If you're here, you have crushed your Comps (Yay!) and have a plan to manage your dissertation like the project it is. Now for the next step! Selecting (or receiving) your Dissertation Committee can occur either right before, during, or after Comps, so while this post follows the Comps and Project Management for Dissertations post, it's not a guarantee that this will be the order of events for your degree program. It's necessary to have a committee that is as invested in you completing your dissertation as you are. With this understanding in mind, let's discuss key considerations to look for when selecting your committee, starting with a description of what your committee does.
One important note here is that committee assignments may be predetermined or based on availability. In cases where you do not have an option, the best thing you can do is meet with your Chair to lay out the communication plan, expectations, and delivery system groundwork before jumping in.
What Does a Dissertation Committee Do?
A visual representation of dissertation committee awesomeness in action!
A Dissertation Committee acts in advisory, supervisory, examining, and judgmental capacitates, pending where you are in your process. This group assures your theories and research uphold the tenets of sound research, including providing necessary safeguards when researching people (more on this when we talk about the IRB process). Remember: these folks act as your ultimate stakeholders, so heed their guidance if you want to succeed. Let's look at each function of the relationship to understand the whole further:
Dissertation Committee Actings as Advisors and Supervisors
When acting in an advisory or supervisory role, your committee will lend advice that advances your work and addresses issues or gaps in your research. Your committee's expertise and prior experience are invaluable.
This valuation is especially poignant if you have not conducted research before; they will have ideas of what you need to review and cover and what critical thinking applies to the study information you both include and exclude. If your committee members are also experts in the field that you are researching, they may point you to specific works that will either support or refute your underlying theories (remember you need both).
Your Chair and Members may also give you feedback on your writing. However, as a communication suggestion, if you submit work that has not been reviewed for writing continuity issues (i.e., you haven't performed a three-step copy pass on it), please note that in your submission with specific instructions for your committee to NOT REVIEW WRITING but instead to focus on the content and general direction of your research. Doing so will save them valuable time and create a better working relationship by managing expectations in the work you submit.
Dissertation Committee Actings as Examiners or Judges
The committee also serves as the deciding body on whether you have successfully passed your dissertation. With the decision looming, they examine your writing and research from the lens of "Does this hold up to the research/writing standards of the institution and the academe?" That's a big question to answer, and as such, your committee will review the entirety of your work under a critical lens of quality analysis.
Once approved, your work not only represents you but your committee members as well. Their names will appear on the cover page of your research next to you, so they put their reputations on the line with your work; this is why their feedback is so important.
What will your committee look for?
According to Jason Karp, Ph.D., your committee may expect you to "have picked apart your work better than they have," which means you'll have to (and very likely will be the final defense) know the shortcomings and contributions of your work better than anyone. They'll be looking for due diligence and exhaustiveness in your research along with a clear understanding of the limitations, implications, and future applications (both academically and professionally, pending on your degree and area of expertise) of your research. Methodologically speaking, the committee will consider your approach to your study and whether your research design (tools, analysis methods, and interpretations) was appropriate.
How many people are on a dissertation committee?
Excellent question! How many people in your committee largely depends on the requirements of your degree, institution, and department. Committee sizes can vary from 2-5 people serving in a specific role. For example, at the University of California, San Diego, a Ph.D. committee has:
"Minimum of 4 members with UC San Diego faculty appointments
At least one Member must have a primary appointment in a different department than the Chair's primary department.
At least two members must be from the student's home department or program.
At least one Member must be tenured or emeritus.
Proposed members from other UC campuses, other universities, or industry are exceptions and must be requested in writing."
The University of Oregon has a similar structure for its graduate programs:
The dissertation committee consists of a minimum of four members, each with a particular role:
Chair
2 Core Members
Institutional Representative
Committees in Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics also have an Advisor separate from the Chair
As the last example of committee structure, my committee consisted of one Chair and one Member, and from the three examples, you gain a sense of the variance across institutions.
One important note here is that the more people you add to your committee, the more likely you'll encounter differing opinions, politics, or conflict between members, and the more people you'll need to keep current on your progress. Try to keep your committee to the minimum to reduce these headaches. Now, let's talk about the roles within your committee.
Dissertation Committee Roles
A representative image of working with your chair.
1) Your Chair:
This individual is the person that takes full accountability for the impacts and implications of your research. It's their job to ensure your research is conducted within the IRB standards and that the work is original. They'll be the ones to authorize your IRB application (before the full IRB review) and will be held accountable if your research is found to have violated the requirements instituted by the board.
