The student must defend the dissertation in a final examination before a committee of five faculty. The chair of the department or subcommittee, in consultation with the student’s sponsor, appoints the examining committee, subject to approval of the dean. Its members include the student’s sponsor and constitute an independent jury that represents the faculty of the Graduate School. No defense shall be scheduled until the dissertation sponsor and second reader have signified that in their judgment the dissertation is acceptable and thus warrants a defense and final examination.

Students intending to defend the Ph.D. dissertation must file an Application for Dissertation Defense at their departments. The defense application is used in place of a Ph.D. degree application. See the Academic Calendar in section II.A. for application and distribution deadlines associated with a particular conferral date.

The dissertation officer is responsible for scheduling dissertation defenses in all departments except in the natural sciences and the doctoral program subcommittees, where responsibility for the scheduling of dissertation defenses rests with the department or program chair. Defenses for which the student does not distribute until after March 31 are scheduled by the department. Scheduling begins after a proposed defense committee has been approved by the dean and after copies of the dissertation have been distributed to members of the defense committee. The student is responsible for distributing copies of the dissertation for the defense at least four weeks before it is to take place, and for notifying the dissertation officer when all members have received their copies. Notification of distribution is critical to the scheduling of the defense date. Students do not schedule their own defenses.

At the defense, the candidate will be given all materials necessary to complete the deposit of all copies of the postdefense revised dissertation at the Graduate School.