2011 graduate student guide - Department of Political Science ...

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE GRADUATE STUDENT GUIDE
methodologies to be employed, and offer the
underlying argument of the project.
Once all committee members have submitted
feedback on the proposal and revisions have been
made if necessary, the proposal defense will bring
together the dissertation committee formally for the
first time. At the defense the student will be asked to
provide a presentation of the scope of their proposed
work and each of the committee members will be
given time to ask questions about the work and the
general preparedness of the student to complete this
work. At the end of the question period, the student
will be asked to leave the room while the committee
confers about the project.
If the committee approves the proposal, a general
conversation regarding the topic areas for the
comprehensive exam should take place at the end of
the proposal defense. The next step in the process
after the proposal defense is to move on to the
comprehensive exams. These are designed with the
dissertation project in mind and the student should
confer with members of the committee regarding the
preparation of comprehensive exam reading lists and
topics. Students are encouraged to take the exams in
close proximity to the successful defense of their
proposal.
If the student fails the proposal defense, then they
must revise the proposal and establish a new defense
date. If the student fails a second time, they will be
removed from the program.
Comprehensive Exams
Ideally, a student will move directly from course work
to comprehensive exams and the proposal defense.
However, we recognize that it is not always possible
to make this transition smoothly. Thus, upon the
completion of full time course work, each student will
have an additional year to complete a proposal,
compile a committee, defend the proposal and take
comprehensive exams. If a year has gone by and the
student has not taken comprehensive exams, then the
Graduate Chair in conversation with the Dissertation
Chair may request that a hard deadline be imposed. If
the student fails to meet this deadline, the
recommendation will be made to remove them from
the program.
The student's committee designs a comprehensive
examination based upon the dissertation proposal and
the general fields within which the dissertation will be
situated. The process is organized and facilitated by the
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