A majority vote of the advisory committee is required for acceptance of a master's thesis, research paper, or professional project. If a student's last quarter of course work occurs during the summer, then the student must wait until the fall quarter to sit for the examination. During the Spring quarter of each academic year, the Graduate Director will solicit questions from each of the School's faculty members who have had graduate teaching responsibilities. The questions that are provided should be broad-based in nature and require a student who receives the question to synthesize information from that course. That student's advisory committee will select a second questions from that list.
Students have seventy-two hours to write their questions.
In the case of regional campus programs, the dates for the examinations will be established by the Director of Graduate Studies in consultation with the Director of the School of Interpersonal Communication. In the case of Athens campus students, there are a variety of ways in which the schedule for the examinations might be approached. Prior to beginning the examination, students must inform their advisor and the Graduate Director about how they intend to arrange their schedule of writing. The schedule must be approved by the advisor and the Graduate Director. The members of the student's committee will typically have one week following the completion of the third question to read the examination papers.