Dissertation Process

Summary of Dissertation Steps, with Required Forms

Note regarding forms: the forms described below are required by the Graduate School. So that the HSR PhD program has a complete record of each student’s progress, each form should be submitted to the HSR PhD Program Director. A copy of each form will be included in the student’s program file. The HSR PhD Program Director will forward the original forms to the Graduate School.

1) Select Dissertation Chair. The Chair must be a member of the HSR PhD Program Faculty, or a member of the Participating Faculty with a co-Chair who is a member of the Program Faculty. Students should consult with their faculty advisor and the Program Director as they develop their plans for selecting the dissertation committee chair, and for forming the dissertation committee. It is important that the Chair of the dissertation committee is actively involved with the selection of the other committee members; having identified a Chair who agrees to serve in that role, the student should work closely with the Chair on identifying other committee members, and typically should approach other faculty about serving on the committee only after consulting with the Chair.

2) Select Dissertation Committee. Must be at least 4 members, with the option of a 5th member. Four must be from the HSR PhD Program Faculty or Participating Faculty (one of whom is the Chair). The student submits the form, “Appointment of Doctoral Dissertation Committee.” The Graduate School appoints the 5th member.

Experts in the University who are not members of the Program or Participating Faculty may be nominated for membership at the appropriate level. Interested faculty should contact the HSR PhD Program Director. Experts outside the university who can contribute usefully to the dissertation committee can also be nominated for participation. This requires: (1) adjunct faculty status in one of the departments of the College of Health and Human Services, (2) admission to the UNC Charlotte Graduate Faculty, and (3) admission to the HSR PhD Participating Faculty. It should be noted that the 3 approval processes just described can take several months; students who want to involve an outside expert should plan accordingly.

The members of the dissertation committee will serve as the student’s committee for the refinement of the dissertation topic, the development and defense of the dissertation proposal, the development of the dissertation, and dissertation defense.

3) The Chair of the dissertation committee and the student together select the dissertation topic. The Chair is responsible to ensure that all members of the committee are actively involved and agree to the direction and the specifics of the proposal (e.g., data, methods). Ensuring this involvement and agreement is a major goal of the Topic Approval Meeting. When the Chair approves the topic and approach to the dissertation, the student schedules the Topic Approval Meeting with the Dissertation Committee. The student submits a 2-3 page description of the dissertation plan to the Dissertation Committee at least 2 weeks prior to the Topic Approval Meeting. This single-spaced description of the topic includes the following sections: (1) Specific Aims, (2) Background and Significance, (3) Research Design and Methods. The topic approval meeting is not typically open to visitors. Students will present a brief oral summary of: the dissertation topic, the context of related research literature, data and methods, and implications for policy and practice, followed by questions and discussion among the committee and the student. The topic approval meeting may be repeated as needed.

4) Following the Topic Approval, the student writes the dissertation proposal and prepares for the Oral Proposal Defense. The proposal is written in the form of a grant proposal. The student is expected to use NIH PHS398 format, except that she or he is not required to use the NIH forms, and that the proposal does not require preliminary data, biographical sketches, letters of collaboration, or budgets. Thus, the proposal includes the following standard NIH sections:

A. Specific Aims

B. Background and Significance

C. Research Design and Methods

D. Human Subjects

The entire proposal (not including the Literature Cited section) is limited to 15 single-spaced pages (12 point font). At the discretion of the Chair, additional material may be included in appendices, such as additional details about the analysis, table shells, and so forth. However, it is the expectation of the HSR PhD program that the central elements of the dissertation proposal should be embodied in the 15 page maximum. This requirement is designed to ensure that students have experience writing the dense prose required for a successful grant narrative. It also provides a narrative that is appropriate for submission for funding the dissertation work. All members of the committee must receive the full proposal at least 2 weeks before the Proposal Defense.

5) The submission of the proposal is followed by the Oral Proposal Defense.

In the HSR PhD program, the Oral Proposal Defense is open to HSR PhD faculty and HSR PhD students. The student must provide the title of the proposed dissertation, and the date, time, and location of the Oral Proposal Defense to the Program Director no later than two weeks prior to the Oral Proposal Defense. This is designed to ensure that interested HSR PhD faculty and students have adequate notice to attend the Oral Proposal Defense. HSR PhD students are particularly encouraged to attend these Oral Proposal Defenses.

