Capstone Options Guide, M. A. in Literature, UHCL

Literature M. A.
Plans of Study & Capstone Options

School of Human Sciences and Humanities (HSH)

University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL)

The Literature M. A. features three plans of study involving three “capstones” or concluding exercises.

· Coursework option (default plan): 36 hours of coursework + comprehensive written exam.

· Project option: 30 hours of coursework + minimum of 6 hours project.

· Thesis option: 24 hours of graduate coursework + minimum of 6 hours thesis + oral defense. (This option requires fewer minimal hours than other options but in practice often takes more semesters to complete.)

Each student enrolling in UHCL's graduate program in Literature is assigned a faculty advisor. This advisor is a full-time instructor or tenure-track professor. A student may change faculty advisors by agreement with the new advisor and notification to Academic Advising. (1539 Bayou Bldg., 281 283 3333).

During the first semester of coursework, students should meet with their advisor to prepare a "Candidate's Plan of Study" or CPS, which authorizes the requirements for the M. A. in Literature.

· At the initial advising session, the graduate student and faculty advisor will review and sign the “default” CPS for all LITR graduate students, which is the coursework option.

· This initial CPS may later be revised to the project or thesis option through consultations and agreements between the student, the faculty advisor, and the capstone director and committee members.

Tracks in the Literature M. A. Several tracks, whose requirements are detailed in separate documents, prepare students for particular professions or areas of advanced study:

· Literature Track

· Creative Writing Track

· American Studies Track

· Pedagogical Track

· Professional Writing Track

Coursework requirements for all plans of study or tracks:

· All students seeking the Literature M. A. are required to take at least 15 hours of “text-centered” graduate-level LITR courses involving the study of literary texts, e. g. LITR 5633: Spenser and Milton; LITR 5337: Modern Poetry.

· Further, all degree-seeking graduate students must take LITR 5132: Literary Theory (which counts as a text-centered course).

Coursework Option & Comprehensive Written Examination Capstone

· 36 hours coursework + comprehensive written exam.

This option is often the most efficient and least expensive path to complete the M. A. in Literature because it rarely involves additional semesters as the thesis and project options may.

Required coursework. The coursework plan of study offers the greatest flexibility in course selection.

· The student must take a minimum of 27 hours of Literature courses.

· The student may, with the faculty advisor’s permission and guidance, take up to 9 hours in a related program in the school of Human Sciences and Humanities.

· Six of the student’s 36 hours may be undergraduate, but, given similar contents in undergraduate and graduate courses, students should take graduate courses—for instance, all things being equal, a graduate student should take LITR 5732: Seminar on Shakespeare and not LITR 3631: Shakespeare.

Capstone: Comprehensive Written Examination. This examination takes place late in the semester in which the student intends to complete the 36 hours of coursework and to graduate.

· The student contacts the faculty advisor early in the semester to alert the advisor that a comprehensive examination must be scheduled.

· The faculty advisor confers with the student to compose a three-member examining committee made up of full-time instructors under whom the student has studied. (Exceptions are possible as conditions demand.) This committee may or may not include the faculty advisor.

· Once the participation of all three faculty members is ascertained, the student presents to the committee a list of all courses taken for the M.A. degree and for each course indicates selected works on which he or she agrees to be examined.

· Ordinarily, a listing of three or four substantial works from each course will be sufficient. For example, from LITR 5535: American Romanticism a student might choose poems by Whitman, essays by Fuller and Emerson, and short stories by Hawthorne or Fitzgerald. From LITR 5632: Chaucer a student might choose three Canterbury Tales plus Troilus and Criseyde. From LITR 5732: Seminar on Shakespeare the student might list three or four plays.

· The three faculty members approve this list or ask that certain texts be added, substituted, or deleted.

· When student and committee agree on a final list, the student proposes a date for the examination.

· The faculty members each write one question designed to be answered in about one hour. Each question can deal with any of the material on the student's list. The faculty members submit their questions to the advisor.

· The faculty advisor arranges and administers the examination, which is closed-book and closed-notebook. The exam may be handwritten or typed on a word processor.

· The student writes a 3-hour examination, spending about one hour on each question.

· The answer to each question is read and graded as Pass/Fail by the faculty member who wrote the respective question, and the individual question grades are reported to the faculty advisor.

· The student must pass at least two of the three essay questions in order to pass the comprehensive examination.

· The faculty advisor reports the examination grade to the director of Academic Advising.

