Thesis

1. A master’s thesis committee is generally comprised of three to five members, at least three members of which must be members of the UL Lafayette Graduate Faculty. The UL Lafayette Graduate Faculty members shall always constitute a simple majority of the committee membership regardless of the number of total committee members. All members of a thesis committee at UL Lafayette shall be voting members of said committee with the privilege of signing the approval page of the thesis.
   Only graduate faculty members at UL Lafayette may serve as chair and/or co-chair of a thesis committee. This includes adjunct faculty who are members of the UL Lafayette Graduate Faculty.
    
2. Committee members from outside the UL Lafayette faculty may serve as outside members of the thesis committee with the privileges of voting and signing the thesis approval page. These members shall be chosen based upon their qualifications by the thesis committee.
   A minimum of three members must participate in the defense of thesis. The Dean of the Graduate School may appoint an outside observer to represent the Graduate Faculty, according to the Outside Observer  policies.
    
3. The master’s thesis demonstrates the student’s ability to plan research and to collect, arrange, interpret, and report material about a significant problem. The thesis must be written in a clear style and must exhibit the student’s competence in scholarly methods and procedures.
    
4. Unless specified otherwise, a thesis is required for each master’s degree. Non-thesis options are available for certain programs.
    
5. Each student whose degree program prescribes the completion of a thesis must file the subject and tentative title with the Graduate School office at the time of application for admission to candidacy.
    
6. A student actively engaged in work on a thesis, as determined by the student’s thesis chair, must be officially enrolled for thesis credit, whether the student is or is not on campus. Thesis credit will be scheduled and recorded as agreed upon by the student and thesis chair in light of the anticipated amount of time and effort to be devoted to the thesis project.
    
7. The thesis must be prepared according to the requirements specified in the publication, Guidelines for the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations available online at http://gradschool.louisiana.edu.
    
8. Before the deadline specified by the advisory committee, each student in a thesis program must present to the committee a typed copy (or copies if prescribed by the major department) of the thesis in draft form. The thesis must be in this form by the time the student takes the portion of the comprehensive examination concerned with research results and with the thesis. Grammatical, typographical, and other minor corrections may be made to the draft thesis subsequent to the taking of the comprehensive examination, but the changes must be made prior to the deadline for submission of the thesis in finished format.
    
9. The thesis is officially accepted upon unanimous vote of the thesis committee, except in instances where the degree-granting department or administrative unit has specified in writing a different standard of acceptance.
    
10. One perfect copy of the thesis in final, finished format must be presented to the Graduate School office for the official approval of the Graduate Dean by the date designated in the schedule of classes. The required copy must conform to the requirements specified in the publication, Guidelines for the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations. Students are reminded that “perfect copy” refers to both content and format. Theses not meeting these guidelines will be returned. Failure to meet deadlines may delay graduation.
     
11. When the final copy of the thesis is presented to the Graduate School for the Dean’s approval, the student must submit one original certificates of approval signed by each member of the committee, to be signed later by the Dean of the Graduate School and incorporated into the final copy of the thesis. Original signatures in black ink are required on the approval sheet; copies of the approval sheet with duplicated signatures are not acceptable.
     
12. In instances where the Dean of the Graduate School is an official member of a student’s thesis committee, the approval sheet of the thesis will contain the name, rank, and signature of the Chair of the Graduate Council in the space normally provided for the Dean of the Graduate School. In such instances, the Dean will sign only as a member of the thesis committee.
     
13. A thesis abstract, not to exceed 300 words, must accompany each the final copy of the thesis. Two additional copies of the abstract must be furnished to the Graduate School office at the time the thesis is presented.
     
14. Each candidate must pay a binding charge of $10.00 per copy for the required copy of the thesis presented to the Graduate School office. In cases where special binding expenses are incurred, the student may be required to pay additional charges. The Graduate School office makes the arrangements for binding. The final copy of the thesis will be provided to the Dupre Library. Additional copies are to be prepared as specified by the candidate’s department, or as desired by the candidate for personal use, at a binding charge of $10.00 per copy. Additional copies of the thesis are not required to be printed on archival quality paper, as specified in the Guidelines for the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations, but are required to include original certificates of approval with committee members’ signatures.
     
15. In addition, all master’s students must submit a PDF of the final version of the thesis to Proquest/UMI ETD Administrator. All submissions must be published under the “Open Access” option through ProQuest/UMI Dissertations Publishing and students must pay the $95.00 publishing fee. If the “Traditional Publishing” option is selected, then the student will be required to resubmit their thesis under the “Open Access” option. If the “Embargo” option is selected, the student must have already obtained permission for an embargo from the Graduate School. Students who select the embargo option without securing permission will be required to resubmit their thesis with the “Embargo” option deselected. Students that request, for whatever reason, an embargo on the release of their work must still submit to ProQuest/UMI Dissertations Publishing. If the embargo request is approved by the Graduate School, then their thesis or dissertation will be stored within the ProQuest/UMI database until the schedule lift date of the embargo.
     
16. The University does not copyright theses. A student who wishes copyright must make all necessary arrangements. Proquest/UMI Dissertations Publishing provides a copyright filing service for an additional fee.