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Stage
5: Dissertation
The following information is contained on
this page:
Dissertation Committee. The dissertation committee is charged with the supervision of your dissertation activities, including approval of the dissertation proposal. You initiate the process of selecting the dissertation committee by first arranging for a qualified faculty member to serve as the director of the dissertation and the committee chair. You and your faculty director jointly select the remainder of the committee. The committee should be established shortly after completion of the doctoral comprehensive exam. The "Appointment of Dissertation Committee" form must be processed to officially establish the committee. In general, the policies of the Office of Graduate Studies and the program with regard to the dissertation process will be followed. The candidate will first form a Dissertation Committee, with one member designated as chair, from among the concentration faculty. The Dissertation Committee will have at least four members. In addition to the chair, two other members will be from the concentration faculty. The fourth member will be chosen from another graduate unit on the basis of competence in an area related to the dissertation. Please see OGS guidelines regarding composition of the dissertation committee. The next stage is the development of a formal dissertation proposal in conjunction with the Dissertation Committee. Dissertation Proposal. The first stage in the dissertation process after establishing the Dissertation Committee is the dissertation proposal. You are expected to develop this proposal within six months of successful completion of the doctoral comprehensive examination. Once the candidate has developed a formal dissertation proposal, which has been tentatively approved by the Dissertation Committee, a public presentation will be scheduled. All members of the concentration faculty will be invited to attend this presentation and an official notice of your proposal defense will be posted electronically and in paper form by the College of Education staff. Following the presentation, the candidate's Dissertation Committee will make a recommendation regarding acceptance of the dissertation proposal. The committee's recommendation will be considered official unless within one week a member of the concentration faculty lodges an objection, in which case the official recommendation will be determined by the concentration faculty collectively. A copy of the approved dissertation proposal containing the signatures of the dissertation committee is to be provided to the program administrator for placement in the student's file in the department.The dissertation proposal is expected to be 20-25 double-spaced pages (approximately 4,000 to 7,000 words) in length. It should provide a concise summary of the intended scope of the dissertation topic (including a preliminary table of contents) and its scholarly significance (established with appropriate reference to the literature). The feasibility of the topic should be demonstrated by evidence from a pilot project or sample data analysis. The proposal must also make explicit the theoretical framework of the dissertation as well as the methodological procedures to be employed in data collection and analysis. Dissertation Hours. During the course of your dissertation work, you are required to enroll for a minimum of 18 hours of Dissertation (LLSS/Ling 699) credit. Enrollment in 699 may begin during the semester in which you plan to take the doctoral comprehensive examination. However, only those hours gained in the semester during which the comprehensive examination is passed can be counted toward the 18 hours required. If you fail the comprehensive exam, you cannot count any 699 credits until the semester in which the exam is retaken and passed. Enrollment for Dissertation (699) may be for 3, 6, 9, or 12 hours per semester. The specific number of hours taken should reflect the amount of time you devote to the dissertation. Minimum enrollment in 699 for one semester is 3 hours; this number is appropriate when you are working full-time off campus while continuing to make progress with the dissertation. Six hours of 699 represents a half-time commitment. Once you have completed the comprehensive exam, continuous enrollment is expected in subsequent semesters (exclusive of summer sessions) until the dissertation is accepted. This rule applies whether or not you are enrolled for other credit hours. If you enrolled for 699 and subsequently stopped enrollment for one or more semesters (not including summers), you must petition for reinstatement and pay a reinstatement fee. (See the OGS web site for additional information on reinstatement guidelines.) You must be enrolled for 699 during the semester (including Summer) in which degree requirements are completed. Final Examination (Dissertation Defense). The oral defense of the doctoral dissertation is the last formal step before the degree is awarded and is conducted with due respect to its importance. It is scheduled as a department colloquium and is open to the UNM community. You are responsible for providing each member of your dissertation committee a complete final draft of the dissertation in ample time (e.g. two weeks) for review prior to the defense. At least two weeks before the final examination is held, the "Announcement of Final Examination for Doctorate" form must be filed. Remember, you must notify the coordinator and administrative assistant of the Educational Linguistics Program no later than the fourth week of the semester in which you intend to defend your dissertation proposal or dissertation, and at least four