· If the grade is Pass, the student may proceed with graduation. If the grade is Fail, the student may re-take the examination during the current semester if time allows a new test to be prepared, administered, and read, or during the following semester, when the student must re-apply for graduation.

Thesis & Project Options

A graduate student wishing to switch from the Coursework Option to the Project or Thesis Option should follow these steps:

· After completing at least 12 hours of coursework, the student may formally approach a potential thesis director (a tenure-track faculty member) with a request to write a thesis or project.

· The student presents an idea for the capstone, a 1-2 page outline of its contents, and suggestions for other possible member(s) of the committee.

· The faculty member consults with these and other faculty members regarding the appropriateness of the capstone choice for the student involved. The questions to be resolved at this stage may include the following:

· Is the student capable of finishing a thesis or project within a reasonable period of time?

· Is the student capable of writing and / or researching at the level expected of project and thesis students?

· If the answers to this stage of the enquiry are negative, the student resumes the Coursework Option and proceeds to its completion.

· If the answers to this stage of the enquiry are positive, the student and the faculty members involved decide whether the capstone should be a project or a thesis.

· If the student undertakes a project or thesis, a proposal for its contents must be approved by the director, the committee, and HSH's Associate Dean of Academic Advising and filed with the advising office before the end of the first semester of registration, or the student reverts to the coursework option.

· If the student intends to complete a project or thesis in one semester, the approved proposal must be filed with the Advising Office within six weeks of the beginning of the semester.

Registering for Project or Thesis

The time to register for thesis or project is at the beginning of the semester after you have finished your required coursework, though occasionally students begin their theses while completing their final hours of coursework. Also, following the conclusion of their coursework, a few students take a semester off before registering for thesis; be warned, however, that if you wait more than a year after your last coursework semester to register, you will face additional paperwork and you may face new rules or formulas for completion of the M. A.

In comparison with the updated phone registration for most courses,

registration for thesis or project proceeds according to the old-fashioned process of walking a form around from office to office and obtaining signatures. When this process is completed, however, registration for subsequent semesters is automatic—the only action the student must take is to pay tuition.

The essential form for either thesis or project registration is a “Master’s

Option Course Enrollment” sheet. The student obtains this form either from the HSH Advising Office (1539 Bayou Building) or from the Registrar’s Office (Bayou 1510). After filling out the appropriate sections of the form, the student must obtain the signature of the thesis or project director. After the director has signed, the student returns the form to the HSH Advising Office, where other signatures are provided by the Associate Dean or the Advising staff. The Student then transfers the completed form to the Registrar, which enrolls the student for either three or six credit hours according to the student’s request.

Registration for thesis or project is automatically renewed by the registrar

for each succeeding long semester until the student finishes. Registration for summer session is not automatic. If the student wishes to register for summer or if the student has any other changes or inquiries, she or he should call Alicia (281 283-2532) or Liz (281 283-2529) in the Registrar’s Office. Registration for thesis or project automatically stops when the director turns in a final grade upon completion of the thesis or project; until the final grade is reported, the student receives semester grades of “IP” or “In Progress.”

Plans of Study & Capstone Options detailed

Thesis option: 24 hours coursework + 6 hours thesis.

The student takes a minimum of 24 hours of graduate coursework, at least 18 hours of which must be under the LITR rubric. No particular courses are required, but LITR 5732: Seminar on Shakespeare and LITR 5132: Literary Theory are recommended, especially for those considering graduate work beyond the Master’s degree.

Again it must be stressed: theoretically this option requires fewer minimal hours than the project or coursework options, but practically it usually requires several semesters to complete.

Literature Theses—content and form. Two broad categories describe the possible contents of a Literature thesis: critical and creative.

Literature Thesis—critical. A critical thesis is an extended work of literary criticism and scholarship. That is, it investigates or analyzes a stylistic, thematic, or historical issue relative to important texts or authors of literature. The idea for a thesis may rise from a student’s coursework, including or extending elements from papers written for graduate LITR courses at UHCL, or the idea may rise from beyond these parameters. The critical thesis is especially recommended for students considering graduate work beyond the Master’s level and for students who wish to teach at community colleges.

Standards for a critical thesis.

Minimal length: Usually at least 50 pages of text, though shorter manuscripts may be acceptable under some conditions.

Maximal length: In the interests of enhancing unity and style, students are encouraged not to write critical theses of more than 100 pages of text, though again some exceptions may be granted.

