Advising & Mentoring

The Ph.D. advising process assists students in creating a Plan of Study, in preparing for the Candidacy Examination, and in completing the Dissertation. The Director of Graduate Studies assigns each Ph.D. student an initial advisor upon admission to the program.

Sometime toward the end of the second semester of study or early in the second year, students should enter into an agreement with a graduate faculty member in the Department of English, who will most likely chair their dissertation committee. Students should establish this informal relationship early because the dissertation advisor will want to review and possibly modify their Plan of Study, as well as help assemble the remainder of the dissertation committee.

It is expected that the student and the committee will meet to discuss the Plan of Study and to help with three major tasks:

Review the proposed Plan of Study,
Conduct the Candidacy Examination, and
Review and approve the Dissertation Prospectus and the completed Dissertation.

Students are encouraged to obtain committee approval of the proposed Plan of Study as early as possible but no later than the time of registration for the final six credit hours of courses. Students should also begin drafting their Dissertation Prospectus as early as possible, although a formal Dissertation Prospectus may not be submitted until after the Language Competency requirement and Candidacy Examination have been completed.