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7 Steps To Ace Your Next Thesis Committee Meeting

April 9, 2021 by Dora Farkas, PhD 6 Comments

Do You Wonder Whether You Will Ever Finish Your Thesis?

When you applied to graduate school did you assume that there would be a clear path to finishing your thesis?

I thought that if I completed all my coursework and followed all of my supervisor’s advice, I would be guaranteed to finish my doctoral thesis and  graduate on time.

However, in my third year I realized that there was no direct path to my Ph.D. degree.

Unlike in college, there were no clear milestones, no set set schedule, and no structured support system.

In my first two years I was busy with coursework and qualifying exams, but in my third year I started to experience self-doubt:

• How many hours a week should I work to finish my thesis?
• How do I know if I am going in the right direction and making progress?
• Is it even worth finishing my PhD?

I alternated between a few weeks of intense work followed by a few weeks or burnout, and my supervisor was not satisfied with my progress.

I considered dropping out, but I worked hard to get into this PhD program and to pass my exams.

I knew I would feel like a failure if I dropped out.

In my fifth year I had a chat over coffee with one my friends soon after she defended her thesis.

My friend told me that she wasn’t sure she would graduate on time until her final committee meeting.

“My committee had super-high expectations,” she said. “But I negotiated with them until their requirements became reasonable.”

This conversation was an eye-opener for me, because I realized that as the doctoral candidate I had to take leadership of my thesis and the committee meetings.

The thesis requirements were not set in stone.

It was up to me to negotiate reasonable milestones and timelines.

This shift in my mindset helped me to prepare thoroughly for my final committee meeting, and convince my professors that my work was sufficient for a doctoral dissertation.

Don’t leave the outcomes of your committee meetings up to chance or the mod that the professors are in that day.

If you want to finish your thesis on time, you have to take responsibility for your committee meetings.

After all this is your education, your thesis, and the outcome of the meeting will affect your career.

7 Steps to Ace Your Next Committee Meeting

Before your thesis committee meeting:.

Step #1: Make a decision to take charge of your committee meeting.

This may be a major shift in your mindset for you, if you are used to following everything that your supervisors have told you.

It is true that they have more experience than you, but this is your thesis, your education, and it will affect your career.

You are not at the mercy of your thesis committee.

You are in graduate school to learn how to become an independent researcher, and you have the right to speak up for yourself if you disagree with your supervisor or committee members.

Step #2: Draft an agenda and a desired outcome for your meeting

It is not enough to prepare a presentation about your progress, and “hope” that you committee will approve it.

Professors are busy, and it is a rare occasion when you can get all your committee members together.

The best way to make use of this time is to be very clear about your agenda for the meeting.

Before the meeting make a list of all the topics you want to cover, and be clear where you need guidance fro your committee.

What do you need to do to move your thesis forward?

What are the requirements for you to finish your thesis?

The more clarity you get from your committee about their expectations from you, the easier it will be to make progress.

Professors will also appreciate that you took the initiative to go through the details of your work to get their feedback.

Step #3: Share your most important results with your committee members before the meeting.

There should not be any surprises during your committee meeting.

If you show unexpected results or the committee members disagree with each other on major topics, your meeting can turn chaotic.

Ideally, all your committee members should be aware of what to expect, and the purpose of the meeting is to make sure everyone is on the same page, and to discuss details of your research and milestones.

The best way to ensure that your meeting goes smoothly is to meet individually with each committee member to discuss your results.

If you cannot meet with them in person, share your results over email and ask for their feedback.

If there are any disagreements, resolve them before the meeting by speaking with your supervisor or department chair to ensure that the meeting goes smoothly.

During the meeting:

Step#4: Begin by clarifying the agenda including how much time you want to spend on every part

Send out the agenda to your committee members beforehand, but also remind them of the topics you want to cover before you begin the presentation.

If you need to cover several topics or make multiple decisions, you can also indicate approximately how much time you want to spend on each topic.

This will also give you the opportunity to ask your committee if there are any additional topics they would like to cover.

Step #5:  Respectfully guide committee members back to the agenda if they go off on tangents

Some professors, especially if they are passionate about their research, may go off the topic.

They might talk about their own research or previous students.