Content standards: A critical thesis in Literature must have a clearly identifiable, original, and significant “thesis” or unifying theme that its parts combine to prove. That is, from the beginning of your manuscript your committee must find your “thesis” or point clearly stated. Throughout the manuscript this larger point must be reinforced, developed, and extended through application to primary literary texts and in relation to relevant secondary scholarship. The conclusion of your manuscript should summarize this point, its validity in light of primary and secondary evidence, and its significance to literary or cultural studies.

Research standards: The student is expected to read widely not only in the primary texts relevant to the thesis but also in relevant scholarship and criticism. The student is responsible for finding and accounting for most of these sources, but the members of the thesis committee, especially the director and reader, may also recommend sources. It is expected that the student will take such recommendations seriously, either incorporating them into the thesis’s research or accounting for their omission to the committee.

Stylistic standards: A Literature thesis is expected to exemplify a very high level of stylistic accomplishment in terms of mastery of mechanics, punctuation, syntax, organization, and rhetoric. During the drafting stages the thesis committee will provide feedback on these issues, concerning which the student is expected to demonstrate improvement in subsequent drafts. That is, once readers have corrected errors, the student is expected to make a serious effort not to repeat these errors in subsequent drafts.

Documentation: Literature theses use Modern Language Association (MLA) documentation as detailed in The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5^th ed. (NY: MLA, 1999). Students should acquire a copy of this handbook and consult it frequently for questions of mechanics, punctuation, and documentation.

What is a critical Literature thesis about? To apprehend the range of possible topics, students are advised to peruse theses accepted in prior semesters.

· Two sets of bound copies of master’s theses are available for inspection: one set is in UHCL’s Neumann Library, filed in the stacks under call number ZZ1 (located on the first floor, past the central stairway, to the left); another set is on the shelves of the administrative offices of UHCL’s School of Human Sciences and Humanities (1539 Bayou Bldg.).

· Look up titles of theses from Human Sciences and Humanities on the Neumann Library On-Line catalogue by typing in c/zz1. (The list and the ZZ1 stacks will include titles of theses not only from Literature but also from other HSH programs such as History, Psychology, etc.)

Broadly speaking, topics for a critical thesis in Literature might include the following:

· an intensive study of selected texts by a single author that demonstrate a particular issue, theme, problem, or development in literature or culture.

· a comparative study of works by two or more authors that deal with a common issue or theme in literature or culture.

· analysis of a formal or rhetorical device in poetry or prose, such as extended metaphor, stream-of-consciousness narration, or the ballad form.

· ”literary or cultural history,” which examines texts in relation to a literary or historical movement.

· ”gender studies”—investigation of identities of women and men represented in literary texts, with reference to feminist and gender theory.

· ”literary theory”—examination of a larger issue of language or representation that is (or has been) debated by leading literary theorists

· ”American studies”—analysis of an issue or theme peculiar to American cultural and historical identity as expressed in literature.

· Composition theory and/or practice—analysis of a theoretical issue relevant to literacy training

· Many other possibilities! Further, the approaches above may be combined. If you have an idea related to literature, discuss its possibilities with fellow students and with faculty. Above all, choose a topic you are interested in, a topic you are willing to “live with” for an extended period of study. Choose a topic—to extend the courtship metaphor—that you don’t mind waking up to after a long night.

Literature Thesis—creative. The creative thesis is reserved for advanced graduate students whose creative writing has been published or has prospects for publication in serious literary journals or by major academic or commercial presses. Students who wish to be considered as candidates for writing a creative thesis instead of a creative project must take LITR 5035: Advanced Seminar in Creative Writing.

What form may a creative thesis take? A creative thesis may resemble virtually any publishable genre, or it may combine genres. As with critical theses, prospective authors are encouraged to review creative theses that have been accepted in previous semesters. Lengths of creative theses may correspond to the genre(s) chosen.

· a complete novel, novella, or collection of short stories—100-150+ pages

· a collection of poems—50+ pages

· a full-length play, a collection of one-act plays, or a screenplay—50+ pages;

· a memoir—100+ pages

· a series or collection of travel sketches—100+ pages

· a collection of essays—100+ pages

· a collection of related poems and stories—70+ pages

Literature Theses—faculty committee. Other HSH programs require a thesis committee of only two faculty members. To ensure stylistic quality and enhance discussion in the defense conference, however, Literature requires three committee members, who have the following titles and responsibilities. Occasionally in summer session, when adequate numbers of faculty may be unavailable, a committee of two faculty members (a director and a reader) may be accepted by the HSH deans. (See Finishing a Thesis or Project during a Summer Session, below.)

