What is a supervisory committee?
The student’s supervisory committee has the responsibility for planning the program of study, advising the student (on classes, research and anything else pertaining to their graduate study), administering the preliminary examination, and ensuring that the student’s doctoral program is of high quality. Note that the advising on class enrollment is done in collaboration with the graduate student advisor. A supervisory committee consists of a Major Professor (selected by the student) along with two (for MS) or three (for Ph.D.) other committee members. Note that for the Ph.D committee one of the other committee members must be from outside the department. All must be members of the graduate faculty. One very important part of this process is the students selection of the Major Professor. Students are strongly encouraged to talk to several professors in their general field of interest before making a decision. See Chapter 2, Section B (for MS) or Chapter 3, Section B (for Ph.D) of the Gra