If the topic they bring up is not relevant to your agenda, acknowledge their opinion respectfully (use a phrase such as “Thank you for sharing that, I will keep it mind”) and then gently guide them back to them to your agenda.

You may feel intimidated if you need to interrupt a conversation between two professors, but remember that this is your meeting.

If your committee members realize that they need to discuss something unrelated to your thesis, rest assured that they will find the time to talk about it after your committee meeting.

Your job is to make sure you stay on the agenda and get your questions answered.

Step #6: Wrap up the meeting with an action plan

End your meeting with a summary of what you have discussed, agreements that you have reached, and an action plan for next steps.

Your action plan needs to have “actionable” items, specifically what milestones you will work towards after the meeting, and approximate timelines.

If it’s not your final committee meeting, also set an approximate date for your next meeting.

Professors are so busy that it can take months to find a few hours when they are all available, so planning early is key.

After the meeting:

Step #7: Follow up after the meeting

Send a note to each of your committee members to thank them for their time, and summarize the action items or milestones you agreed to.

This will give your committee members another chance to give you feedback or suggestions.

Most importantly, follow-through on your end of the deal.

Take your timelines seriously, and if you cannot meet them talk to your supervisor about the challenges you face.

In order to build trust between you and your committee members, you need to demonstrate that they can count on you to keep your commitments.

Do you want to talk to your supervisor about your graduation date, but not sure how to bring it up? View my Q&A video before to learn how to have the “talk” with your supervisor. Looking forward to your feedback in the comments section below 😉

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How to schedule a committee meeting

Don’t send out a Doodle poll with 120 options.

One of the key challenges in obtaining a PhD is scheduling a committee meeting. In fact, I think that anybody who has managed to successfully schedule three or four committee meetings probably deserves a PhD just for that feat. After all, getting five professors into the same room at the same time is a tall order. Since scheduling committee meetings is such an integral part of graduate education, there should probably be a class on how to do this successfully. However, I don’t think any such class exists. So maybe this blog post can serve as a substitute.

We faculty members understand that we have to do committee meetings, as a service to the department and to help the students. Nearly all faculty members I know are strongly committed to serving on thesis committees. At the same time, we don’t really want to be in these meetings. Committee meetings take up a lot of time. In fact, just fielding questions related to scheduling committee meetings takes up a lot of time. So please try to keep this in mind, and make things as easy on us as possible. We want to help you, but you need to help us in return.

Now, how do you actually go about scheduling a meeting? First, let’s talk about some things that would best be avoided:

• Don’t ask me to list all my availabilities between March 15 and June 1st. I’m not going to replicate my entire calendar into an email to you.
• Don’t give me a list of 120 possible date/time combinations and ask me to check off all the ones that don’t work. See the previous point.
• Don’t assume my availabilities remain unchanged for more than a couple of days. I once had a student ask me if my afternoon was open on a given Monday. I said yes. Six weeks later, and about a week before that Monday, he informed me that the committee meeting was going to be at 3pm. By that time I had already scheduled something else into that time slot.

Now, I’d like to propose a scheduling strategy that generally works:

First, discuss possible dates and times with your adviser. Any times your adviser can’t make are a no-go, obviously. Then, ask your committee members to outline broadly which days/times generally do or don’t work. You can do this in an email or in person. You can also try to figure this out for yourself, by checking their teaching schedule, office hours, lab-meeting schedule, and so on. But I think asking is better. 1 Also, you should ask the committee members whether they are going to be out of town any specific days/weeks during the time window in which you’d like to hold your meeting.

Once you’ve got a rough sense of everybody’s availability, find a few times that seem to work for everybody and propose a few variants of those times. For example, if it looks like everybody is mostly free on Tuesday afternoons, propose 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm on three successive Tuesdays. At this stage, I would recommend using a system such as Doodle to quickly poll availability. The nice thing about Doodle is that I can see my colleagues’ answers, so if it looks like nobody can make Mon. afternoon then I don’t even have to check my calendar for that slot, I can just click “no” as well.

