The Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee assigns
new graduate students an advisor, who, in consultation with appropriate people,
helps the student prepare his/her program and recommend the composition of
his/her Advisory (for MS candidates) or Doctoral Committee. The Advisory
Committee for master's degree candidates is nominated when the program is
submitted. The Doctoral Committee is nominated (on appropriate forms) after
the doctoral program has been approved. For students who have filed both PhD
and MS programs, the Doctoral Committee should coincide with the MS Advisory
Committee.
Constraints on the composition of these committees are as follows:
advisory doctoral
minimum membership 3 3
minimum membership from Graduate Faculty2 3
maximum membership not from Grad. Faculty-- 1
The chairman of a doctoral committee must be a member of the Graduate Faculty. The chairman of an advisory master's committee need not be.
The student usually has a definite voice in the formation of these committees and in exercising this privilege should consider the appropriateness of prospective members. An ideal committee should be made up of people all of whom have special reasons to be interested in the student's program, but represent varying viewpoints.
Committees of both types are responsible for directing the student's program and conducting preliminary and final examinations of the student. Furthermore, the doctoral committee has the particularly important responsibility of guiding the student's thesis work and deciding on the acceptability of the finished thesis. Most of this responsibility usually falls on one member (normally the chair) of the doctoral committee, who, in this role, is called the student's thesis advisor or major professor.