While the deadlines are somewhat flexible, if a particular conferral date is desired, the student should be careful to distribute the copies early enough to allow committee members time to read the dissertation. Four weeks is generally considered a sufficient amount of time. Once the scheduling office is aware that the dissertation has been distributed, a time, date and place of defense may be confidently arranged. The yellow part of the application as received by the Dissertation Office from the department may or may not contain the time, date and place of the defense. Natural Sciences departments, Architecture, Social Work, the Business School, Engineering, Teachers College, and the Health Sciences campus schedule their own defenses, and therefore provide the office with the time, date and place.
All departments schedule their own defenses during the summer.
When the Dissertation Office obtains the defense time, date and place, it then prints the Voting Sheet that the committee members will use at the defense. The Voting Sheet is put into a folder along with formatting information and other assorted information and materials pertaining to the final deposit. The student s department receives this folder prior to the defense. The student receives all but the Voting Sheet at the conclusion of the defense. The Dissertation Office sends notifications of defense time, date and place to Humanities, Social Sciences and Teachers College students, departments and committee members.