1 GRADUATE COUNCIL MEETING 9 May 2012 102 Kern Graduate ...

APPENDIX B, PAGE B1
Proposed Revision of Graduate Council Policy on Doctoral Committees
Background and Justification
The current policy on doctoral committees, which was revised most recently in May 2011,
includes a requirement for an Outside Field Member to serve on each doctoral committee. The
Outside Field Member is intended to represent another field (outside the student’s major field) to
provide a broader range of disciplinary perspectives and expertise. This requirement can be met
by any number of criteria, including membership in another graduate program; formal
training/highest degree in another field; research expertise based upon record of scholarly work
in another field; etc., and has no basis in budgetary relationship.
After the revised policy was implemented, The Graduate School Dean’s Office and Graduate
Enrollment Services fielded many queries from programs regarding the interpretation of “outside
the student’s major field,” which eventually led to a request for a formal interpretation by the
Committee on Academic Standards.
The Committee did not intend to change the current policy, but simply wished to establish a
standard method for interpreting and operationalizing the policy (with nearly 200 graduate
programs, including an increasing proportion of multidisciplinary and intercollege programs, an
effective policy that can be implemented is especially critical). However, the Committee noted
that two different ideals consistently are advanced for doctoral committee membership: 1) The
first is intellectual and served by the Outside Field Member, whereby a different, or “outside,”
perspective from the student’s major field is brought to a student’s dissertation committee so as
to enrich the student’s research and professional development. 2) The second is protective,
intended to prevent/discourage potential conflicts of interest that may be based on any number of
underlying factors ranging from power imbalances between an untenured, junior faculty member
from the same administrative unit as a senior, tenured faculty member, to personal relationships
between the student’s advisor and another member of the committee. This second role is not
addressed by the Outside Field Member.
In order to reasonably achieve these two different but equally important ideals, the Committee
decided that designating two different positions for doctoral committees would be both fair and
comprehensive: the Outside Field Member (as it exists in the current policy) and an Outside Unit
Member, whose primary appointment would be from a different administrative unit than that in
which the student’s dissertation advisor holds his/her primary appointment. With respect to these
two committee positions:
• The graduate program would have considerable latitude over the designation of the
Outside Field Member. The member of the Graduate Faculty serving in this role, and the
field that he/she would represent that is outside of the student’s major, would be listed on
the committee appointment form, and could qualify as representing another field through
any number of means (graduate degree in another field; research expertise demonstrated
through scholarly record; membership in the graduate faculty of another doctoral
program, different from the student’s major; etc.).