Thesis and Dissertation Committees for Experimental Psychology
Thesis Committees
Thesis committees are composed of three faculty members, usually from the Psychology Department, one of who is normally the student's adviser. When appropriate, however, faculty members from other departments or people from outside the university may serve but cannot be chair of the committee. See the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies for special requests.
To form a thesis committee, submit the "Request for Master's Thesis Committee" form in the Appendix to the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies. Once the committee has been formed, the members should not change. If some need arises for changing a member, see the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies.
All members of a thesis committee must approve the thesis proposal as well as the completed thesis.
Dissertation Committees
Dissertation committees consist of five members and three of them must be Group I psychology faculty. One of the three Group I psychology faculty members must chair the committee. The fourth member must be a Group I faculty member from another department at Ohio University who serves as the college representative. The fifth member may be anyone with a doctorate in their field (e.g., Ed.D., M.D.) and may or may not be affiliated with Ohio University. Exceptions to this committee structure may be permitted with the pre-approval of the Assistant Chair of Graduate Studies.
Members of thesis and dissertation committees are expected to physically attend both the proposal and final defense meetings. If physical attendance is foreseeably problematic or overly restrictive, and rescheduling prohibitive or otherwise infeasible, other arrangements may be made (e.g., video conferencing or phoning in) with the approval of both the committee chair and the Assistant Chair of Graduate Studies. For unforeseen events where other arrangements can be made (e.g., illness prevents physical attendance, but not virtual attendance), the committee chair will have the discretion to determine how to proceed, informing the Assistant Chair of Graduate Studies of the circumstances as soon as possible.
Once the committee has been formed, membership should remain the same. If some need arises for changing the membership, see the Assistant Chair for Graduate Studies.