Director. The director of a critical or a creative thesis is primarily responsible for guaranteeing that the thesis manuscript approaches minimal levels of acceptance before he or she recommends its review by other members of the thesis committee. In the case of a critical thesis, the director is chiefly responsible for helping the student formulate the unifying theme or purpose of the thesis, for directing the student’s research, and for reading and editing all initial drafts. For a creative thesis, the director helps the student plan the manuscript, suggests changes or acceptable resolutions, and reads and edits all initial drafts. The director of a Literature thesis must be a full-time tenure-track member of the Literature faculty; as of school year 2001-2002, this group includes Professors Chloe Diepenbrock, John Gorman, Tom McCall, Kevin McNamara, Gretchen Mieszkowski, Shirley Paolini, and Craig White. Although Professor Gorman directs many creative theses, other tenure-track faculty may also direct them.

Reader: The reader follows the director in terms of input into the thesis and responsibility for standards. The reader may be from tenure-track faculty named above or from members of the full-time instructional staff; as of 2001-02, this latter group includes Dr. David Day, Ms. Deborah Griffin, and Ms. Bernie Hall, who are full-time lecturers in Literature and Communication. In cooperation with the director and the student, the reader may review and edit portions of the thesis manuscript as they are completed, or the reader may wait until the entire manuscript is ready for review. In the semester in which the student intends to complete the thesis, the entire manuscript must be available to the reader approximately one month before the planned defense. If the reader questions the quality or standards of the manuscript, the completion of the thesis may be delayed and further research, reconceptualization, or rewriting demanded. The reader must approve the manuscript before it is read by the examiner.

Examiner: The Examiner's role is to read the completed thesis, to question the student at the orals, and to affirm (or to deny) the successful completion of the thesis defense. The examiner has no editorial responsibility for, nor does s/he sign, the thesis. The examiner may be chosen from either of the two previous groups in Literature or from qualified full-time faculty in another HSH program area such as History, Philosophy, or Anthropology. A qualified adjunct faculty member or a professor from another university occasionally serves as examiner. The examiner must receive the completed manuscript, approved by both the director and the reader, at least a week before the scheduled defense date. Failure to observe this deadline will result in the delay of the defense conference and of the thesis’s completion until the following semester.

Choosing the director and the thesis committee. Faculty are expected to cooperate with a student in forming a thesis committee. In conference with a student and other faculty, however, individual faculty members reserve the right to refrain from joining a committee or to recommend alternative formations or capstone options.

In considering a possible director, a student should weigh two criteria: the faculty member should have expertise in the area under consideration, and the student and the potential director should find it convenient and comfortable to work with each other.

After the student and the potential director have discussed a possible thesis, the faculty member may consult with other faculty members to inquire if a thesis is the appropriate capstone for the student. Other faculty may give the go-ahead or recommend that the student consider the project or coursework options instead of the thesis option. The latter decision will often be based on the student’s previous work, the clarity and promise of the student’s plans for a thesis, and the number of semesters estimated to complete a thesis; if a lengthy process is foreseen, the project or coursework options may be advised.

If the faculty approves the thesis option, the student and director discuss the formation of the remaining committee. The student then approaches the faculty members in question and asks them to serve as reader or examiner. (These steps may be integrated with the process of writing the thesis proposal.)

Proposal for the Literature Thesis (critical). The initial stage in a thesis is writing a proposal. This stage may be painstaking and time-consuming. To create the proposal, the student must survey relevant research and clarify the “thesis” or larger point to be developed.

Proposal forms are available in HSH’s Office of Academic Advising. Typically students will leave blank the minimal space this form provides for describing the thesis beyond writing “See attachment” in this space in reference to the two or three pages that they will attach to the form. These two or three pages should include the following materials:

· the general subject of the thesis

· primary texts under study

· theoretical approach or critical emphasis

· major secondary scholarship (may be indicated in a provisional bibliography)

· the larger point or “thesis” that will be developed or explored.

· possible manuscript organizations, such as chapter subjects and lengths

The thesis proposal is binding only in the broadest terms. If your idea evolves naturally from its initial point, if you drop or add a minimal number of primary sources, or if you vary your theoretical approach, you will not likely be required to submit a new proposal. Your director may advise you further.

roposal for a creative thesis. The proposal for writing a creative thesis uses the same format as the critical thesis proposal described above, but the content differs. The student describes the genre being attempted, the contents, and the major themes the work will attempt to represent. In the case of a novel, novella, or short story collection, a chapter outline may be included.