Your Chair is also the person you work with most throughout your dissertation, so having a similar deadline and working style would serve you well while dissertating. Your Chair will be the first stop you send work to for review and the one who will most likely advise on the direction and development of your research. Your Chair will notify you when you are ready to defend your proposal or the final. They will help you schedule each defense and, lastly, lead the committee's conversation when determining if you have earned your Doctorate. The best advice I can give here is to choose your Chair wisely.
2) Committee Member(s):
Like your Chair, committee members will advise and guide your research. They may critique your writing, point gaps or areas to revise in your research, ask probative questions during defenses, and provide a final verdict on your proposal and final defenses.
One strong recommendation is to include a methodologist within this group for guidance on your dissertation's data gathering and analysis portions. Enlisting a methodologist means seeking a statistician to vet and check your data analysis and interpretations for quantitative studies. You should seek out a seasoned qualitative researcher for process and interpretation feedback for qualitative studies. (I'll also have a great book to help with this in a future post.) Other qualifications may be impressed on committee members and may hold other titles. These include the roles of institutional and external members. We'll review each to ensure you have a firm understanding of these requirements:
Institutional Member(s)*- Pending on the institutional requirements, you may also need a committee member who serves as the institutional representative. This condition was not required in my experience, but I came across the term while researching the various forms of dissertation committees.
According to the University of Oregon's graduate studies policy, this person is an "outside member" (see external member explainer below). They are charged with ensuring your committee follows all procedures designed for dissertation committee governance.
External Member*- An external member serves on your committee and is of equivalent rank as your other committee members but is NOT affiliated with the institution you are studying in. Boston University gives a beautiful description of this role:
"A "classic" model of an External Member is someone in a tenure-track faculty position at a university of similar or higher quality than BU ("peer" or "peer-plus") working in the same scientific field as the Ph.D. student but who is not currently affiliated with the Ph.D. student's research group or BU faculty advisor."
Now that we have covered who all may be required to serve on your committee and the roles that may fill, we need to discuss factors you may want to consider before sending out the committee requests.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Your Dissertation Committee
Below is a list of factors you'll want to consider when drafting a list of committee members. We'll go through each of these one by one:
Availability: First and foremost on this list concerns availability; this is especially important when selecting a chair. You'll need committee members with a reasonable amount of time to provide feedback or are at least willing to make time to help you finish this undertaking. Remember that faculty may likely be serving on multiple committees at any one point in time, which reduces their time with any candidate the more they take on.
Level of Interest or Commitment: Equivalently significant is the level of interest or commitment concerning your dissertation. Fun fact: in most cases, faculty do not receive compensation for serving on dissertation committees, which may influence the level of care applied to your study. This issue can be mitigated or reduced by seeking advisors who work in similar fields or are more relevant to the committee members' expertise. Another point of note is serving on committees may satisfy the service to college expectations of their contracts which may aid you in finding committee members as a 'selling point.'
Area of Specialization (Parity or Adjacent): Ideally, you would be working with someone with expertise in your specific area of interest, which may be why you applied to that institution in the first place. Realistically, you may have found your topic during your curriculum, and an expert in that field may not be employed at your institution. If this is the case, first, know that it's okay. In these cases, try to find someone whose expertise is adjacent (close to) your area of interest.
For example, if you are interested in a human behavior-related topic and an expert in that phenomenon is unavailable, someone with a psychology background can lend valuable insight to your study. I recommend finding someone adjacent and committed, as opposed to an apathetic expert or one seldom available to serve on your committee.
Tenured, Tenure Track, or Adjunct: This category points to the prior categories mentioned but may add valuable context in helping you select your committee members. An interesting phenomenon may occur once a professor earns tenure (within those institutions that offer it) wherein the level of effort in staying current or hungry in their field is not as intensive as before making tenure. By and large, tenure-track professors are more primed to want to help dissertation students as leverage to earn their tenure; they may also bring more ideas and enthusiasm to your research. Concerning adjunct professors, pending the institutional requirements, you may be able to enlist the help of an adjunct professor who also works in the field, which may lend more practical insights into your work.
Problems May Arise in Dissertation Committees
Avoiding 'Superstars': The folks at MyDissertationEditor have offered this gem, which echoes points made up to this point, but is worth reiterating. Superstars in your field may be too busy (being the superstars they are) to effectively serve on your committee. As an alternate suggestion, see if you can conduct a single expert interview with this person (or people) to include in your research after reading their work. This way, you can still incorporate their insights into your study without monopolizing their time or slowing down your progress.
