Dissertation Committee

1. The dissertation committee is responsible for supervising the preparation of the student’s dissertation, for scheduling and administering the final examinations, and for forwarding the Final Report to the Dean of the Graduate School. At such time as the student’s advisory committee requests, the Dean of the Graduate School will approve, upon departmental or program recommendation, a dissertation committee.
    
2. A doctoral dissertation 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 dissertation committee at UL Lafayette shall be voting members of said committee with the privilege of signing the approval page of the dissertation. Only graduate faculty members at UL Lafayette may serve as chair and/or co-chair of a dissertation committee. This includes adjunct faculty who are members of the UL Lafayette Graduate Faculty. Committee members from outside the UL Lafayette faculty may serve as outside members of the dissertation committee with the privilege of voting and signing the dissertation approval page. These members shall be chosen based upon their qualifications by the dissertation committee.
   
   In addition, the committee must include adequate representation from the candidate’s major field, and secondary field (if any). A minimum of two members in addition to the chair must participate in the defense of dissertation. The Dean of the Graduate School may appoint an outside observer to to represent the Graduate Faculty, according to the Outside Observers  policies.