Dissertation

Overview

As the student’s dissertation proposal takes shape, a student also begins to form a dissertation committee. Once the Area Committee as a whole rules that a draft of a dissertation proposal is ready for defense, a defense of the proposal is scheduled with members of the Area Committee and, often, a faculty member from outside the department who will serve on the student's dissertation committee in attendance. (In such a case, the outside member must also agree that the proposal is defensible.) 

Formation of Dissertation Advising & the Dissertation Reading & Defense Committees

Typically, the area faculty confer among themselves to decide which faculty member will advise any given student's dissertation, although of course we weigh a student's views on the most appropriate advisor very seriously and students should engage in a discussion about committee formation with each faculty member over the course of the 2nd through 4th years of the program. But to emphasize, an advisor is chosen for you, in consultation with you, and considering numerous factors (including the distribution of faculty workloads!).  We conceptualize our dissertation advising process as communal in important respects until the final stages of dissertation writing (when the actual advisor typically begins to manage the flow of near-final draft chapters to the rest of the committee prior to distribution being approved). An advisor is typically charged with managing the student's progress, keeping the area faculty apprised of that progress, and maintaining academic oversight of the student in candidacy (including signing off on GSAS progress reports).  A student is responsible for meeting her/his advisor's expectations and respecting her/his advisor's proposed timetable for submission of draft chapters.

The advisor, plus two other faculty members (who are typically closely involved in advising the student during the dissertation-writing stage along with the advisor, although drafts are typically circulated only when the advisor deems them ready for other committee members to review), comprise the core "reading committee" for a dissertation, and it is generally advised that one member of this reading committee be from outside the department. (When the dissertation is defended, two more faculty members, with as many outsiders as necessary to have two on the final defense committee, are added to what is known as the "dissertation defense committee" -- but this leaping far ahead). As a matter of process, the proposal defense can be conducted with any quorum of music department faculty members in attendance (usually three). At this defense, the student presents a brief overview of the project and is then orally examined by the proposal defense committee. If the result of this defense is a positive vote of the faculty members present, the student is then advanced to doctoral candidacy, meaning that all s/he now has left to do is to conduct field research, write a dissertation, and defend it.