At least six months before you plan to defend your dissertation, you should contact the graduate coordinator of your program for details regarding the submissions defense. During the months leading up to the anticipated defense, your graduate coordinator will walk you through the process and explain any department specific nuances.
You also will want to take full advantage of internal reviews of the dissertation before uploading the thesis for defense registration, in order to minimize the number of errors in the registration version.
Pay careful attention to the five PhD degree cycle deadlines. In each degree cycle, there is a deadline for the last day to complete your degree requirements, consisting of uploading the final abstract and dissertation to ProQuest®, submitting a UR Research authorization form, and completing two required surveys. There are no exceptions to the deadlines.If a deadline is missed, your name cannot be approved by the Council on Graduate Education and presented to the Board of Trustees until the following degree date.
In some instances, when in-person attendance is not possible for a defense, a remote meeting program such as Zoom or Skype may be used to enable a committee member to participate in the defense remotely. An email request must be made to the University Dean of Graduate Studies that includes the names and email addresses of the student, committee members and defense chair with a reason for the request. Convenience is not an acceptable reason. If approved, a document outlining the conditions for the approval will be emailed to everyone.
Before the defense is scheduled, your graduate coordinator will need:
- PDF of the Thesis
- Names of all committee members
- Faculty person that has been contacted and confirmed to be the Chairperson
- Definitive date and time that all committee members have agree upon
- Name as you would like it to appear on the Diploma
- Your personal e-mail address that will be active for up to 3 months after graduation date.
- A complete address to use for commencement and diploma mailings- that will be active for up to 3 months after graduation date.
- Your ORCID