Dissertation Proposal Reform


The New Guidelines

The new dissertation proposal guidelines can be summarized as follows:

Text of Procedure

Reproduced in full below are the comments by DGS Greg Wawro on the subject of the dissertation proposal:

The basic procedure is still intact w/ respect to the format of the proposal (what it should say, length limitations, etc.), but proposals will no longer be reviewed by a central committee for the whole department.

The DGS will assign two readers drawn from faculty outside of the student's major field to each dissertation proposal and will designate one of these readers as the chair of the examining committee for that proposal. In order to determine outside readers who are appropriate for the project, students should submit to the DGS a title and abstract of no more than 500 words. Students will be required to defend their dissertation proposals orally in a meeting with the two assigned readers and one of the two dissertation sponsors. After the oral defense, the chair of the examining committee will write an assessment of the proposal, including a grade of pass or fail. The assessment will be sent to the DGS, the student, and the student's dissertation sponsors.

Students should also submit to the DGS suggestions (designating order of preference) as to whom they would like the outside readers to be. There is no guarantee that they will be assigned, however. Students should plan to have their proposals ready for distribution two weeks before the date of the defense. Arrangements for the defense (room, time, etc.) should be made through the graduate coordinator.