Requirements for the PhD Degree

The Doctor of Philosophy is a terminal degree that is generally considered the research degree in geological sciences. Those obtaining the PhD generally are employed as university faculty, in government or industrial research laboratories, and, increasingly, by environmental and engineering companies. The PhD student learns, with the aid of a faculty advisor, how to design and conduct an independent research program. He/she considers fundamental geological problems and determines the proper questions to be answered to solve the problems. You are required to conduct a successful research program that commonly crosses between disciplines within geological science or other natural sciences, and to be able to communicate your results to others both orally and in written form. Our program for the PhD student is designed to enhance your scientific background through course work, to broaden your perspectives through a foreign language, and to sharpen your communication skills through oral presentations and the dissertation. The degree requirements, although many-faceted, are much less prescribed than those of the MS student. You are afforded the opportunity to explore the aspects of mathematical, physical, and biological sciences relevant to the solution of a geological problem.

Timetable for PhD

The timetable for completion of the PhD generally spans four years, although it is possible to complete the requirements in three years. Some students find it necessary to take longer than four years because of the demands of the course and research program chosen, financial considerations, or other factors. The student generally spends the first year to year-and-a-half taking courses. The student chooses his/her advisor during this period. The advisor guides the choice of courses and discusses possible research topics for the dissertation. As soon as possible, the student chooses a dissertation committee to oversee the timely completion of the degree. Committee members must be approved by the Graduate Program Committee and The Graduate School. The dissertation proposal should be completed by the end of the third academic-year semester in residence. During the second year, and no later than the end of the fourth academic-year semester in residence, the student undergoes a comprehensive examination. Successful completion of this examination, publication of a research paper, and completion of the foreign language requirement are necessary for admission to candidacy to the PhD. Most students spend about two years completing and defending the dissertation. The Graduate School has established a time limit of eight years from the time of enrollment for completion of the PhD degree requirements.

Prerequisites

The prerequisite for admission to the PhD program is normally an MS in geology. Students with this credential are presumed to have a background equivalent to that of a student with an MS in geological sciences from UTK. (See the section on prerequisites and course requirements for the MS degree). Students with a bachelor's degree in geology or a degree in another discipline may also be admitted to the PhD program. These students must also satisfy the prerequisites for the MS degree; deficiencies must be remedied prior to completion of the degree requirements. The DGS will appoint an ad hoc committee to determine deficiency requirements for students lacking the BS or MS degree in geology. This committee will meet prior to the start of the student's first term.

Course Requirements

The Graduate School requires a minimum of 24 semester hours of graded (A-F) graduate course work. Nine of these must be in PhD-level seminar courses (600-level), and 18 must be taken in the Department of Geological Sciences. The remainder may be taken in other departments. Students who enter the PhD program without the MS degree are required by the Graduate School to take an additional 24 hours of graded, graduate course work. In addition, the Department requires that at least 9 of these hours (i.e., 3 courses) be from three of the five distribution groups for MS students (Table 1). No more than one-fourth of all graduate hours, including dissertation, may be taken for S/NC (satisfactory/no credit) grades. The only geology course you are likely to take with S/NC grading is Geology 595, Selected Topics in Geology.

You must register for Selected Topics in Geology (Geology 595) during your first four years. This course is a departmental seminar, held on Thursday afternoon, where faculty, students, and guests present lectures about current research in geology. You will have the opportunity to participate in this series of lectures. Consult the section on the seminar for details. Exceptions can be made if you are to be off campus for a semester, e.g., for conducting field work. If you anticipate being off campus for a semester, you should discuss this with the faculty seminar coordinator.

A full load is considered to be nine to 12 credit hours. The maximum load is 15 hours, although a student with a cumulative GPA 3.6 may petition The Graduate School to be allowed to take up to 18 hours. Graduate students in geological sciences usually carry the normal full load, and course loads of more than 12 or 13 hours are rare because of the demands of graduate courses and the other requirements of the PhD program.

These course requirements constitute the minimum. You may take additional courses necessary for your studies, as determined by your committee, or to simply satisfy your curiosity.

