Defense and Graduation

Ready to Defend?

At least 6 weeks in advance of your preferred defense date, you should email the Director of Graduate Programs, Eileen Hamel (hamel [at] umass [dot] edu (hamel[at]umass[dot]edu)), copying the graduate program assistant, Kyle Skemer (kskemer [at] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]umass[dot]edu)), to verify all milestones have been met up to now and to discuss a possible defense date. You should allow sufficient time for your committee to read and prepare comments on your dissertation; three weeks is recommended. Please determine an appropriate deadline with your advisor to accommodate the schedules of all committee members.

The College will announce your defense on the CICS Events Calendar and via an announcement sent to the seminars mailing list. The Graduate School will make a formal announcement to the University's Graduate Faculty three weeks in advance of your defense, and post your defense information on the Doctoral Exam Schedule. 

The College is required to provide formal notification of all defenses to the Graduate School at least 30 days ahead of time. This means you must provide the College with at least 30 days notice of your defense date, by contacting Eileen Hamel (hamel [at] umass [dot] edu) and Kyle Skemer (kskemer [at] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]umass[dot]edu)) and following the instructions below. You're strongly encouraged to begin discussing a potential defense date with the graduate programs office prior to the required 30 days notice, before finalizing a date with your committee, and notifying us as soon as your defense date is finalized. If you do not provide the required notice, you will be asked to reschedule.

Please note that defenses may be scheduled between semesters (during the winter or summer), but may not be scheduled during Commencement or on days when campus is closed. Please consult the Academic Calendar for more information, and always be sure to communicate with your committee regarding their availability.

To Do:

1. At least 30 days in advance of the defense date, the student must submit the following information to Eileen Hamel (hamel [at] umass [dot] edu (hamel[at]umass[dot]edu)) and Kyle Skemer (kskemer [at] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]umass[dot]edu)):

  • Your finalized defense date and time. Once your defense has been formally scheduled with the Graduate School, it cannot be changed. You'll only be permitted to reschedule if there are extenuating circumstances, and we require 30 days notice of your rescheduled date.
  • Your title and abstract. If your abstract is still being revised at this time, you should submit a finalized abstract, to be included in event pages and announcements, no later than two weeks prior to your defense date.
  • Your room reservation info (refer to the Room Reservation page) and/or Zoom details.
  • Confirmation of your committee. If there have been any changes since your proposal, we are required to re-circulate your committee among faculty and re-submit for the Graduate Dean's approval. This can lead to delays in scheduling your defense, meaning you should notify the graduate programs office of any committee changes as soon as possible.

2. Two weeks in advance of the defense (or earlier), the student should submit a Doctoral Eligibility form via SPIRE (see instructions here). Before submitting, please verify that you've met your residency requirement: typically, this is met by enrolling in a total of 18 dissertation credits (9 credits per semester) across two consecutive semesters. If you have not completed a total of 18 dissertation credits, or completed them in a way different than outlined here, please reach out to the graduate programs office for guidance.

3. Prepare your signature page according to the formatting guidelines specific to the UMass Amherst Graduate School. Double check the spelling of names and titles. Before requesting any signatures, you are required to send a draft of your signature page to Kyle Skemer at kskemer [at] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]umass[dot]edu). It is the student's responsibility to obtain committee signatures. Students are allowed to obtain electronic signatures using DocuSign with your @umass.edu ID. 

Once all committee signatures are on the document it should be sent to Kyle at kskemer [at] umass [dot] edu (kskemer[at]umass[dot]edu). Kyle will obtain the Associate Dean's signature and submit it to the Graduate School. Students should not request the Associate Dean's signature directly.

The college name should be written as "Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences" ("Robert and Donna Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences" is also acceptable). The Associate Dean's signature line should be written with the name "Ramesh K. Sitaraman, Associate Dean for Educational Programs and Teaching" without hyphenation.

A sample signature page can be viewed here.

4. Follow the Graduate School Checklist for additional post- defense steps. Prior to graduating, you must: 

Failure to complete these steps by the required deadlines may result in delays in graduation clearance or the deferral of your graduation to the next term.

 

Dissertation Defense


By the rules of the Graduate School, any member of the University's Graduate Faculty may attend the meeting between you and your committee. For that reason, the time of that meeting is announced publicly well in advance of your defense. Please note that closed/private defenses are not permitted by the Graduate School. Courtesy suggests that individuals hoping to attend the meeting consult the chair of your committee, but this may not always be the case.

After your defense, your committee may pass or fail your oral examination (it is extraordinarily rare for someone to fail a defense). Your committee may also specify any changes, revisions or additions that they require to the dissertation itself.  After all members are satisfied with the dissertation, they will sign the dissertation's signature page, indicating that the student has passed their defense. Please be sure that your signature page that is formatted according to the Graduate School guidelines.  All committee members must sign the page, generally via DocuSign (other electronic signatures, such as those via Adobe Acrobat, and wet (ink) signatures are also permitted).

 

Graduation Deadlines

The University of Massachusetts Amherst awards graduate degrees in February, May, and September. Please review the Graduate School Doctoral Degree checklist for completion of all requirements and deadlines.

May is the only graduation date that students "walk". Students graduating in September, February and May are invited to "walk" at the May graduation ceremonies.

In addition to uploading your thesis to the Grad School, we also ask that you upload a .PDF file of your thesis to our publication DB, make sure you change the publication type to "Thesis."