The student should prepare a PowerPoint presentation approximately 20 minutes in length summarizing the research proposal. Following the student’s presentation, the committee will ask questions about the research plan. The student will be excused from the meeting to permit the committee to discuss the merits of the proposal, after which the student will return to the meeting to receive the committee’s comments and required modifications to the research plan. After successful completion of the Oral Proposal Defense, the student submits two forms, “Proposal Defense for Doctoral Dissertation and/or Master’s Thesis” and “Application for Admission to Candidacy.”

A doctoral student advances to candidacy after the dissertation topic and approach has been approved by the student’s advisory committee and the Dean of the Graduate School. NOTE: Completing Step 3 above, the topic approval meeting, does not constitute advancement to candidacy. Advancement to candidacy requires approval of both the topic and the detailed dissertation plan at the time of the oral proposal defense, including any required plan for the protection of human subjects. If Human Subjects are involved, the Proposal Defense for Doctoral Dissertation and/or Master’s Thesis form requires the attachment of the IRB approval.

Candidacy must be achieved at least six months before the degree is conferred.

All members of the committee must usually be physically present at the Proposal Defense. The Graduate School provides for one exception only, for a single committee member who may participate remotely via audio- or videoconferencing, where the latter is preferred. Remote participation requires the form, “Approval of Remote Committee Participation.” All conditions listed on the form must be fulfilled.

A student who fails to complete the Oral Proposal Defense / Candidacy Examination satisfactorily may be given the opportunity to revise components of the research proposal under the direction of the Chair and/or to repeat the Oral Proposal Defense, at the discretion of the Dissertation Committee; a second failure results in dismissal from the PhD program.

6) The student writes the dissertation. The student is required to maintain continuous enrollment in HSRD 8801 for dissertation study until the dissertation is completed. The continuous enrollment requirement begins in the semester after the dissertation topic is approved. Students conducting dissertation research should meet regularly with their committee Chair and other members of the committee. At a minimum, the student must meet with the committee Chair at least once each semester.

7) When the chair of the dissertation committee agrees that all work on the dissertation, including the defense, is likely to be completed successfully, the candidate completes the “Application for Degree” and submits it to the Graduate School. The application is submitted through Banner Self Service. See the section, “Deadlines for Form Submission,” below.

8) The Dissertation Defense, is the culminating activity of doctoral studies. Typically the dissertation chair and committee should not schedule the defense until they are reasonably confident that the dissertation is likely to be approved, either as-is or with relatively minor revisions. The Graduate School requires that the dissertation must be submitted to the committee at least three weeks before the date of the dissertation defense.

The student must also inform the Program Director of the final dissertation title, and the place and time of the scheduled dissertation defense, at least 3 weeks before the defense. The dissertation defense is open to the university community.

All members of the committee must usually be physically present at the Dissertation Defense. The Graduate School provides for one exception only, for a single committee member who may participate remotely via audio- or videoconferencing. Remote participation requires the form, Approval of Remote Committee Participation. All conditions listed on the form must be fulfilled.

In some instances the dissertation committee may not approve the dissertation at the time of the first defense. In keeping with the Graduate School’s regulations, no student is permitted to defend more than twice.

Guidelines for the preparation of the dissertation are available from the Graduate School and on the Graduate School website.

Along with the accepted dissertation, the student files the form “Final Defense Report.” This form requires the signatures of the entire dissertation committee, and should be completed at the conclusion of the successful dissertation defense.

The physical form of the dissertation is governed by the University. Dissertations must conform to required margins, paper type, and so forth, in order to be accepted by the Graduate School. The student should consult these resources at The Graduate School early in the dissertation process: Dissertation and Thesis Formatting.

Deadlines for Form Submission

Deadlines for submission of various forms, such as for Admission to Candidacy and for applying for graduation in a particular semester, are available in the Academic Calendar. Students should note that dates for submission of candidacy forms and applications for graduation occur very early in each semester; for May graduation, for example, the date for the Application for Graduation and the final date for the Application for Candidacy typically occurs in the 3rd week of January. The Application for Candidacy for a Degree and the Application for Candidacy for Graduate Certificate forms are paper forms that are available from the “Graduate School Forms” page of the Graduate School Website. Similarly, the last day to file a dissertation with the Graduate School for May graduation typically occurs no later than the 3rd week of March. See the Academic Calendar for exact dates that apply for a given semester.