Dissertation Process

Dissertation Proposals: Prior to undertaking their comprehensive exams, the student will have prepared a draft dissertation prospectus that clearly summarizes the topic and its importance to planning scholarship, primary research questions, and likely research methods. This prospectus will help guide the faculty craft relevant and interesting questions for the exams and can be useful in recruiting potential dissertation committee members with relevant interests.

The final dissertation proposal defense would ideally be completed within one to three months after passing the oral examination. The proposal must be approved by the committee and the GPD, with a copy sent to the Graduate School, and must be completed at least seven months prior to the dissertation defense.

The dissertation proposal can be thought of as a ‘handshake’ contract between the committee and the student, in which the student identifies what steps she/he will take to achieve the specified goals. Significant movement by the student off the approved proposal should be very carefully discussed by the committee and approved; significant variances between the process and content identified in the proposal and the final dissertation that have not been approved by the committee can significantly slow the student’s graduation. Similarly, if a committee member requests significant work beyond that identified in the proposal, the committee as a whole should carefully discuss the need for the change and its appropriate form. Proposals must be of a sufficient length and specificity that allows the committee to be very clear regarding what the student intends to do. A typical table of contents for a proposal is included in Appendix B, but proposals will vary in style to meet the needs of the research.

Students must undertake a public defense of the dissertation proposal. As noted above, this can be combined with the comprehensive examination defense or held separately—the student’s committee will decide.

Dissertation

The rules and regulations of the Graduate School will govern the format and procedures for the dissertation. Dissertations must represent a substantial contribution to new knowledge in the field of urban and regional planning. While some dissertations may include policy recommendations for a case study site, all dissertations must result in generalizable knowledge that will inform future scholarship in that general area. Further, all dissertations must be based on an appropriate and explicitly identified theoretical foundation or interpretive paradigm. The best dissertations will likely provide both empirical knowledge and contribute to better theory or models.

Generally, there are two types of acceptable dissertations:

• Traditional single-topic dissertation: this is generally a book-length investigation of a particular research question.
• One field, multiple investigations: in this model the student selects a general area of inquiry, and then undertakes usually three different investigations into important research questions in that field. These must be substantially different from one another, so that for instance data sets at different scales are used; or one investigation is theoretical, two are empirical regarding different but related phenomena; or different research questions are posed at three different sites with substantial data for each. In all cases, the different investigations must be closely linked to form a coherent intellectual whole. This wholeness is demonstrated by a shared introductory chapter that clearly and broadly places the investigations into the existing scholarship on the general topic, and a concluding chapter that identifies the intersecting findings of the investigations and their importance to policy or scholarship. The chapters within the body of the document should stand each on their own as coherent articles including literature review, methods, and findings, in a format suited for submission to scholarly planning or related journal. When students submit these to journals, co-authors are acceptable; including committee members and other student collaborators, but the dissertating student’s name should be first. This should reflect the distribution of work, with most of the ideas and work coming from the student, and direction and editing coming from the faculty members. The dissertation research of one student cannot be used to satisfy the degree requirements of another student. For instance, a paper or chapter (or significant portion thereof) cannot appear in two different dissertations.

In all cases, the content of the dissertation should be a result of new research and theory building undertaken during doctoral studies in the program and must reflect the original and largely independent contributions of the student. Other graduate students and faculty are permitted to work as collaborators on research related to the dissertation and may be listed asco-authors on subsequent published articles, but the work appearing in the dissertation should reflect the individual student’s original contribution.

Dissertation Defense: Once the committee chair believes that the student has rigorously and effectively completed the research outlined in the dissertation proposal, she or he will give permission for the student to schedule a defense of the dissertation. The GPD will be consulted regarding scheduling the defense, and will likely attend it.

• The defense is a public presentation, and the student must advertise the time and place of it one month in advance, and fill in forms for the Graduate School; see the current Graduate School requirements for details. The student gives a presentation of the key questions, methods and findings of the dissertation,and answer questions that the committee poses regarding the research. Time allowing, the committee may allow the doctoral candidate to take questions from the audience. After the defense and the questions and answers, the committee will meet to determine what further work is required to achieve a fully acceptable, preferably excellent, dissertation. Extremely rarely, a student could fail the defense; very rarely are students told that the dissertation is ready for signing. Typically, committee members identify a set of revisions that are needed,and sign their approval subject to those revisions.
• After the defense, the student completes the revisions, receives signatures, and turns in the dissertation to the Graduate School. Note that formatting requirements of the graduate college apply, so it is best to follow these format guidelines from the start. Once the graduate school has accepted the dissertation and all fees etc. are paid, the student is ready to graduate.All committee members should be given bound copies of the final approved dissertation, and the department also gets a bound hardback copy.