Too many cooks (Differing perspectives): Having too many committee members may create a scenario where two or three butt heads on a point or direction of your study. Academics can be passionate in their perspectives, which means you may end up playing an intermediary role between members if discord happens. When in doubt, I recommend going with the advice of your Chair but acknowledging and considering all feedback.
Intra-Committee Conflict (or Politics): I hope this doesn't happen for you. Depending on the happenings of the department and the timing, in some cases, your dissertation may become a platform for departmental politics, ultimately slowing down your progress due to members' conflicting agendas while running down your seven-year timer. One way to reduce this is by selecting committee members you know work well together or allowing your Chair to recommend committee additions with those insights in mind. Remember, people are people at the end of the day, and if there is an unrelated but present conflict within your committee, it will likely affect your study. It's best to avoid it at the beginning rather than dealing with it mid-dissertation.
Hopefully, the information up to this point has helped you narrow down your list of prospects to a group that will guide you to success. Now, let's work on creating the final list of candidates!
A 3-Step Process for Assembling Your Committee:
Step 1: Draft a Preliminary Roster
The first step here is to look at your institution's committee requirements. Know how many people must serve on your committee at a minimum and what other rules are impressed upon committee members (such as institutional or external requirements). Once you have your requirements in hand, create a short list for your Chair. Starting with the person you'll work with most makes sense because you'll spend the most time with this individual, and they'll ultimately determine your success. Choose carefully using the suggestions provided above.
Then create a shortlist of members who can also serve as your methodologist (if your Chair cannot fill this role). Consider your chosen methodology. Are you looking to do a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods study? Who do you know that can provide insights into your data-gathering and analysis process? Can your Chair recommend someone if you need help finding someone that meets your needs? Finally, create a shortlist for your other members (if more than two are required), including your institutional and external members. For each role, have at least two alternates.
Step 2: Contact and Interview
Just because you think someone is a good match does not mean they are available, interested, or a good fit to serve on your committee. You need to do some leg work to secure the right team, meaning you'll need to send out a few requests and, if possible, interview faculty to ensure a fruitful dissertation experience. Here are some questions you may want to include in your request or during an interview.
Questions to Ask Potential Dissertation Committee Members
What is your goal for my dissertation completion deadline?
Alternate: What realistic deadline would you expect me to complete my dissertation by?
Alternate: What is the average amount of time your candidates complete their dissertation within?
What is your availability?
Alternate: How much time can you allocate for this committee on a weekly, monthly, or term-based period?
How much proactive engagement do you expect from me?
How much proactive engagement should I expect from you?
How do you prefer to communicate? (Specifically, meetings, emails, phone calls, etc.)
How often do you like to communicate? (The frequency: Weekly, Bi-Weekly, etc.)
When can I expect feedback or revision notes from you once submitted?
How will I know when the work is complete?
Alternate: How will we determine when I am ready for each defense?
Other questions I found online you may consider adding, from Stephen Foster:
Would you like to view my work when it is finished or as pieces are being completed?
How do you prefer communication? Should it be direct, or it has to go through the chairperson?
How long does it take for you to do my review?
Are there some faculty members that do not fit well with your work style or may not work well with you?
What are the attributes that make successful students?
Do you have ideas on my topic?
Are there any questions that you care to ask me?
Asking a few of these questions will allow you to understand the expected pace of your progress and the level of commitment from each Member. Now it's time to select your team by sending an official request to each prospective Member (excluding those unavailable or excluded after having spoken with them).
Step 3: Establish the Communication Plan
Once your team has assembled, it's time to lay the groundwork by communicating your communication plan. You should have a firm sense of how (and how often) each committee member would like to hear from you. To keep it straight, you can create a small table that will serve as a reference point or schedule a reminder in your calendar if that helps you stay on track. I recommend sending an establishing email as a thank you to start things off on the right foot. This email should include the following:
Thank you for agreeing to serve on your committee
A restatement of the communication approach you discussed in your interview (E.g., As we discussed, I will send you a progress email every two weeks and will send chapters to be reviewed once completed, with the expectation to receive feedback in approximately two weeks from the submission date.)
An initiation to contact proactively.
A note of enthusiasm for the opportunity to work with the committee member
Now that you have your team, it's time to get going on your research in preparation for the next major hurdle: your proposal defense. Til' next time!