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 by providing a copy of a submitted 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 Degree Approval form should be obtained from the Office of the Registrar and should be available during the private defense.
5. A complete dissertation, including references and figures, that has been approved by the advisor must be given to two readers from the committee. The two readers must ensure that the document is written clearly and that the work requested during the data defense was performed.
6. A revised document incorporating suggestions by the readers is then given to all committee members who have two weeks to read it. The student can, at this point, set 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 dissertation defense will be comprised of a one-hour seminar that is open to the public, followed by a private defense of the dissertation before the committee.