Problems (and advantages) of rewriting. Compared to writing performed for courses, a major difference in writing for the thesis that sometimes surprises a candidate is the amount of rewriting and the number of drafts required. In most courses, you submit a paper, receive a grade and comments on what you did well and what you might improve, and usually that’s the end of it—you may ignore or absorb the instructor’s advice, with only your work in other courses or under other instructors at stake.

With the thesis, however, you submit any draft with the understanding that you will likely have to revise it. Further, your director (and subsequently your reader) will expect your writing to improve with each draft and that you will absorb and implement instructions on earlier sections as you develop later sections. They do not expect to continue to correct chronic spelling, mechanical, punctuational, and organizational errors. These are the student’s responsibilities, and, if they are not mastered, the thesis may be re-registered as a project, with additional coursework prescribed.

Defense conference. During the semester that the student intends to finish the thesis, a defense conference is scheduled, usually during the week preceding the deadline for submission of the thesis manuscript to the HSH deans. The defense conference is generally conceived as a friendly concluding experience to the thesis, an opportunity for the student to summarize what has been learned and to benefit from the reactions and discussion of the thesis committee. However, if a majority of the thesis committee agrees that the manuscript has not met the standards outlined above, the student will be required to register for an additional semester and resubmit further drafts of the thesis.

Procedure and tone of the defense conference.

The student must bring copies of her or his most up-to-date manuscript for every member of the committee to consult during the conference. These copies do not need to be printed on high-quality paper.

The typical procedure for a defense conference is that the Director opens the meeting and the Examiner begins the questioning. The next questioner is the Reader, followed by the Director. Each committee member may ask several questions at one turn, or the committee members may take briefer, more frequent turns asking questions and responding to the answers given.

The tone of the questioning and discussion in a thesis defense conference is usually friendly but may sometimes become argumentative with the intention of helping the student investigate and defend the assumptions implicit in the thesis.

Preparing for the defense conference.

The student may best prepare for the thesis defense conference by reviewing the thesis manuscript and becoming familiar with what is said where, for the sake of directing the committee members to portions of the thesis that meet the points raised by their questions. Questions from the committee members are usually broad, and they may refer to texts, ideas, or argumentative possibilities beyond what the thesis has attempted. Occasionally, however, a committee member will wonder about a turn of argument or plot on a given page, and sometimes the student may best answer even the broadest of questions by referring the committee to particular pages of the thesis text.

Library format check (theses only). The “format check” by officials of UHCL’s Neumann Library regarding paper quality, margins, type, and other printing issues must be undergone and attested during the semester in which the thesis is to be completed. The deadline for the format checks, which is indicated in the calendar of each semester’s schedule, usually occurs about two weeks before the deans’ deadline. A format guide is available in HSH’s Academic Advising Office. In most circumstances, the student fulfills the format check by setting up an appointment with library officials and providing sample pages of the title page, the table of contents, the text, the Works Cited, and any appendices.

Officials of Neumann Library will also provide information regarding binding fees, copyright fees, and microfiche fees for the final copy of the thesis.

Project option: 30 hours coursework + 6 hours project.

The plan of study involving thirty hours of coursework concluded by a project is a viable and desirable path for students who want more flexibility in coursework choices and a wider range of acceptable materials, genres, or forms for their capstone option. Students may also prefer this plan of study and capstone option because, despite its requirement for 6 additional hours of coursework, it frequently takes less time to complete than the thesis option.

Required coursework. Of the total 30 hours of coursework required for the Literature M. A. with a project capstone, 21 must be graduate-level Literature courses. With the permission and guidance of the faculty advisor, up to 6 of the remaining 9 hours may be in undergraduate courses, and up to 9 may be in a related program in HSH. All courses elected must support the primary Literature courses in an intellectually coherent plan.

Literature Project—contents and form. The Literature project, like the Literature thesis, offers critical and creative options. That is, the student may offer a project that resembles the critical or creative theses described above; however, the project may be less ambitious in scope; it may be held to less demanding standards; and it may offer students more freedom to attempt more experimental or practical endeavors.

Students planning a project are encouraged to review Literature projects accepted in previous semesters. These projects are bound and shelved in the HSH Advising Office.

As an instance of experimentation, a student might combine critical and creative approaches, both analyzing a noted author’s work and offering a creative response to or imitation of it. As an instance of a more practical effort, a student might combine literary analysis with a series of lesson plans for instruction at the secondary level, or a student interested in composition theory might design an application of some principle for the operations of a writing center or a writing classroom.

