Appointments to graduate examining committees

All appointments to graduate examining committees (master’s final exam, doctoral preliminary oral exam, and doctoral final exam) must be reviewed by the college according to the criteria specified by the University policy for appointments to graduate examination committees.

External committee members

The college allows requests for experts from outside the University (i.e., a faculty member from another academic institution or a professional from the field) to serve as a voting member of the student's examining committee.

There are two types of external committee member appointments:

One-time only assignments

This type of appointment is graduate student-specific, i.e. the external member is serving on one student’s exam committee. This type of appointment does not provide graduate faculty status.

Ongoing faculty service

The external expert provides ongoing service to the graduate program in various capacities, which may include serving on multiple student exam committees, teaching, or research responsibilities. This appointment may include graduate faculty status. External faculty members who will serve as advisers or co-advisers must have an adjunct faculty appointment.

Procedure to request an external committee member

In order for external experts to serve on graduate examination committees, a Person of Interest (POI) record must be created for them in PeopleSoft. Creation of a POI record can take up to two weeks, so it is recommended that external members be identified as early as possible prior to the examination.

• DGS sends a request to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, copy to jill@umn.edu, with the external member’s CV and a statement describing the reason for the request.
• Once approved, the department is responsible for following the process for Person of Interest (POI) appointments in CSE (Google Doc)
• After the POI record is created, the external member can then be added to the online committee workflow request.

Retired and former University employees

Faculty members who have retired or have left the University may continue with advising and/or examining committee assignments that were active at the time of their departure if the faculty member and the student both agree to the continuation in writing.

New committee assignments for emeritus faculty or faculty who have departed the University fall into the category of outside expert and programs must request a POI record for these individuals. If the faculty member will serve as an adviser or committee chair, an adjunct faculty appointment is required.