PhD Handbook

MISCELLANY

Advisors. Your key contacts are your doctoral student advisor, your AC chair, and the AD. All questions concerning the program should be directed to one of these individuals.

 Records. You should assume responsibility for your records in Mays and the OGS. You should coordinate with your AC chair to ensure that all required forms are filed and approved. The AD and the departmental advisor should be notified of changes in course of study, change of address and telephone numbers, and any other information pertinent to individual student records. All completed forms are to be submitted through the AD to the OGS. This will ensure accurate records of your progress toward degree completion.

Program Change. If you wish to change from the PhD program to one of our master's programs, you must petition the departmental advisor of the appropriate master's program and the OGS director for approval. Such a petition shall be routed through the AD (for information only) to the master's program director and then to the OGS director.

Placement. Each department typically receives announcements of job openings from other institutions. These are made available to each doctoral candidate. You are encouraged to examine these announcements and to discuss them with faculty members. Regional and national meetings of professional organizations conduct placement activities specifically for doctoral students. In some organizations, ads about openings and/or applicants are carried in newsletters or in special listings that are made available to members.

The faculty also use direct contact with colleagues at other institutions to assist students in placement. This is probably the most powerful placement assistance available, and the extensive contacts of the faculty will be very valuable to Texas A&M graduates.

Financial Assistance. Full and partial graduate assistantships are available. These enable a student to work 10 to 20 hours per week in research-related and/or teaching-related duties. A recipient of a graduate assistantship for 20 hours per week qualifies as a resident and pays in-state tuition. Assistantships may be awarded for the full academic year, subject to availability of funds. The assistantships are normally renewable annually on the basis of satisfactory performance and availability of departmental funds. Departments normally do not renew assistantships beyond the fourth year of a student's program. As stated earlier, if you have an assistanship, you must enroll in both summer sessions or for 10-week courses.

A graduate assistant should be relatively flexible in arranging hours of availability. The faculty supervisor(s) will evaluate the performance of the graduate assistant both for continued support and employment opportunities. You should always feel free to discuss assistantship assignments with the doctoral student advisor, your AC chair, or the department head.

Graduate Council Representative (GCR). After a degree plan is filed, the OGS will appoint a GCR (a graduate faculty member from another college) to the AC. The committee chair will receive a memo from the OGS identifying the GCR.

 The GCR will work cooperatively with the other members of your AC to:

• Ensure that the preliminary oral examination is conducted in a fair and unbiased manner
• Review your performance in the preliminary oral examination
• Review your research proposal (the GCR must approve the research proposal, by signature)
• Review your dissertation and degree plan in order to be able to attest that it meets generally accepted standards of scholarly excellence
• Ensure that the final oral examination is conducted in a fair and unbiased manner
• Affirm that you have demonstrated in the final oral examination a satisfactory command of the research problem and the previous work on which it rests
• Encourage you to discuss the study in nontechnical language that can be understood by the intelligent layman
• Stimulate your awareness of a scholar's responsibility to publish the research findings, to maintain an active interest in contributions to knowledge beyond your specialization, and to support those developments in society which improve the human condition

To fulfill these general functions, the GCR will sit in on both the preliminary and final oral examinations and will review the dissertation. In both examinations, the GCR may be an active participant and should be invited by the AC chair to ask questions, as well as to observe the general conduct of the oral examination. Moreover, the final approval of the dissertation will be facilitated if the GCR is kept abreast of progress as the document nears final form. If the GCR is dissatisfied with the conduct of an examination, or with the quality of a dissertation, the GCR should immediately inform your AC chair.

 The GCR is to be treated as a genuine member of your AC in performing the general functions of protecting you and upholding high standards. By adding an outside voice to the expertise represented on your AC, the GCR can promote breadth in your degree and be a valuable resource for both you and your AC.

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last update: July 17, 2000