Projects also include brief novels or collections of poems or short stories. Students may also write children’s literature, mix creative writing with one’s own photographs or drawings, or attempt other creative writing in a genre not easily categorized.

The Project Committee. The project committee requires two full-time faculty members, the director and the reader.

Project director. The project director’s duties resemble those of the thesis director described above, but adjusted to the peculiar demands of the project’s content and the more flexible standards to which it will be held. The director of a Literature project must be a full-time tenure-track member of the Literature faculty; as of school year 2001-02, this group includes Professors Chloe Diepenbrock, John Gorman, Tom McCall, Kevin McNamara, Gretchen Mieszkowski, Shirley Paolini, and Craig White. Although Professor Gorman directs many creative projects, other tenure-track faculty may also direct them.

Project reader. The project reader complements the director’s input into the thesis and the director’s responsibility for its standards. The reader may be any full-time HSH faculty member, whether from Literature or from another program area such as Visual Arts or Psychology. In cooperation with the director and the student, the reader may review and edit portions of the project manuscript as they are completed, or the reader may wait until the entire manuscript is ready for review. In the semester in which the student intends to complete the project, the entire manuscript should be available to the reader about a month before the deans’ deadline. If the reader questions the quality or standards of the manuscript, completion of the thesis may be delayed and further research, reconceptualization, or rewriting demanded.

Proposal for the Literature Project. A form for project proposals is available in the HSH Advising Office. The student should describe the proposed project as fully as possible.

No project defense conference. No defense conference is required for the project, but the student may join the project committee near the end of the concluding semester for an informal discussion of the project, its process, and its outcomes.

Final form of the project. Completed and approved projects must be submitted to the dean in a standard format and bound in a standard binder. The HSH advising office will instruct students regarding this format.

Final Steps required of all theses and projects

Continuous registration requirement. Master’s projects and theses require a minimum of six hours continuous registration until completion. If a student does not maintain continuous registration in the master’s project or thesis, previously accumulated master’s option credits will not count toward the six hours’ minimum.

HSH Deans’ Review (all theses and projects). The major deadline for completing a thesis during any semester—the point by which approval by the committee members, the defense conference, and the format check (for theses) must have been completed—is the “Deadline for Submission of Theses/Projects to Dean.” This deadline, which is available from the HSH Advising Office, usually occurs two or three weeks before the final exam period. This submission of the final manuscripts allows the dean and associate dean of HSH a final opportunity for quality control: they review the manuscripts to assure that they are formally and stylistically correct and that there are no major errors that would embarrass the school or raise doubts about the value of its degrees. By the time a Literature thesis has been reviewed by its committee members, such errors are usually minimal, but the deans often require that corrections be made before the final copy is accepted or prepared. HSH’s Academic Advising Office will notify students of any such problems or of the good news when their theses have cleared this final hurdle.

Review of schedule for concluding semester of thesis or project

Some flexibility in these deadlines is possible, but repeated late submissions, especially when coupled with shaky standards, must result in additional semester(s) of work

thesis

· At least one month before deans’ deadline . . .

· Complete manuscript (approved by director) goes to reader, who may need to see corrections before approval.

· Examiner notified that final stages of thesis are in motion.

· At least 1 week before defense conference—complete manuscript (approved by director and reader) goes to examiner.

· Library format check—approximately 2 weeks before deans’ deadline.

· Defense conference—during week before deans’ deadline or earlier.

· Deans’ deadline—2-3 weeks before final exam week.

project

· At least one month before deans’ deadline—complete manuscript (approved by director) goes to reader, who may need to see corrections before approval.

· deans’ deadline—2-3 weeks before final exam week.

Finishing a Thesis or Project during a Summer Session

Students should try to complete their theses or projects when they can, but they must be aware that certain conditions may preclude completion in a summer session. Because committee members may not be teaching summer school, they may be unavailable or unwilling to consult or to attend formal or informal defense conferences. Further, the abbreviated schedule of summer school makes deadlines all the more pressing. Under these circumstances, a student may be discouraged from enrolling in summer school, and completion of the thesis or project may be rolled over to the following long semester. Recall that a thesis or project student is not automatically enrolled for summer school. (See Registering for Thesis or Project, p. 2 above.) Under special circumstances, when a thesis is self-evidently in acceptable form, the Associate Dean of HSH may permit a thesis defense and completion with the approval of only two committee members, including the chair and a reader.

If you have suggestions for additions, clarifications, or improvements to this guide, please contact Craig White at 281 283-3380 or whitec@cl.uh.edu.