MA Thesis Public Lecture & Examination- IO

The MA Thesis Public Lecture and Examination will consist of two parts, and will proceed as follows.

It is the examination Chair’s responsibility to ensure that the procedures below are followed.

Part I (maximum room booking of 1 hour)

  1. The Public Lecture consists of a student presentation that is approximately 20 minutes long.
  2. Following this lecture the Defense Administrator allows 10-20 minutes for questions from the public audience.
  3. Following the Public Lecture and audience questions, the Defense Administrator will announce a 10 minute break. After the break, the Committee, the student and any attendees who wish to stay will reconvene for the Examination, which may require moving to a different room.

Part II (maximum room booking of 3 hours)

Questioning of the MA candidate by the Examination will typically proceed as follows:

  1. Typically, there are two rounds of questions from committee members. Each committee member is allotted 15 minutes during each round.
  2. If needed, a third round of questions is possible.
  3. Note, the Defense Administrator is in charge of the process and, consequently, does not ask questions during these rounds.

Following the questions, the student and audience members are asked to leave the room and the committee debates the quality of the thesis. The candidate is deemed to have passed if a simple majority of Examination Committee members vote to pass the student. An abstention is regarded as a negative vote. If the Examination Committee decides thesis and oral exam are unsatisfactory, the candidate may be given the opportunity for a second attempt. A second unsatisfactory report constitutes a recommendation to the Board of Graduate Studies that the student be asked to withdraw.

In addition to determining whether the candidate passes the exam, the Examination Committee members will also discuss the recommended and required changes to the thesis.  After each committee member recommends changes, the committee will come to a consensus about which changes the student is required to do. In the rare event of a disagreement, the Defense Administrator will decide if a requested change by a committee member can be overruled or dismissed by the advisor. Timeline concerns, impending trips, or the start of a job are not reasons to overfull changes requested by committee members.

Following deliberations of the committee, the Examination Chair calls the student back to the examination room and verbally informs the candidate of the outcome of the Examination. If the defense is successful, changes will frequently be required. These changes may be minor or substantial. Consequently, when the Examination Committee members sign the Certificate of Approval and Report of the Examination Committee, one member will withhold his/her signature until the revisions are completed.

Students should be prepared to make changes based on feedback received during the defense and must allocate sufficient time before final submission for this process.

Following completion of the thesis revisions, the Examination Chair then submits the signed forms (i.e., Certificate of Approval, Report of the Examination Committee) to the Graduate Secretary, his/her Examination Chair report, and the Report of the External Examiner. The Graduate Secretary then contacts the student to complete graduation paperwork with the Department Chair. Once completed the student is responsible for the delivery of this paperwork along with the approved copies (2) of the thesis in its final form (following revisions) to the Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies.

To maintain a professional atmosphere, students are encouraged to not thank committee members and the examination committee during their public lecture.