Scheduling the final oral exam

Scheduling the Final Oral Examination

1. The student’s Final Oral Examination (Defense) committee needs to be assigned here: examination committees (see Step 4) so that all members of the student’s Final Oral Examination committee are present at the meeting. The “Chair,” a member of the Final Oral Examination committee other than the advisor, is chosen by the student and approved by the Graduate School. The Chair conducts the Final Oral Examination and informs the student of the outcome immediately after the examination session.

2. Once the Final Oral Examination committee is approved, check the Degree Completion Steps that you need to complete as part of your degree.

3. Apply to graduate no later than the first day of the anticipated month of graduation.

4. Students should reserve a departmental room for their exam (McNeal Hall 278 or 375) with Anna Brenk (abrenk@umn.edu). To reserve McNeal Hall 274, contact the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel at 612-624-1240. The meeting should be scheduled for two hours.

5. At least two weeks before the final defense, email the GPC and Julie Michener (FSoS communications and marketing manager, jmichene@umn.edu) with the date, time, location, title of the dissertation, and names of the Chair and committee members for the official announcement of the defense. This will be emailed to the FSoS graduate student, faculty, staff, and faculty emeriti google list-servs unless otherwise requested.

6. Initiate your Reviewers’ Report form at least one week before your final exam. The three committee members approved by the Graduate School as “readers” must review the draft dissertation and sign the Reviewers’ Report Form indicating that it is “ready for defense.” The Graduate School will need to receive the signed Reviewers’ Report Form before they will release the Final Oral Examination Report Form. 

7. The Final Oral Examination Report Form is initiated by the student prior to the final defense, once all the Reviewers’ Report Forms are received by GSSP. You will be emailed a link to access your Final Exam form for graduate students after you have met all the requirements and your record is reviewed for completion of coursework and adherence to policy.

8.Your final oral exam has to be scheduled at least one week in advance. 

Final Oral Examination

1. Students are responsible for being aware of the various deadlines associated with this final process, including the Graduate School’s policies about dissertation credits and about the time between advancing to doctoral candidacy and taking the Final Oral Examination. Additional information is on the GSSP website. 

2. The Final Oral Examination covers the defense of the doctoral dissertation as well as other aspects of the student’s knowledge in the field of family social science.

3. All committee members must be present at the examination (either physically or via telecommuting); the absence of any member results in an invalid examination.

4. The Final Oral Examination in the Department of Family Social Science begins with a formal presentation of the dissertation in a public forum to which all faculty, staff, and graduate students in the department are invited. The chair of the examination committee will introduce the student and topic as well as close the seminar. The student presents for approximately 40 minutes, leaving time for questions from the guests at the presentation. No committee member can ask questions during the open-question portion of the presentation.

5. Following the formal presentation, the candidate meets with their final oral examination committee; the meeting is closed to all others.

Finishing Degree

If the student has clearly passed or clearly failed the examination, the Final Oral Examination Report Form, the Committee chair must submit the completed form no later than the last business day of the anticipated month of graduation.

The student is responsible for making any and all corrections requested by the committee to the dissertation.

Initiate your Thesis/Dissertation Approval & Deposit Agreement before the last business day of the month. Advisors must submit their approval no later than the last business day of the anticipated month of graduation.

It is the student’s responsibility to submit the completed dissertation/project and ensure that all remaining degree requirements are met by the last working day of the month they intend to graduate. Your dissertation is uploaded to ProQuest and the other two documents can be scanned and emailed to GSSP. It is requested that students share an electronic copy of the completed dissertation with their advisor as well.

Your dissertation to ProQuest should be submitted no later than the last business day of the anticipated month of graduation. Check the requirements here: Dissertation submission (Step #15)

Degrees are conferred monthly by the University of Minnesota. Students planning to graduate in May maintain active status throughout Summer. If you have not turned in your materials by the last day of the month, and it is a semester end (August or December), you will need to register for something in the next semester to maintain your active student status so you can be cleared to graduate in the next month. If you run into this issue, please let the GPC know so that degree clearance can be completed on time.