Immunology/Microbiology: Dissertation Process

Guidelines for Procedure Prior and Up to the Dissertation Defense

1. Prior to initiating the process below, the student must check with the Program Director to ensure that she/he has fulfilled all of the graduation requirements, including an acceptance of a first-author manuscript based on their dissertation research conducted while at Rush as a graduate student or providing a copy of submitted a manuscript along with a letter from the editor verifying receipt of the manuscript.
2. A data defense meeting must be held within six months or sooner of an intention to defend a dissertation. During this meeting, the committee must make it clear if they require additional experiments. Specifically, the committee must indicate if these experiments are a “must” or just recommendations/suggestions. If additional experiments are required, the student must make every effort to perform these experiments and present the data to the committee members either in another meeting or by individually talking to the committee members. All committee members must approve of the collective dissertation data as worthy of a PhD degree prior to submitting the document to the readers.
3. To ensure that there is no breakdown in communication between what the dissertation committee recommends and what is ultimately performed, the advisor and the chair of the committee must ensure that these requests were met prior to a dissertation defense.
4. The student needs to consult with the Director of the Library of Rush University Medical Center for current guidelines on preparing the dissertation document and on the original forms that need to be signed by the committee members. Please note that the Director of the Library of Rush University Medical Center requires proof of permission to include any figure from a published article in your dissertation. This includes your own published work. To save time, when your paper is accepted for publication, even long before you may defend your work, write a letter to the publisher requesting permission to include those figures in your dissertation. In addition, the Office of the Registrar provides the Degree Approval form that should be available during the private defense.
5. A complete dissertation, including references and figures, must be given to two readers from the committee, one of whom must be the chair of the committee. The two readers must ensure that the document is written clearly and that the work requested during the data defense was performed. This is the time to flag any problems with the dissertation and the readers should be diligent in their review of the document.
6. A revised document based on the suggestions of the readers is then given to all committee members who have two weeks to read it. The student can, at this point, make a tentative defense date but realizing that if any member has a major problem with the document, enough to voice a concern for failing the document, they must bring the issue forward to the advisor and the chair of the committee and the defense date may be changed.
7. If no objections are voiced, the student can confirm the defense date and check with both the program director and the chair of the department to ensure that they are available and can attend the public defense.
8. The student must provide an electronic version of their curriculum vitae, title of dissertation, abstract of dissertation, and complete list of committee members with rank and affiliation to the program d irector to publish the dissertation defense announcement.
9. The defense may not be scheduled during lunch hour and the student should not provide lunch or snacks to the committee. Morning or afternoon hours are the best for scheduling a defense.
10. The student is required to present a one-hour seminar that is open to the public, followed by a private defense of the dissertation.