Defense Scheduling & Thesis Form Contact

Scheduling Your Exam--Form 8:

Both Ph.D and MS candidates must register their exams, which is done by electronically submitting a Form 8: Request for Appointment of an Examining Graduate Committee to the Office of Graduate Students. The Form 8 should be fully approved by all required departmental and Graduate School staff at least 14 days prior to the planned defense date. As the approval process can sometimes take awhile to route through all of the parties involved, students are encouraged to speak to their examining committee members about their availability and get the form submitted as early as possible.

The Chemistry Department's Formatting Advisor, Jordan Taylor Harris, can assist graduate students in submitting the Form 8 and scheduling their exams. Candidates can make this request by providing the following information to Jordan via email:

• The date they plan to hold their defense
• The time they plan to hold their defense
• The full names of their four examining committee members
• The full title of their thesis

After this information is received, Jordan will book the room in which the defense will be held and notify the student of the room number. The defense is two hours long, and the room will be booked for 2 1/2 hours to allow the student time to setup prior to their defense.

In the event that the candidate's exam date and time must be changed, the student must email Jordan as soon as possible to notify her of the revised date/time, regardless of who submitted the Form 8. Jordan will then work with the Office of Graduate Students on the student's behalf to get the Form 8 revised.

Chemistry Thesis Formatting:

Students must receive departmental approval for their thesis at least two weeks prior to the planned defense date. All graduation candidates are required to meet with Jordan at least once to have their dissertation formatting approved. Most students require multiple formatting consultations before their thesis is ready to be submitted for final approval. When requesting final approval, your thesis must be complete and should require little to no revisions. Revisions after approval, should be small and editorial at most. Regular candidates should schedule their first appointment at least six weeks prior to the defense. 

Candidates writing in LaTeX need to have sufficient knowledge of the software to make all required edits on their own. Jordan will help catch the edits but does not use LaTeX and cannot help correct code. Candidates using LaTeX need to complete their thesis well in advance of their defense to guarantee formatting approval in time.

Candidates can access the thesis format templating by visiting the Thesis Office's website.