Doctoral Proposal Defense Procedures

Doctoral graduate students in the Ed.D. program or Ph.D. program should carefully review the below procedures for defending their proposals.

Several months prior to the proposal defense

Work with your faculty advisor to assemble your dissertation/ELP Committee. Committees must have between 4-6 members including three School of Education faculty and one outside member who is not a School of Education faculty member.

Please be absolutely sure that you have a properly constituted dissertation/ELP committee. Failure to have three School of Education faculty members and one outside member of your committee will result in an improperly constituted committee and you may have to defend your proposal or dissertation/EPP again with the new committee. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have a legal committee.

One month prior to the proposal defense

• Set a date and time for the Proposal Defense with your committee members and plan to submit the proposal to each of your committee members at least two weeks prior to the scheduled defense.
• Contact CEHD so that we can schedule a room and prepare your paperwork.  We will need to know the correct names of all your committee members for the Recommendation for Candidacy for Doctoral Degree form that we will prepare for you. If you are an Ed.D. student, we will also prepare the correct NCATE forms for you.
• We will send the paperwork to your advisor in campus mail. However, you should allow at least one week for the paperwork to be delivered. If we are notified of the defense less than one week prior to the defense, you will need to pick up the paperwork from 106 Alison Hall.

The day of the proposal defense:

• Pick up your defense room key in Willard Hall 113.
• After your defense, give the paperwork to your committee chair and remind your chair return the completed, signed form(s) to Ann Marie Green in Willard Hall 113.