The Advisory Committee

The role of the advisory committee is to aid in mentoring of graduate students and provide feedback. The members of the committee are usually selected by the supervisor, in consultation with the student. The members of your committee should be determined carefully and should be individuals prepared to comment critically on your work and with whom you will have a productive, intellectual exchange. The composition of the advisory committee must be approved by the Associate Chair and the Associate Dean, both of whom must also approve any changes in composition of the committee. It is therefore important to keep the Graduate Coordinator informed of any changes in committee membership. This is particularly critical in the case where a student changes supervisors during the course of their program. If your research takes you away from the campus, your supervisor will be responsible for ensuring that you have adequate supervision.

At both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels, students must have a supervisor and an advisory committee. A student may have two supervisors, in which case they are referred to as co‑supervisors. It is important to keep in mind that committees can only have one adjunct member.

Your advisory committee should be established by the end of your first term but no later than the end of your second term. Students cannot hold a thesis proposal or a committee meeting until their committee has been approved by the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies. If you have an adjunct member on your committee, then approval may take longer. It is therefore critical to ensure timely submission of all paperwork.

The Graduate Coordinator will send out an email out at the beginning of your first term, with reminders in successive terms, should they be needed. This email will provide a link to the Proposed Advisory Committee form on the Biology Graduate Student website. This form will need to be completed each time there is a change in composition of the advisory committee, but especially in the rare event that there is a change in supervisor.

Members of advisory committees should be accessible to students when called upon for regular committee meetings, discussions of a student’s academic progress, consultation on issues related to the research project, and/or for general guidance.

At all meetings, the supervisor must be present. If the supervisor is unable to attend, the meeting must be rescheduled.

M.Sc.

For the M.Sc. degree, the advisory committee consists of at least two members in addition to the supervisor or co‑supervisors. A minimum of one committee member must be from the Department of Biology. The other member(s) may be either 1) a member of another department at the University, or 2) a scientist from another University, industry or a government laboratory who has been approved by the Department of Biology as an adjunct faculty member.

Ph.D.

The advisory committee for a Ph.D. student is comprised of at least two members in addition to the supervisor or co‑supervisors. Normally, both committee members should be faculty from the Department of Biology; at a minimum, at least one member MUST be a faculty member from the Department while the other committee member can either be from another Department at the University of Waterloo or have been approved by the Department of Biology as an adjunct faculty member. A maximum of ONE adjunct faculty member, who must hold a Ph.D., may serve on the examining committee of a Ph.D. student.

Scheduling Committee Meetings

You are required to meet with your committee at least once per year. Meetings are monitored by the Biology Graduate Office and the Associate Chair. At your committee meeting, you are expected to present your research activity. It is the responsibility of your committee to both approve and advise on your program of studies. Although your committee is required to meet with you at least once a year, you or your supervisor may wish to call committee meetings more frequently. As well, you are free to consult your committee members on a more casual basis at any time.

Types of committee meetings are listed below and the meeting request forms are available on the Biology website.

Deadlines for submitting meeting request forms to the Biology Graduate Office are:

Time required	Form
Minimum 1 week	Committee meeting request Pre-defence meeting request
Minimum 2 weeks	Thesis proposal request
Minimum 4 weeks	M.Sc. defence request* (20 business days before the defence date)
Minimum 7 weeks	Ph.D. Comprehensive exam request Ph.D. defence request* (35 business days before the defence date)

* The Faculty of Science Graduate Office does have blackout periods each term that may affect when your defence can be held. Refer to the Faculty of Science webpage.

Please ensure that you keep these deadlines in mind so that the appropriate paperwork will be ready.

Currently, due to COVID-19, all meetings are remote until further notice. We recommend you use MS Teams or Webex for your meetings. Thirty minutes is added to your start time to allow for set up. You are welcome to arrange a practice session with your committee the day before your meeting to make sure all connections work.

For in-person meetings, 30 minutes is added to the start time to allow you to set up. If you will be requiring Skype or Teleconference, then 1 hour is added to the start time to allow for set up. Therefore, the earliest you can have a meeting start (with an 8:30 a.m. set up) is 9:00 a.m. (all committee members attending in person) or 9:30 a.m. (one committee member attending remotely). Meetings must be held during regular University business hours (8:30am-4:30pm) to allow access to equipment and rooms. You can only have one member (cannot be the supervisor) physically absent from a meeting, including individuals participating via Skype or teleconference.

The Biology Graduate Office will arrange a room (if applicable) and the required paperwork once you submit a meeting request form. If a meeting request is received after the deadlines (i.e. less than the minimum times provided in the table above), you will need to reschedule the meeting.

All regular committee meetings will provide a ‘picture’ of your progress in the program. The supervisor and advisory committee members will adjudicate your performance, with an outcome of satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The committee members will also provide feedback that will allow you to adjust for any complications and help keep you on track. All parties to the meeting, including the student, are required to sign the committee meeting report form.

M.Sc. and Ph.D. Committee Issues

If a decision of unsatisfactory is received at a committee meeting, the committee must clearly explain their expectations. In this case, the student will be given a minimum of one term in which to satisfy the concerns of the committee. The committee will then reconvene and review the progress of the student. If the student receives two unsatisfactory evaluations, they will be required to withdraw from the program.

Feedback on Thesis Material

Students should expect timely feedback on thesis material from supervisors and committee members. It is expected that comments on written material for thesis and publications will be provided within three weeks. However, there may be exceptions to this due to extenuating circumstances (illness, travel, fieldwork, etc.). These circumstances should be discussed in advance between the student and the committee member or supervisor and a more appropriate timeline agreed upon. If there are concerns regarding timely feedback, students should notify the Associate Chair at the earliest opportunity.

Suggested revisions and comments on the thesis as a result of a thesis defence must be provided at the defence to ensure that the student is able to complete their revisions in a timely manner.

Pre-Defence Meeting

A pre-defence meeting is required for all students. This meeting is to ensure that the committee and the student are in agreement that the student has progressed sufficiently to proceed with completion of their degree. This meeting gives the student an opportunity to present their data, highlight major findings, ask questions of their committee and receive suggestions on key points. This meeting should take place when the student has substantially completed their research and is ready to write. It is recommended that M.Sc. students schedule this meeting prior to their last term and that Ph.D. students organize this meeting, at least two terms prior to the end of their program.

If the committee finds a student does not appear to be ready to write (i.e. receives a “no” on the form), it has no implications in terms of their standing in the program, nor does it imply failure in anyway.