Thesis Committee Meetings

The Thesis or Starred Paper Committee
Thesis or Starred Paper Committee Meetings
TESL MA Thesis and Starred Papers through Fall 2006 (Excel .xls format)

For both thesis and starred paper options, the student needs to schedule and complete two committee meetings.  Faculty members should be contacted by email by the student to set up these meetings.

The first meeting is the preliminary conference.  This conference is a meeting of the student with the three faculty members where the faculty members give the student feedback on the proposal for either the thesis or the two starred papers.  For online students, this meeting could be completed through a telephone conference call.  And so, the student would need to arrange to be at a specific telephone number at a specific time, and faculty would meet in the office of the committee chair for this conference telephone call.

The second meeting is the final conference.  Again, the student would be responsible for contacting the three faculty members to arrange the time of the meeting.  For online students, the thesis chair should arrange for the room.  For this meeting, the student should have prepared and distributed electronically a full draft of their thesis or starred papers.  During this meeting, the faculty members would ask questions about the completed theses or starred papers.  By accreditation requirements in the US, this final conference should be a face to face meeting even for online students.  In other words, the student needs to do one of the following:

1. Come to St. Cloud for the final conference,
2. Arrange for the three faculty to come to the student, or
3. Set up a video conference.

Normally, for both meetings, the following procedures will be followed:

1. The committee will be called to order by the committee chair,
2. The student will be asked to summarize the proposal or the final project,
3. Faculty members will comment and ask questions of the student,
4. After this period of questioning, the student will be asked to leave the room so that the faculty can discuss their decisions about the proposal or the final project,
5. After the student returns, the chair informs the student of the results of the committee meeting, the faculty sign the appropriate documents and give the student hard copy corrections if they have made them.

For more information email the TESL Director, Jim Robinson at:  jhrobinson@stcloudstate.edu.