Justice Studies M.A. Thesis Defense Procedures

The candidate and all members of the committee should be consulted in scheduling the defense, which should take place with sufficient time before the intended graduation deadline to ensure that revisions will be possible, (generally by late November in fall and by mid-April in spring).

Please Note: To schedule a defense, students must be registered in their second semester of the thesis and have already filed a Thesis Proposal Approval Form (sample) signed by all committee members, as well as having completed all other outstanding degree requirements (or being on track to complete these in the same semester as the defense).

Advertising

Defenses are public events. One to two weeks before the defense, it should be advertised to, at minimum, all Departmental faculty and all other students in the M.A. in Justice Studies program. It may be appropriate to advertise to interested faculty from other departments and to other students, such as those considering writing an honors thesis, potential M.A. students, and those interested in the topic. The candidate can invite whomever they wish to the defense as well. These guests should be taken into consideration when scheduling a room for the defense—it is likely that a classroom will be more appropriate than the department conference room. Scheduling should also take into consideration the fact that the committee will need to move to a private location for deliberations.

Presentation

Defenses begin with an introduction of the candidate and the committee by the committee chair. Then, the candidate is given about 20 minutes or so to make a formal presentation of the thesis. This presentation should be designed for an audience who has not read the thesis (e.g. the public audience) and should cover, at minimum, the research question, most important prior literature, methods, a brief summary of the findings, and implications. Some candidates may wish to additionally discuss how they came to the topic, what they learned from the thesis process, and what they might have done differently if starting over. Candidates can preemptively address any likely criticisms during the presentation.

Question and Answer Session

After the presentation, the chair moderates a question-and-answer session. Committee members’ questions should be prioritized, but time should be left for questions from the public audience as well.

Deliberation

Once the discussion has concluded, and with at least 40 minutes left in the scheduled defense time, the committee members should leave the room (if scheduled on Zoom, the committee members can go to a breakout room or put the candidate and guests in the waiting room) to deliberate. These deliberations should determine if:

• the candidate has passed the defense
• what edits and revisions the committee will require prior to final submission of the thesis
• whether the committee wants to see the thesis again before signing the approval form

As per the graduate manual, a successful defense requires unanimous approval by all committee members. If the defense is not successful, a repeat of the defense may be scheduled, and the committee determines how that will proceed.

Decision

When deliberations are complete, the committee returns to the defense room (or the committee chair brings everyone back together in the Zoom room). If the candidate has successfully passed, they should be congratulated, and then the chair, with assistance from committee members, outlines to the candidate the revisions that they will be required to make.

Committee chairs can (though are not required to) provide celebratory elements such as a sparkling non-alcoholic beverage at the conclusion of the defense. Remember that alcohol is not permitted in events with students at RIC.

The chair and candidate should plan to meet to further discuss revisions and develop a revision plan and, if required, a date for providing the revised thesis to the committee. All members of the committee must sign the Thesis Approval Sheet (sample). Committee members often agree to let the committee chair determine whether corrections and revisions have been made satisfactorily but do have the right to see the revised thesis before determining whether to sign.

The final thesis must be formatted in accordance with the Thesis Guidelines and copies must be delivered to Adams Library as noted in the Guidelines.

Once everything is complete, the Chair should let the Graduate Program Director and Records Office know that the student is ready to be processed for graduation.

Questions should be directed to the current Graduate Program Director.