Advisory Committee

Advisory Committee members will be selected by the Advisor in consultation with the student. The committee consists of the student's Advisor and at least three additional members. Two committee members must be from Computer Science. At least one committee member must be from outside the CS department. All Advisory Committee members must be members of MTU's Graduate Faculty.

The Advisory Committee becomes official by having each member sign the Recommended Advisory Committee(*) form. As this form must also be signed by the Chair and the Dean of the Graduate School, these two persons, in effect, approve the Advisory Committee.

The Advisory Committee

• approves the courses that the student will take,
• approves the components of the comprehensive examinations,
• has the final decision regarding pass/fail of the comprehensive examinations,
• approves the dissertation proposal,
• works with the student and advisor in advising, encouraging, and approving the dissertation research,
• attends the research review,
• approves the scheduling of the final oral examination,
• has the final decision regarding pass/fail of the oral dissertation defense, and
• has the final decision regarding the acceptance of the dissertation.

Because these activities are important steps in earning a Ph.D, students should take care in choosing Advisory Committee members; the members should have an interest and expertise in the planned research.

It should be noted that although the above list is given as a list of activities which an Advisory Committee approves some of the activities must also be approved by the Dean of the Graduate School and/or the CS Chair.

Most of the activities in the above list are relatively common in any Ph.D. program. Further, because it may be common for the proposed research to include subareas in which the advisor is not an expert, it will be especially important to choose Advisory Committee members with expertise in these subareas who are willing to be actively involved in the research.