Since kerim is doing professionalization related posts, here are some quick tips for the awkward ritual of asking someone to be on your dissertation committee: make sure they will say yes: ask your advisor if they think the prof would be a good fit on your committee. A lot of the time professors will talk to each other first before you meet, so the new addition to your committee may already know you are coming and has already basically agreed to serve. A lot happens behind the scenes in academe, so even though it is your committee, its very important to work with your advisor so that they can shepherd the whole thing along. pop the question early: theres nothing weirder than having a graduate student come to your office and spend five minutes explaining why they have the same intellectual interests as you, seemingly for no reason. Perhaps they are planning to do this for your entire office hour? its far better to just sit down, be business like, and say the reason that im here to see you today is to ask you to serve on my dissertation committee.

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Uh… will you? remember: the goal is to have this already taken care of ahead of time, which means your probably next step will be to: accept acceptance gracefully: if someone agrees to be on your committee then… say thank you! they may want to talk more for which, see below but they may also be very busy and consider this whole embarrassing ritual a waste of time. accept rejection gracefully: if someone says no, dont personalize people decide not to serve on committees for all sorts of reasons, not because you are a total fraud who doesnt really belong in graduate school. Sometimes people are just too busy, sometimes they have personal issues with other committee members, etc.

Its ok to push people a little bit: are you sure? do you mind if i ask why? but dont push too hard. Theres no point upsetting someone when you could have a perfectly collegial relationship. prepare for the probe: the problem is a long, metal instrument professors keep in their office to… no just kidding. Often before deciding to be on your committee professors will ask a couple of probing questions to see who you are and what you are doing. Much of the time they know they are going to say yes, but they still want a sense of who you are and what they are getting into. This kind of thing may also happen immediately after they agree to serve if they want to move on to the nuts and bolts of the advising relationship.

Basically, you should be able to say why you want to work with someone how their interests overlap with yours, what you might read together in the future and so forth. Id advise reading the acknowledgements and introduction to their dissertation to get a sense of their genealogy, as well as their latest article or two so you can understand what theyve been working on lately. You dont have to knock the ball out of the park on this one i think a lot of professors just want some very basic sense that you know what you are doing, and where they will fit into it. discuss expectations: no one registers for their wedding after the first date, but it does help in this initial meeting to give your committee member some sense of how much of their attention youll be needing. Some people want assurances that you are not going to show up on their doorstep too often, while others are not going to take you on unless they know you are ready to put in some serious time with them. Giving a committee member a sense of what you want from them is helpful, as if making sure you learn what they are willing to contribute to your committee.

But above all, professors are crazy people and office hours are an extremely strange institution. If someone wants to talk about baseball for five minutes before you get started, let them. If they are super busy and want to shoo you out of the office after they yes yes, ive talked to professor jones about this, ill be on your committee then get out from underfoot. And above all, if the vibe seems seriously off, dont ask someone to be on your committee who you dont think should be there. This is such a small thing, but like a lot of things in academia someone its something that we never really talk about. It is recommended that the membership of the dissertation committee be submitted to the graduate school for approval at least 6 months prior to the student’s oral defense for dissertation committee purposes, the graduate faculty consists of persons who are tenure or tenure track instructional faculty holding an unmodified i.e. Appointment at the university of michigan as professor, associate professor, or assistant professor with an earned doctorate from an accredited institution.

Dissertation committees must have at least four members, three of whom are members of the graduate faculty see definition above , and two of whom are from the doctoral candidate’s home program. Furthermore, each committee: must have a sole chair or two co chairs must have a cognate member who is familiar with the standards for doctoral research and holds at least a.50 appointment in a rackham doctoral program, other than the student's home department/program except idp programs. May include a university faculty member who is not graduate faculty see definition above , a university staff member, or a qualified individual outside the university to provide expertise in the candidate’s discipline the chair or each co chair is responsible for guiding and encouraging the candidate’s design and execution of an original, high quality, doctoral level research project.

The end result of this effort is expected to be a dissertation that makes a substantive contribution to the candidate’s discipline. The cognate member’s role is to broaden the scholarly representation of the dissertation committee beyond the candidate’s home program. The cognate member also serves the graduate school and its faculty by providing a non specialist’s perspective on the quality of the dissertation. Nominations for dissertation committee service are made by means of the dissertation committee form. All nominations must be approved by the graduate school and are subject to the following guidelines:

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