Geography, Environment, and Sustainability

Doctoral Defense

When you have successfully completed all other requirements for the degree, the chair of your dissertation committee will, in consultation with the other committee members, schedule your final oral dissertation defense. You have to inform the Graduate School when you are doing your defense two weeks before the date so they can publish the dissertation title, date, time and location. The examination is open to all members of the University community who may wish to attend. The final oral examination is administered by the advisory/dissertation committee according to program guidelines. The examination is largely related to the dissertation field of study including courses taken here and elsewhere. Approval of the examination must be attested to by all members of the advisory/dissertation committee. The results of the examination are to be reported in writing to the Vice Provost for Graduate Education.

Your degree requirements are not fulfilled until you make all the corrections required by your committee at the doctoral defense, your advisor reads and approves the corrections, and you submit the final corrected and formatted dissertation to the Graduate School. Please note that UNCG requires you submit an approval copy of your dissertation, followed by the final, corrected copy. These versions must be submitted by the deadlines set by the Graduate school (found in the university calendar). Please also note that the dissertation must follow strict formatting guidelines, available from the Graduate School. If your dissertation does not meet these guidelines, it will not be accepted and your graduation date will be delayed until you have revised the formatting accordingly.

Dissertation Copies. One bound copy of the finished dissertation must be filed with the department. It is also customary to provide each committee member with a bound copy of the final dissertation.