By outlining my role and expectations as a committee member, my goal is to help make sure that we have a productive professional relationship, and that we avoid any conflict stemming from not being on the same page about these important matters. This document is a work in progress and may be edited. And this document is long and detailed and specific, because I believe in not just assuming that we’re on the same page, but explicitly talking through it together.
No, I can’t be your advisor or PI, but I can be on your committee!
I am not a full-time academic, I do not have a lab, and I cannot be your major advisor or PI. However, via my various part-time academic appointments, I am eligible to serve on a thesis or dissertation committee- either as an internal if you’re a student at Nova Southeastern University, Georgetown University, or Arizona State University, or as an external anywhere else.
Though you’ll have less interaction with me than you will with your major advisor/PI, a committee member-student relationship can still be important and beneficial to you professionally, and can still potentially cause trouble if it is not handled properly. To help maximize the chances that we’ll have a productive working relationship and minimize the chances of misunderstanding or conflict, I wanted to describe in detail what I see as my role, how I can help you, and what I expect from you in return. This document is long and detailed, because this potential relationship is important and complex. Please read it carefully.
While this need not be thought of as a hard-and-fast unbreakable contract, there’s value in you and I mutually agreeing upon key elements of what our relationship is supposed to be like to maximize the chances that we’ll work together well, and before there’s a problem stemming from misunderstanding. This is intended to be a general overview and starting point, and much of this is negotiable based on the specific needs of the student, the project, or the institution. However, please note that “negotiable” means that we talk about it together (likely with your advisor) and mutually agree on a way forward, not that you change things without informing me.
Overall, what is the role of a thesis/dissertation committee member?
From my perspective, my role has a few components.
Part of my role is to be a technical subject matter area expert, someone who you have to convince and persuade that you have done enough science, and done it correctly, to be granted professional credentials. I will need to sign off on your thesis or dissertation, which I will not do if there are major problems with the underlying science. In graduate school we do not sign off on you earning your degree just because you spent a lot of time on it, it has to meet standards. (By “major problems with the underlying science,” I do not mean “I have a different opinion and both of our opinions are equally valid,” I mean methodological or analysis flaws, or significant misstatements of fact or broader significance.)
Part of my role is to be someone who helps you do enough science of high enough quality to complete the requirements of your program. I can do this by offering advice, constructive feedback, and sometimes technical training, or even by sharing data I’ve collected. It can also mean providing input into which courses you take.
In other words, I am a resource, a mentor, and an ally who can help you professionally in graduate school and beyond, but I am also a professional tasked with upholding the standards of our profession.
My philosophy of student mentorship is that my role is not to make you a carbon-copy of me, but to help you become the happiest and most successful version of yourself, whatever that may be. And in some cases, my job includes helping you to figure out what the happiest and most successful version of yourself can look like.
What are the areas of expertise in which I am qualified to be a thesis/dissertation committee member?
Usually, your thesis/dissertation research will include some areas of science that your advisor is an expert in, and some elements that your advisor doesn’t know as much about. Usually, therefore, my area of expertise will overlap slightly with your advisor’s area of expertise, but include some topics that they are less familiar with. Between your advisor, me, and your other committee members, we should be broadly and deeply knowledgeable about your whole project. This overlap of expertise allows us to confirm that you did a great job–as well as identify problems and help you to solve them.
I will likely interact the most with you and your advisor, but depending on the specific makeup of the project, I may interact with other committee members in some capacity, usually under the supervision and coordination of your advisor.
I am an interdisciplinary marine conservation ecologist with expertise in a variety of topics, including:
-The biology, behavior, diet, and ecology of marine fishes (including but not limited to sharks and rays);
-Endangered species policy and the biological and ecological data that supports it;
-Sustainable fisheries management policy and the biological and ecological data that supports it;
-Human-wildlife conflict and potential regulatory solutions to minimize it;
-Public understanding and misunderstanding of science and its consequences;
and
-Public science engagement and science communication.
If you have a project that is radically different from one of these topics and you’re interested in me being part of your committee, please make sure that you have thought in detail about how I can help and what my role will be. (I have been asked to serve on committees where I don’t know anything at all about the topic, and in those situations I would not be able to assist the student at all and have had to decline). I am happy to meet to discuss if my expertise aligns with your goals, but I expect that you’ll have thought about how I can contribute.
How involved should your committee member be in your research and education?
The answer to this depends on you, your project, and the makeup of the rest of your committee. Sometimes the committee member only meets with you a few times and provides one round of feedback on your thesis proposal and eventually your thesis. Sometimes the committee member is much more involved and serves as a de facto co-advisor or co-PI. Sometimes the committee member is heavily involved in one chapter or project of the project and not especially involved in the others due to their area of expertise.
I’ve done all of these and am comfortable doing all of them. But we (you, me, and your advisor, and to some extent your other committee members) should agree on the extent of my involvement at the start, and we should regularly (at least once a semester) make sure that we’re still all on the same page. And different levels of involvement come with different expectations, discussed below.
What can you expect from me?
You can expect that I am here to help you, both overall throughout your education and career, and with specific questions you ask me.