working weeks in advance of the intended date of defense. (Two of these four weeks are required by the Office of Graduate Studies, the other two are required by the Educational Linguistics Program to check the status of the candidate within the program, and to take any necessary remedial action.) The deadline for reporting the results to the Office of Graduate Studies is November 15 for Fall defenses, April 15 for Spring defenses and July 15 for all Summer defenses. In order to graduate these deadlines must be followed. The focus of the oral defense is the dissertation and its relationship to the field of educational linguistics. Its purposes are (a) to provide an opportunity for you to communicate your research results to a wider group of scholars, (b) to afford an opportunity for the members of the dissertation committee and others to ask questions, (c) to ensure that the research reflects your independence of thought and accomplishment rather than excessive dependence on the guidance of a faculty member, and (d) to ensure that you are thoroughly familiar not only with the particular focus of the dissertation, but also its setting and relevance to the fields relevant to educational linguistics. At the conclusion of the examination, the dissertation committee members will confer to complete the "Report of Final Examination for Doctorate" on which they make one of the following recommendations, which must be agreed upon by at least three of the committee members: (a) that the dissertation be approved without change, (b) that the dissertation be approved subject only to minor editorial corrections, (c) that the dissertation be rewritten or revised before approval, or (d) failure. If either the first or second recommendation is made, the committee may decide that no further meetings are needed. In the second instance the director of the dissertation will be responsible for seeing that all necessary corrections are made before the dissertation is submitted to OGS. If the third recommendation is made, the full committee may elect to meet again to determine that the concerns have been addressed. Each member of the dissertation committee must also complete the department's "Assessment of Doctoral Dissertation" form for student outcomes assessment. Final Form and Submission of Dissertation. You are responsible for preparing a dissertation in proper format, of high reproduction quality, and free of grammatical and typing errors. Detailed guidelines are available from the OGS; see http://www.unm.edu/~ogshmpg. To verify the satisfactory quality of typing and format, to ensure acceptability of copies, and for any technical advice and guidance, you are urged to contact and to submit sample pages to the OGS Manuscript Coordinator well in advance of the dissertation submission deadlines. The Manuscript Coordinator holds a very useful workshop on dissertation mechanics several times each year. You must obtain from the UNM Bookstore or the Web three sets of red-bordered pages, each including an Approval page, a Title page, and an Abstract Title page. One set of these pages must be included with each copy of the manuscript submitted to OGS and the department. Two copies of the unbound dissertation, each with an abstract of not more than 350 words, all in perfect form and approved by at least three members of the dissertation committee, must be submitted to OGS by November 15 for Fall graduation, April 15 for Spring graduation, or July 15 for Summer graduation. The following forms must be submitted with the manuscript: (1) a "Certification of Final Form" completed by the dissertation director, (2) an “Information Cover Sheet” attached to the box in which the manuscript is placed, and (3) a “Survey of Earned Doctorate.” An additional copy of the dissertation must be submitted to the Educational Linguistics Program for binding and placement in the department library. A $15 fee is charged to cover the cost of binding the two dissertation copies submitted to OGS and forwarded to the university library, one copy to be placed in the library archives and the other in circulation. All doctoral students must, as part of graduation requirements, have their dissertations published through University Microfilms International (UMI). This involves completion of a contract, available from the OGS Manuscript Coordinator, and payment of a fee to UMI. The fee, currently $55, is subject to change. There is also a fee for the diploma that must be paid at Cashiers. Notification of Intent to Graduate. You must notify the Educational Linguistics Program administrator your intent to graduate by email the semester prior to the semester when you intend to graduate. The program administrator must be notified at least two weeks prior to the official OGS deadline. OGS deadlines vary from year to year, so make sure that you check the OGS web site (http://www.unm.edu/~grad/) to make sure that you will not miss any critical dates. You will then be placed on the Department’s Intent to Graduate listing. Graduation is dependent upon completion of all degree requirements by November 15 for Fall, April 15 for Spring, or July 15 for Summer. If you do not complete all degree requirements in time for graduation in the semester originally intended, you must send a new email stating your intent to graduate in a subsequent semester. |
Contact Information:
Department of LLSS, College of Education
The University of New Mexico
Hokona Hall Room 140
MSC 05 3040
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
87131-1231Telephone (505) 277-5282
Fax (505) 277-8362
e-mail: mgurule2@unm.edu
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last updated: July 16, 2007
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