During the final phase of your program, your core faculty advisor provides comments on the first draft of your final document. These comments are aimed at ensuring that your revised draft meets the Criteria for Graduation. While your field faculty advisor must approve your candidacy for the Master of Arts degree, your core faculty advisor has the ultimate responsibility for presenting your final document and graduation documents to colleagues on the Graduation Review Committee, which recommends you for graduation to the Committee on Academic Standing and Degrees, which in turn reviews the recommendations and sends it to the President of Norwich University. The field faculty advisor is included in these meetings periodically. Regional Option students meet with their core faculty advisor three or four times a year, when our faculty travel to outlying regions to meet collectively and individually with students and field faculty advisors.
European students see their core faculty advisor two times per year.
Weekend Option students meet one weekend a month with core faculty. Thematic seminar students meet their residency requirements by attending every colloquium in Vermont. In addition to three-way individual meetings mentioned above, these group meetings give students the opportunity to present their work orally and discuss it with their peers. In the absence of traditional classes, these regional meetings can provide essential peer support to encourage your progress and challenge your ideas. Colloquia in Vermont, California, and Europe also bring students together for intensive orientation into our program processes and expectations as well as for practical workshops on library research techniques, social science research methods, approaches to academic writing and critical thinking.