Approved by PhD Policy Committee May 2005
- Within one month after a student passes the comprehensive exam, the PhD Program Director will assist the student in identifying a thesis advisor to work with the student on the PhD thesis. The PhD student will present a PhD thesis proposal seminar within one year of passing the comprehensive examination. If the proposal seminar is not held within one year, the student must seek approval for an extension from the PhD Policy Committee. No more than one extension will be granted except under extraordinary circumstances.
- All faculty and doctoral students will be invited to attend the seminar and provide constructive feedback on the proposed research. The purposes of this milestone are to provide the student with an opportunity for significant help from people outside the Advisory Committee, and to provide the student with more wide-ranging feedback than could be provided with a series of one-on-one chats with individual faculty. Generally, early proposal seminars are preferred to later ones, to allow input before the thesis research is too far advanced for major elements easily to be changed.
- At least eight working days prior to the seminar date, the student will make available to faculty and PhD students a paper outlining the proposed research; otherwise the seminar will be postponed. This paper will be no more than 30 pages exclusive of appendices and references, and will be prefaced by a single-spaced abstract of approximately 250 words. The paper will be typed, with the main body of the text double-spaced in a 12-point font, with footnotes no smaller than 10 point.
The purpose of keeping the proposal short is to make sure that the proposal lays bare the essentials of the research being proposed and does not cloud the presentation with side issues and lengthy accounts of work already accomplished. Similar page limits apply to journal submissions, so a concise writing style is a valuable skill to develop. - The proposal seminar will normally be chaired by the Graduate Officer. However, if the Graduate Officer is away or is the candidate’s supervisor, another member of the PhD Policy Committee will serve as chair.
All faculty members should attend this seminar. Discussion should be open and frank. Faculty members are encouraged to identify problems and potential remedies at this stage of the research rather than at the time of the final PhD thesis examination.
As with the final PhD thesis defence, the student will be allowed up to 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to present the proposal. A general discussion of the proposal will follow. Faculty members advising the student are reminded that it is the student’s responsibility to respond to issues raised during the PhD proposal seminar. - To encourage full and frank discussion of the proposed thesis research, faculty should stay for an in camera meeting following the proposal seminar, led by the chair of the proposal seminar. The purpose of this meeting is to produce an evaluation of the proposal and a set of suggestions to promote successful and timely completion of the thesis. At this meeting, the composition of the Advisory Committee will also be reviewed. Normally the Advisory Committee will be the faculty members with whom the student has worked in preparing the proposal, although there may be changes or additions to the Committee if the proposal seminar has identified significant issues or research directions requiring different expertise.
After discussion at the in camera meeting, the chair of the proposal seminar will decide by himself or herself whether or not there is a clear consensus regarding the decision (to accept or reject the proposal). If there is consensus, that decision will be declared to be the decision of the meeting. If there is no clear consensus, there will be a vote by secret ballot in which abstention is one choice. The PhD Policy Committee will then take a final decision using the results of the vote as one input.
Assuming the proposal is accepted, the PhD Policy Committee will formally choose the Advisory Committee to guide the student’s future thesis work. The Advisory Committee will commit to writing the evaluation and suggestions emerging from the in camera meeting of interested faculty together with any thoughts of their own, within one week of the proposal seminar. Faculty members are invited to promptly check that this document reflects comments made at the proposal seminar and the in camera meeting. The PhD Policy Committee will resolve any issues raised. After this process has been completed, one copy will be given to the student and another copy will be placed in the student’s file in the School of Accounting and Finance office.