Page 22 - DISSERTATION AND THESIS HANDBOOK 2017 -2020

1. Composition of the Dissertation Examining Committee.The committee
consists of the Dissertation Advisory Committee plus at least one “external
examiner.” A doctorate-prepared expert not affiliated with a
university may serve as the external committee member. The curriculum vitae
of any proposed member who is not a member of Bowie State University‘s
senior faculty community or who is outside the university must accompany
the graduate candidate‘s defense announcement. The chair of the Doctoral
Program and the dean of Graduate School must approve the committee
composition.

2. External Examiner. An external examiner is sometimes called an outside
examiner because this person is not part of the candidate’s committee. The
role of the external examiner is to offer an independent and unbiased
assessment of the candidate’s work. An external examiner must be an
assistant, associate, or full professor in the teaching or research area of the
student‘s discipline who is very knowledgeable in the area of the student‘s
research. An external examiner must have published (a book, book chapters,
in a refereed journal, or in a conference publication). An external examiner
must submit his/her credentials as documented by a curriculum vitae to the
Graduate School for review and approval. Every dissertation sponsoring
committee should identify an external examiner no later than the beginning of
the semester in which the oral defense is likely to occur. He or she should be
invited to thoroughly review the student‘s dissertation project prior to the
time of oral defense. An external examiner should receive the dissertation for
review well in advance of the oral examination defense.

3. Dissertation Examining Committee/Final Oral Defense Chair. The Chair must
be identified. This person must be a senior faculty member as described above
and may not be the chair of the candidate‘s dissertation advisory
committee. All Dissertation Examining Committees must consist of at least
five faculty members: the three from the dissertation advisory committee plus
two additional members. One of these additional members must be from
outside the candidate’s department. The Chair of the Dissertation Examining
Committee will be a voting member of the committee.

IV. STEPS IN THE DISSERTATION PROCESS
While there is no single set of steps that characterize all dissertations, there are
elements and procedures that are common to all. These include the following:

A. Selecting the Topic with the Dissertation Advisory
Committee Chair.
The candidate and the chair work collaboratively in the development of the
dissertation topic. For most candidates, the first step in the dissertation process is
selecting a topic, and perhaps the most common reason for difficulties is that many
candidates wait until the end of their course work to begin thinking about the issue.

22