Minute’s Graduate Council December 2, 2015
Attendance: Linda Underhill, Jim Perkins, Thomas Trabold, Deanna Jacobs, Carol De Filippo, Stephanie
Ludi, Marla Schweppe, Joe Hornak, Twyla Cummings, Joy, Sean Rommel, Sean Hansen, Danielle Smith
Discussion centered on Ph.D. Candidates and generating guidelines to establish who could take part in
graduation ceremonies based on their level of completion of their dissertation. The outcome of the
discussion is to determine who should establish these guideline to be used throughout the university
including what evidence is acceptable to use that the dissertation is complete.
Discussion:
 Current status is each college with a Ph.D. decides who can be part of the ceremony. Some the
Dean makes the judgment if the candidate is not completed their defense and others it is the Ph.D.
director who decides.
 Benchmarking with other universities- a certain degree of variability but most seem to require
dissertation completion and revisions by a certain date to participate in one or more graduation
ceremonies the university has throughout the year.
 A possible guideline is students could participate in the graduation ceremony if their defense date
is schedule.
 Questions related to the student experience including do they care more for the defense being
completed when they actually earn the doctorate or the hooding ceremony? Also if a student does
not participate in the graduation ceremony does it impact on their feelings about the University
and their future support as an alumnus? What is the impact on families if a student does not
participate in the graduation ceremony, are they disappointed? Should RIT have more than one
graduation ceremony per year to off-set stricter university guidelines about who can patriciate?
 A question was raised on what harm does it do if the students participate in the graduation
ceremony and have not completed their research/dissertation. The response was the
credibility/perception of the University allowing students not very near to completion participating
in a ceremony that celebrates their completion of their degree.
The discussion concluded with the council voting on the question “should there be firm deadlines
candidates have to meet to participate in the graduation ceremony including hooding”?
Results:
Yes- 11 members
No- 2 members
Given the results of the Graduate Council deliberations it was decided rather than Graduate council
developing these guidelines the decision was made that those most affected by this decision would
develop the guidelines. A request will be made to Hector to ask the Ph.D. directors to develop a
proposal to send back to Graduate Council with specific guidelines for candidates to meet to participate
in the graduation ceremony and hooding. It was pointed out to Graduate Council the Ph.D. directors will
want to know who is requiring a change in what is already in practice for them to develop a proposal.