Importantly, limit the number of options you propose. If you’re proposing more than about 10 options you’re doing it wrong. Remember from point 3 of the list of things best avoided that quick turn-around is key. You want your committee members to read your message, click on the Doodle link, and quickly answer the poll. You don’t want them to read your message, click on the Doodle link, then recoil in horror and move on to do something else. In a perfect scenario, if you’ve done your leg-work properly, you can propose three to five possible times and one will work.

I strongly believe that proposing a small number of time slots is important even if you don’t have complete information about who is or is not available when. Quick turn-around always beats out having more complete information when it comes to scheduling. So, if you’re not sure what times would be good, just pick a few time slots at random and see what happens. Worst case scenario, none will work, and you do another round of Doodle. From your perspective, this may seem like an awful outcome, but it’s actually fine. Failed scheduling attempts happen all the time and we’re used to them. I’d rather complete two or even three Doodle polls with 10 options each than one with 100.

Finally, even if you make things really easy on your committee members, some may not respond to your email requests. In this case, the best strategy is just to show up in their office unannounced and ask them whether they’re available for a meeting on Thurs May 7 at 3pm. And of course, I hope you didn’t put anybody onto your committee who is notoriously difficult to schedule. That would just be asking for trouble.

You may wonder what the difference is between asking people about their general availability and asking them specifically when they can or cannot meet. The difference is efficiency. If you send me an email such as this one:

Dear Claus, I’d like to schedule a committee meeting for late May or early June. Are there any days that you are out of town during that time? Also, are there days/times that generally do or do not work for you?

I can respond:

I’m around. MWF is usually bad, but I’m free most times TTH. Claus

Writing this kind of a response will take me all of 2 minutes, and I’ll likely do it the moment I get your message. As a result, this exchange has saved you from proposing numerous times I would have declined, and it has saved me the time and effort it would have taken me to enter my entire calendar into Doodle. ↩︎

Claus O. Wilke

Professor of integrative biology.

• How to pick a thesis committee
• Excess ambition—the eternal flaw of all PhD thesis proposals
• Share your preliminary work with other people, even if you think it’s crap
• How to develop a research question, Part II
• How to develop a research question

Committee Meetings

The Department requires that the student and supervisor will hold progress reviews with the entire Thesis Committee at least once a year. These meetings help to ensure satisfactory progress towards the student’s intended defense and graduation dates by ensuring seamless communication across the entire Thesis Committee on the student’s aims, progress, and any issues encountered during their thesis research trajectory.

Students must present at least four Committee Meetings:

• Thesis Proposal (Oral Qualifying Exam)
• (≥ 1) Annual Thesis Committee Meeting (Progress Report)
• Plan to Finish Meeting (Final Thesis Committee Meeting Report)
• Thesis Defense (Oral Defense of the Thesis)

Annual Thesis Committee Meeting

This page details the format and preparation for Annual Thesis Committee Meetings, which is relevant for the Plan to Finish meeting as well.

Students are responsible for scheduling the meeting and reserving a room. The Committee should be scheduled for 1.5 hours. Students can contact the BE Academic Office for help reserving a conference room.

Progress Report Form

Prior to the meeting, students should fill out the Thesis Committee Progress form [pdf] and bring hard copies for each Committee Member.

The first Annual Committee Meeting must be held within one year of the Thesis Proposal/Oral Exam presentation. Annual Committee Meetings are required once a year or more frequently if the Thesis Committee so requests. More frequent one-on-one meetings are strongly recommended.

While the Department recognizes that there may be extenuating circumstances leading to a delayed Annual Thesis Committee meeting, which do not merit withholding registration, the Department reserves the right to withhold registration if the one-year mark past the regular annual Committee meeting schedule has passed. This circumstance implies that two years have elapsed since the last regular Thesis Committee meeting, all e-mail reminders and meeting attempts have failed to realize a subsequent meeting, and the Graduate Committee has determined that withholding registration is in the best interest of the student.

Preparation

One week prior to each Committee Meeting, the student is encouraged to share an annotated set of Specific Aims with their Committee Members. The annotated Specific Aims should be approximately one to two pages long (12 pt font), with a few sentences describing the status of each Aim and a Gantt Chart showing the anticipated timelines for their completion.

Students should prepare a presentation outlining the progress they have made towards accomplishing their research aims. Students should also plan to discuss career goals and a timeline to graduation.

