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Advocating with committee members

Advisor . In both of these programs, the dissertation committees were formed at the end of the course work. While I had been involved in qualifying examinations for both candidates, most of the other committee members had no previous involvement with these doctoral programs or candidates. Because of this, I made it a priority to read and understand the program requirements for the dissertation and then to outline those expectations for the other committee members. Repeatedly during the dissertation process, I returned to the program guidelines to answer questions of committee members or to remind them of the expectations for the particular program.

Doctoral students and faculty have heard horror stories of committee members who do not read drafts, who disappear, who change their minds on revisions they suggested earlier, or who refuse to sign off on the final dissertation. For my first experience as dissertation chair, I decided that it was essential that the JDP dissertation committee agree on how it would work together. Because the strategy worked so well with the JDP candidate, I repeated the process with ELSJ candidate. Agreeing how to work together actually sounds much more democratic than it was: while the candidates identified the other committee members, once I signed on as chairperson, I sent the other members a description of how I expected the committee to work and the timeline for when drafts of the dissertation could be expected with deadlines for feedback by committee members. That description included my understanding that it was my role as chairperson to advise on all aspects of the study and writing of the dissertation and to involve committee members in review of drafts when I felt drafts were ready for review. This centralized model with drafts going from the candidate through the chairperson to the committee then back to the chairperson is certainly not the only model advisors use; however, given that on both committees there were members who were either not faculty in the university education department or not at the university, keeping their expectations in line with program requirements and making the best use of their time seemed paramount. I explained it was my expectation that committee members be responsive to requests by candidates for advice on particular parts of the study and be timely in sending comments within the deadlines that I set.

It was also important for committee members to understand the need for the candidates to complete the dissertation within one year either because of personal, professional or program requirements. Committee members were instructed to work through me if they had a concern about the study, the methodology or the dissertation since the committee had agreed to the dissertation proposal. Knowing those parameters, committee members agreed to serve with the express purpose of helping the candidates complete a high quality dissertation in one year. Despite all the efforts to ensure that committee members understood the requirements, commitments and timelines, agreeing to give input and actually being available for comment, proved to be difficult for some members of each committee. However, because I had established from the beginning that I would, as chairperson, determine when the candidate was ready to move to the next step in the process, as comment deadlines approached I reminded members who had not responded and let them know that I considered no response the same as having no concerns. I explained that I would instruct the candidate to move ahead on the feedback they had received by the established deadlines.

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Source:  OpenStax, Educational leadership and administration: teaching and program development, volume 23, 2011. OpenStax CNX. Sep 08, 2011 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11358/1.4
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