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General requirements for the Ph.D. degree include the following components: (1) total academic credit, (2) residence requirements, (3) course requirements, (4) preliminary counseling examination, (5) qualifying examination, (6) admission to candidacy, (7) dissertation, (8) final examination, and (9) supervisory committee. A student admitted to a doctoral program is expected to have been awarded a Master’s degree in the same or a closely related program or to earn such a Master’s degree during the course of the program.
The following sections define and discuss these general requirements.
The School of Engineering requires for the Ph.D. degree a minimum academic credit of 54 term credit hours earned in course work beyond the baccalaureate degree or 24 term credit hours earned in course work beyond a Master’s degree, in addition to 24 term credit hours earned in dissertation work. There must be a minimum of 24 term credit hours of graduate course work and a minimum of 24 term credit hours of dissertation work, none of which have been nor can be applied to any other degree.
The student’s supervisory committee determines the precise amount of course credit to be required, subject to the approval of the department chair and the Associate Dean. A student who is actively working on his or her dissertation must be enrolled in dissertation study each term until completion of all requirements for the Ph.D. degree.
The term “residence requirement” refers to the minimum number of required academic credits a student must complete while properly enrolled at SMU. The residence requirement is 30 term credit hours of graduate credit, normally the last 30.
The Ph.D. degree is given in recognition of the highest attainment in a specific field. It requires novel, high-quality research work recognized and accepted by other scholars in the field. Due to this need for timeliness, all requirements for the Ph.D. degree must be satisfied within five years after the date the qualifying examination is passed. If such period has expired without successful completion of the Ph.D. degree, the Associate Dean, in consultation with the thesis adviser and the department chair, may ask the student to retake the Ph.D. qualifying examination or may disallow the student from further study.
Upon admission of each student into the program, the Associate Dean on the recommendation of the department chair appoints a faculty adviser. The faculty adviser is responsible for providing the student with advice on a proper Plan of Study on fundamental courses in the discipline to prepare for the preliminary counseling examination, which is designed to establish the academic strengths and weaknesses of the student.
If required by the department, the individual department determines the format of the preliminary counseling examination. The background expected for this examination is similar to that of a Master’s level, and the final examination for the Master’s degree may substitute for this exam for students who complete Master’s degrees at SMU. Depending on the results of the preliminary counseling examination, one of the following three actions is taken: (1) the student is allowed to take advanced courses for the Ph.D., (2) the student is disallowed from further study at SMU, or (3) remedial action in areas of academic weakness is recommended.
Every student who is admitted to the Ph.D. program must form a supervisory committee with the approval of the dissertation director, the department chair, and the Associate Dean. Because the chair of this committee normally will also be the student’s dissertation director, the student should decide upon a general area of the dissertation before requesting the appointment of a supervisory committee. It is essential that the student do this quickly, because there are no assurances that graduate work completed before the appointment of the committee will be accepted as part of the Ph.D. program.
The minimum academic course work of 54 term credit hours should include a major as well as a minor area of investigation. The individual departments identify specific course requirements for these areas. As a general guideline, at least 12 term credit hours are required for the minor, which should be in an area providing breadth as well as support to the major field of investigation.
For a Ph.D. program, qualifying examinations and the dissertation are paramount. Course requirements are identified to facilitate the student’s training toward the qualifying examination. Of the 24 term credit hours required in course work beyond a Master’s degree, 12 term credit hours must be taken at SMU.
Generally, up to 12 term credit hours of graduate courses may be transferred into the Ph.D. program from an institution approved by the Graduate Division, provided that such courses (1) were completed in the five years prior to matriculation; (2) were taken toward a Ph.D. degree; and (3) received grades of B- or higher. The request to transfer credit must be made using appropriate forms during the term of matriculation to the Graduate Division. Grades of courses transferred for credit are neither recorded nor used in computing G.P.A.s. Acceptance of transfer credit requires approval of the student’s faculty adviser, department chair, and the Associate Dean. Transfer of any credit for courses taken at other institutions after admission to SMU is not normally permitted.
These examinations must be taken after the student has completed some of the advanced course work in the major and minor fields of investigation.
Each
department within the School of Engineering specifies the formats, schedules,
and areas for the qualifying examinations. The student should contact his or
her department for these requirements.
This examination process is comprehensive in scope, covering the student’s
entire academic career, and includes the major and minor areas planned for
the Ph.D. degree. It is conducted by the supervisory committee with the aid
of faculty members drawn from the major and minor areas of concentration and
consists of both written and oral parts.
As part of the oral examination, the student will be required to discuss the proposed dissertation topic. This is desirable because a student’s program of study should be supportive of his or her intended dissertation research.
Successful performance on the examination results in a recommendation that the student be admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. The committee may believe that, while a student passed the major parts of the examination, his or her performance disclosed weaknesses requiring further course work. The committee may then modify the student’s Plan of Study to include specific additional courses before he or she may be recommended for admission to candidacy.
