Doctoral committees advise and evaluate satisfactory progress, administer preliminary and final oral examinations, evaluate a dissertation, and sign a degree warrant. Your advisor chairs your committee and provides individualized guidance on how to select committee members.

Preliminary Exam Committee

Requirements:

1. The committee must consist of your major professor/advisor and two other faculty members.
2. One of these two faculty members must be a Kinesiology graduate faculty member.
3. While preliminary exam committee members often become PhD committee members, this is not a requirement.

Dissertation Committee

Your Dissertation Committee will be present for both your proposal and your defense. Typically this is the same committee, though it is not required.

Readers are committee members who closely read and review the entire dissertation. Some committee members are designated non-readers. This facilitates faculty participation which may otherwise not be possible.

Requirements:

1. 1. The chair or one of the co-chairs of the committee must be graduate faculty from the student’s program. Affiliate appointments may be used to satisfy this requirement. While an advisor may serve as chair, it is not a requirement. Advisors and chairs are to be designated in the dissertation.
   2. The committee must be comprised of at least five members representing more than one UW-Madison graduate program (including the chair). Affiliate appointments may be used to satisfy this requirement.
   3. Three of the committee members must be UW–Madison graduate faculty or former UW–Madison graduate faculty within one year of resignation or retirement.
   4. At least three committee members must be designated as readers.
   5. The fourth, fifth, and any additional members may be from any of the following categories, as approved by the program’s executive committee (or its equivalent): graduate faculty, faculty from a department without a graduate program, academic staff (including emeritus faculty), visiting faculty, faculty from other institutions, scientists, research associates, and other individuals deemed qualified by the executive committee (or its equivalent).
   6. All committee members have voting rights. To receive a doctoral degree, students cannot receive more than one dissenting vote from their committee on the final degree warrant.