Students are encouraged to hand out hardcopies of their presentation slides to their Thesis Committee Members, including a summary of their Specific Aims.

Meeting Format

The Department encourages in-person meetings with all Committee members present whenever possible. Committee meetings are run by the Chair of the Thesis Committee. The specific format of the meeting is described below:

• Student leaves room: Committee checks in with advisor(s)
• Advisor(s) leave room: Committee checks in with student
• Bullet-point overview of progress toward PhD accomplishments, goals, anticipated timeline
• Specific issues to be addressed
• Anticipated career trajectory
• Including risks and alternate pathways 
• Publication plan
• Reiteration of PhD objectives and anticipated timeline

• College of Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Division
• College of Liberal and Professional Studies

• Thesis Committee Meetings - Third Year Students and Beyond
• Graduate Student Handbook
• Advising, Assessment, and Examinations

An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is required annually after successful completion of the candidacy exam.  It should be filled out before each thesis committee meeting.  The goals of the IDP are to help the student develop skills, plan their career, and to facilitate open communication between the student and thesis advisor.   The form is available here with detailed instructions.

Thesis Committee

After successful completion of the Candidacy Exam, the student must select the members for their thesis committee.  

The thesis committee should consist of at least four voting members, three of whom must be from the Biology Graduate Group. The student's thesis advisor shall not be a voting member of the thesis committee. The chair of the thesis committee must be a member of the Biology Graduate Group and cannot be the student's thesis advisor. The names of the thesis committee members must be submitted to the Graduate Chair for approval. Any subsequent changes to this committee must be approved by the Graduate Chair. In addition, the department coordinator must be notified of the committee members and any future changes for notation in the student's file.

After formation and approval of the thesis committee, the Graduate Office will provide a copy of the Candidacy Exam Report to the thesis committee members.      

Thesis Committee Meetings

Third-year students must meet with their thesis committee within six months after successful completion of the Candidacy Exam.   Additional meetings must be held at least once a year or at the discretion of the thesis committee.   The purpose of the meetings is to ensure academic progress. Input from the committee members can be helpful to the student, especially when students encounter technical or other problems in their research.   The committee is there to help the student overcome problems.

Students must advise the department coordinator of committee meetings, including date, time, and location. The department coordinator will provide the committee chair a copy of the student’s file along with a committee meeting review form for completion.

In order to alleviate occasional scheduling difficulties, one committee member can be absent from meetings.   This committee member can attend through online video conferencing or the student can meet with the member at a later date for their input and advice.   Please note that the student's progress report must be submitted to all committee members in advance, even if one member does not attend the meeting.

At least one week prior to the thesis committee meeting, the student will submit the following items to the department coordinator for inclusion in file:

• CV - should be formatted in accordance with guidelines as staed by NIH, NSF or other appropriate agency.
• Research summary and progress report, 2 pages in length, stating thesis aims, progress and plans. 
• Parts B and C of the Individual Development Plan as stated on the form instructions. 

At the start of each meeting, the student will leave the room so that the committee may consult with the advisor regarding progress and any concerns. The student will return and the advisor will leave the room so that the committee may consult in a similar manner with the student.

Beginning July 1, 2024, students must show recent entries in their lab notebook to their thesis committee chair during or prior to all committee meetings.

After the thesis committee meeting, the committee chair will write an evaluation that will be given to the department coordinator for the student’s file. This form can be downloaded at the Forms  web page.   The student will also receive a copy of this report for review and comments. At these meetings, the student must show satisfactory progress towards completion of their dissertation research as judged by the thesis committee. If not, the thesis committee can recommend dismissal from the program. Under these circumstances, a Master of Science degree will be awarded.

Please note that thesis committee meetings, as stated in this policy, are a requirement of the Biology Graduate Group as well as a University policy.   Students must schedule their meeting as determined by the committee members.

Should the student fail to schedule a thesis committee meeting within the designated time frame stated at the previous committee meeting, the following actions will be taken:

If the meeting is 3 months past due, the student will be put on official academic probation. The University Registrar’s Office will be notified and a hold placed on the student’s account. The department coordinator and graduate chair will schedule a meeting with the student to discuss the reasons for the delay.