Should the student fail the examination process, the supervisory committee may recommend a re-examination, subject to approval by the department chair and the Associate Dean. The right of re-examination is not automatic; rather, it is a special privilege recommended in those cases in which the supervisory committee believes a student has the necessary potential but needs some additional preparation.
A graduate student does not become a candidate for the Ph.D. degree until the formal application for candidacy has been approved. Such admission requires the approval of the student’s supervisory committee, the department chair, and the Associate Dean. The approval is based upon (1) passing the qualifying examination, (2) the academic record of the student as attested by a G.P.A. of 3.00 or better (4.00 = A), (3) selection of a tentative title for the dissertation, and (4) the student’s overall fitness as judged by the supervisory committee. The formal application for candidacy should be submitted as soon as these four requirements have been met as judged by the supervisory committee.
The dissertation format must follow the Guidelines for Preparation of Theses and Dissertations. Each student is expected also to submit articles for publication in reputable journals and conferences appropriate to the field of research.
The most clearly distinguishing characteristic of a program leading to the Ph.D. degree is the requirement that the candidate write a dissertation embodying the results of a significant and original investigation. The dissertation is expected to be a mature and competent piece of writing and must make a real and novel contribution to the engineering or applied science discipline. The work it reports may be basic scientific research, engineering research, or creative design. The progress of the student toward the Ph.D. degree is monitored closely by the thesis adviser and the supervisory committee, with an annual report to the department chair.
In the event a student is judged by the supervisory committee not to be making satisfactory progress, he or she will be placed on probation for one term, at the conclusion of which his or her progress will be reevaluated. Should the progress be found unsatisfactory, the student will be suspended.
Upon successful completion of the dissertation defense, the dissertation director must sign the abstract original, and all faculty members attending the final examination must sign the original half-title page of the dissertation. After the dissertation has been checked and approved by the School of Engineering examiner and released by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the dissertation is uploaded electronically to the SMU/UMI submission Web site. One extra copy of the abstract signed by the adviser and one copy of the original half-title page with signatures, must be delivered to the Office of the Associate Dean before the final examination period in a regular term and before examinations in a summer term.
Under special circumstances, some students may be permitted to undertake their dissertation in industrial laboratories in the Dallas-Fort Worth area or elsewhere. This situation may arise when the research requires special laboratory facilities that are not available at SMU, but that are available elsewhere. Such an operation creates special problems for both the University and the company, particularly when the dissertation research is also the student’s work assignment as an employee of the company.
From the viewpoint of the School, the principal requirement is that the particular research on which the dissertation is to be based be undeniably the individual work of the student. The second requirement on which the School must stand is that the dissertation results be available for free dissemination via open publication, whatever those results may be.
To minimize difficulties arising out of these requirements, the School of Engineering has adopted the following regulations:
The membership of the supervisory committee is selected by the student in consultation with the dissertation director. After the student has obtained the written consent of those selected, he or she must obtain the written endorsement of the department chair before transmitting the list to the Associate Dean for official certification.
The supervisory committee is made up of at least five members. Three resident tenured or tenure-track faculty members are drawn from the student’s department, as well as one resident tenured or tenure-track faculty member from each minor field. The chair of the supervisory committee shall be a resident tenured or tenure-track member of the school faculty and shall normally be the dissertation director and a member of the student’s department. Thus, a minimum of four members must be resident tenured or tenure-track faculty of Southern Methodist University.
The supervisory committee should be constituted as early as possible after the student has begun doctoral work and normally before the completion of 15 term credit hours of work beyond the Master’s degree (or 45 term credit hours of work beyond the baccalaureate degree). The Associate Dean is an ex officio member of all supervisory committees and should be notified in writing, at least one week in advance, of all meetings of such committees. The Associate Dean may, at his or her own discretion, reconstitute any supervisory committee.
The duties of a supervisory committee shall be:
Upon completion of all other requirements, a final examination of the candidate will be announced, registered with the Graduate Division, and subsequently conducted by the supervisory committee. The candidate must make six unbound copies of the complete draft version of his or her dissertation available to the Graduate Division for distribution to the members of the supervisory committee at least three weeks prior to scheduling of the final examination.
This examination, which is conducted orally, must enable the committee to satisfy itself that the dissertation is an original piece of work, either in research or creative design; that it has been carried out in keeping with the highest standards of investigation and reporting; and that it makes a contribution to knowledge that is of value to the engineering profession or scientific community. Satisfactory performance on this examination is the last requirement to be met for the Ph.D. degree.
The degree may be awarded at the end of the term in which the final examination is passed, but the prospective candidate should note that at least one academic year must elapse between the passing of the qualifying examination and the conferring of the degree.
The Doctor of Philosophy degree in the School of Engineering may be pursued in areas that do not belong strictly to any one department, but nevertheless are of interest to some faculty members of the School. In such cases, the composition of the supervisory committee will be made flexible in order to allow for the interdisciplinary nature of the program, with the single restriction that at least three of the five members of the supervisory committee are tenured or tenure-track faculty members in the School of Engineering.
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