You can expect that I will be patient with you. I understand that people have different strengths, and something that may have been easy for me may be a struggle for you and require more time and instruction. I know that you are a complete person with a life outside of school, and I know that sometimes life happens and things come up professionally or personally. Therefore, I understand that schedules change, and as long as I have enough notice that won’t be a problem on my end.
You can expect that I will be supportive and honest. I am rooting for you even if I am giving you tough feedback on an early draft that needs a lot of work. That feedback will always be constructive even if it’s tough. I hope you have someone in your life who tells you that everything you do is amazing and wonderful and brilliant, but you don’t want that in a professional mentor, you want someone who tells you when something isn’t quite right yet and helps you figure out how to improve it. And you can expect that if I don’t know the answer, I won’t make something up, and I’ll help you find it.
You can expect that I will make time for you, both in terms of attending regular meetings and providing thorough and detailed feedback on key documents and drafts. (I do need some notice for these, outlined below, due to my schedule). And you can expect that I will be responsive, even if I am not available to meet I will let you know that I’m not available to meet. I try not to answer emails outside of work hours when I can avoid it, but unless I am traveling and have an out-of-office message up, you won’t have to wait more than one business day for a reply.
You can expect that I will be there to help you graduate and through your next steps, including offering professional advice and helping with your application materials. And assuming that everything went well from my perspective during your graduate school experience, I am happy to write you a reference letter.
What do I expect from you?
I expect that while your advisor and I are here to help you, you are the primary person responsible for your education, research, and success. The buck stops with you.
I expect that you will be honest with me about the status of your work, and that you will perform your research following the ethical and professional norms of our field.
I expect that you will read things that I send you in detail. If, for example, you are distressed by the length and detail of this document explaining the broad strokes of our professional relationship, it’s likely that we have dramatically different working styles, and that this might be a problem in the future.
I expect to know what my role and level of involvement will be from the start, especially if there are some aspects of the research where you are going to need more of my time, and especially if there are aspects of the project where you will need data or time-intensive training from me. If original plans change, I expect that I will be kept appraised with appropriate notice (at least a month for anything that will be significantly time-consuming, by which I mean will take more than 30 minutes, or require rearranging my complex schedule.).
I expect that you’ll check in with me regularly on a mutually agreed upon schedule at least once a semester, but especially before key deadlines like a proposal defense, final proposal due date, and thesis defense. I want to know your overall progress (and how it impacts your potential defense date) as well as the results of individual projects or tasks.
I expect that you’ll give me plenty of notice for scheduling meetings, and plenty of time to review and provide feedback on key documents and drafts. I am not a full-time academic and my schedule is hectic and complex. I request that you give me at least 2 weeks notice before scheduling a meeting unless it’s an emergency quick question that just came up, and more time is always appreciated when possible. For any document longer than 20 pages, such as a thesis proposal, written thesis or dissertation, or manuscript resulting from the research performed during your thesis, I request at least a month to review it. If less notice is given for a meeting, I will have limited availability. If less time is given to review a large document, I will not have time to do a thorough job.
I expect that if I raise some major concerns about a document or draft, you will address those concerns appropriately and inform me that you have done so, with a mutually agreed upon timeline for completion. I will be happy to discuss these concerns with you or your advisor, but I cannot sign off on a thesis that I have major concerns with. Remember that one of my roles is to uphold the standards of our profession.
While this is up to your advisor more than it’s up to me, I will encourage you to contribute to our professional discipline by sharing your research broadly, including attempting to present at a conference and attempting to publish the work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
I expect that if I contribute significantly to a project or chapter, or to the whole thesis, that I will be offered the opportunity to be a coauthor on resulting peer-reviewed scientific journal manuscripts and conference talks. We will discuss and mutually agree on what “contribute significantly” means, but generally I mean that if I trained you in the method, helped you develop the research protocol in any more detail than providing minor edits on something you wrote, or provided data.
I expect that you will make a good faith effort to resolve an issue on your own before asking me about it, including checking the literature and thoroughly reviewing documents and materials I’ve already given you. I am here to help when you need it, but part of graduate school training is learning how to be an independent researcher. Any undergraduate should be able to fix a problem if I tell them exactly how to do it, but now that you’re a graduate student training to be a professional in the field, I (eventually) expect that you’ll be able to figure out how to solve it on your own. But I do not expect that immediately.
What happens if things change or something goes wrong?
I will always do what is best for the student. If that means me leaving your committee so that someone else who better meets your evolving needs can replace me, I will happily do that with no hard feelings. All I ask is that you give me appropriate notice.
If I am repeatedly having issues with you keeping up your end of the bargain, I reserve the right to leave your committee for those reasons. I will not do this lightly and I will not do it without warning or notice, I will warn both you and your advisor if we are getting to this point.
What about anything not covered here?
My proverbial door is always open, and I’m always happy to chat or clarify anything.
I want to thank my colleagues for sharing their own tips and tricks and providing feedback on drafts of this, and to give a special shoutout to Dr. Cara Ocobock for her free online resources on this topic, accessible here.