When the meeting is 6 months past due, the stipend will be discontinued, and the student will be dismissed from the program.    

Masters of Science Degree

The Biology Graduate Program is a doctoral degree program. However, occasionally extenuating circumstances arise which require that a student leave the program before completing their doctoral thesis. Under these circumstances, a Masters of Science degree can be awarded if the student has satisfied the following requirements:

• All courses must be graded, including lab rotation(s) and/or independent study work. Courses marked as “Incomplete (I)” or “No Grade Reported (NGR or NR)” must be completed before applying for graduation with a Masters degree.
• Grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher.
• Completion of 14 course units, including lab rotation(s) and/or independent study work. (done after second year of study).
• Research paper (thesis proposal) and oral presentation submitted to exam committee.

Henley-Putnam's Dissertation or Thesis Committees

• Getting Started on Finding Your Research Committee

Committee Members Roles and Responsibilities

• Subject Matter Expert
• Committee Member

Committee Chair.   The chair schedules the comprehensive exams, delivers feedback and results of the comprehensive exams, acts as an instructor, oversees the production of the thesis/dissertation, communicates feedback from the subject matter expert and committee member, schedules the dissertation defense, meets monthly via Zoom with the student/candidate throughout the research courses, and reviews work for publication quality.  The chair deals directly with the student on the quality of the paper, the presentation, the flow, the sequence, and the conclusions.  

The role of the committee chair includes the following responsibilities:

• scheduling the comprehensive exams,
• communicating the grades and feedback from the doctoral comprehensive exam,
• overseeing the production of the dissertation,
• managing the timeline and schedule for completion of each phase of the dissertation in the courses.
• acting as an instructor in the courses,
• contacting the student/candidate regarding setting and meeting deadlines in the dissertation process,
• directing the timely and successful completion of each assignment,
• working directly with the SME and committee member to garner added perspective, feedback, and constructive criticism to strengthen the dissertation,
• communicating with the student/candidate to convey feedback, insights, added perspective, and constructive commentary provided by the committee member and SME,
• confirming with the SME that the content of the dissertation is factual and accurate,
• advising the student on formatting, sequencing, and organizing the thesis/dissertation,
• ensuring the academic quality of the thesis/dissertation, including each of the assignments in courses.
• facilitating final approval of the thesis/dissertation by making sure that all committee members sign the approval form, and
• scheduling and leading the thesis/dissertation oral defense and publication.

Subject Matter Expert (SME).   All members of the committee are subject matter experts (SMEs). The title of this particular member of the committee emphasizes and highlights specific responsibilities within the committee dynamic.  The SME should be in constant contact with the student regarding  content  of the dissertation.  This is the person the student turns to in order to test ideas and conclusions and to ensure the appropriateness, relevance, significance, and accuracy of the dissertation’s content in order to meet university and academic standards.

The SME also certifies the accurate reporting of that material to the chair and determines the factual nature of the work.  The SME knows the subject closely and acts as the student’s sounding board.  The SME does not establish timelines, length of the thesis/dissertation, etc.  The role of SME includes the following responsibilities:

• consistently consulting with the student/candidate regarding the relevance and significance of the research content,
• regularly discussing content with the student/candidate to test ideas and conclusions,
• updating the committee chair about discussions with the student/candidate and about any suggestions or recommendations resulting from those discussions, and
• confirming the accuracy, appropriateness, relevance, and significance of the research focus and content with the committee chair.

Committee Member.   One additional committee member works for the committee chair.  The committee member advises and assists the committee chair in every aspect of the project.  The committee member interacts directly with the chair, not the student.  This prevents conflicting information from being sent to the student and presents a unified stance during the process.  The chair and the committee member work out all responses presented to the student and resolve any conflicting guidance before the student is contacted.  If conflicts cannot be resolved, the chair makes the ultimate decision.  The chair and the committee member work together constantly, but the chair is the face of the university to the student.  The role of the committee member includes the following responsibilities:

• interacting with the chair to provide added insight, perspective, and feedback to be shared with the student, and
• determining responses, suggestions, and constructive criticism that will be shared with the student through the chair.
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