ph.D. committee are normally, but not necessarily, the same people who formed the student's committee during the first stage of the Ph.D. In addition, two other professors will be selected to aid in the development and evaluation of the student's proposal, Ph.D. examinations, research, and dissertation. An emeritus professor can be a full member of the committee.

If it is desirable to have an off‑campus member of a Ph.D. committee, the graduate student should submit to the Graduate Secretary the an electronic copy of the nominee's vitae so that the off campus committee member may be nominated to the graduate faculty.

The advisory committee is formally constituted when the Committee Composition Form is submitted to the graduate school.  This form is provided by the Graduate Secretary on the day of the defense.  It should be completed and signed at the prospectus defense.  An application for the Prospectus Defense should be submitted to the Graduate Secrtary three weeks before the defense.