The course work you take depends on the nature of your dissertation and on your interests. You should choose the courses in consultation with your advisor. In some cases, your dissertation committee will require you to take certain courses that it feels are necessary to complete your background.

Comprehensive Examination and Dissertation Proposal

All PhD students must pass a comprehensive examination to be completed by the end of the fourth semester in residence. The examination consists of two parts: a written test in subject areas relevant to your research interests, and an oral examination and defense of a research proposal.

Prior to the examination, you and your advisor must assemble a dissertation committee consisting of faculty with similar research interests. The committee must consist of a minimum of four members, one of whom will be from a department on campus other than Geological Sciences. At least three members must be certified by The Graduate School to direct PhD students; the advisor must be certified. The outside (non-geology) person should participate in the proposal presentation, the written exam, and final defense, but participation in the comprehensive oral exam is left to the discretion of the dissertation committee, after consultation with the outside member.

Once your committee has been formed, you are required to prepare a research proposal to be defended. This is the dissertation proposal, and is circulated to the faculty for their comments, and a copy of the approved version placed in your file. It may be a published paper the student has written, or it may be a new proposal. The proposal should consist of text, figures, and references necessary to state a research problem, the importance to geology, and the method proposed for a solution. The dissertation proposal should be completed and approved early in the third semester with exceptions granted to students bypassing the MS or lacking an undergraduate degree in geology. The research proposal and a form, obtained from the Office of Graduate Admissions and Records and approved by the dissertation committee should be submitted to the DGS no later than four weeks prior to the end of the third semester in residence, excluding summer.

You should meet with your committee to determine whether or not your planned course work is appropriate for the dissertation. The committee will establish the dates for the written and oral portions of the comprehensive examination and will decide on the topics to be covered on the written examination. Details of the mechanics and logistics of the written examination vary from committee to committee. Typically, each committee member prepares a written examination of about two-hours in length on a topic or a set of closely allied topics. You must pass the written part of the examination before you can take the oral part.

The oral examination will consist of questions by the committee that will be of a deep and probing nature on any aspect of geological sciences. The oral examination is generally two hours in length. At the discretion of the committee, the examination is open to all faculty, but your committee decides whether or not you passed the examination.

Many students feel that the comprehensive examination is the most rigorous examination taken during their career. This examination is designed not only to test your knowledge, but also to determine whether you are capable of conducting an independent research program. Students who pass the examination are considered by the committee to be qualified to conduct PhD research. In some cases, the committee may feel that a student's performance on the exam was not adequate, and the student may be asked to repeat the examination at a later date. A student may not take the examination more than twice. Some students are determined not to be qualified to conduct PhD research; these students fail the examination.

Admission to Candidacy

A doctoral student must be admitted to candidacy no later than one full semester prior to completion of the PhD degree requirements. In order to be admitted to candidacy, you must have a GPA of at least 3.0 (B), you must have passed the comprehensive examination, and you must have fulfilled the foreign language requirement. In addition, you must have a research paper accepted for publication in a refereed journal. You need not be the first author, but must have made a major contribution to the study. This requirement provides experience in the timely reporting of scientific results.

To be admitted to candidacy, a yellow Admission to Candidacy application form should be obtained from the Office of Graduate Admissions and Records (218 Student Services Building). Fill out the form with a list of the courses you have taken, the grades received, and the remaining courses you plan to take. Obtain the necessary signatures and turn in the appropriate number of copies to the Office of Graduate Admissions and Records. The Graduate School checks to make sure all the requirements are satisfied and returns a copy to you. On the returned form, the Dean of the Graduate School will have indicated the date by which you must finish all requirements (eight years after entering the program). Please inform the DGS of your change in status to candidacy so that your departmental file can be updated.

Dissertation Requirements

Research on the dissertation topic generally begins during the first summer semester prior to preparation of the research proposal. You are expected to make satisfactory progress toward completion of the dissertation. The progress is monitored by your committee. Your committee should meet with you yearly or more frequently to review the intermediate results, and to offer suggestions and encouragement. Failure tomake satisfactory progress could result in the loss of financial aid or dismissal from the Graduate Program. These results are drastic and rare. Most students complete their dissertations in a timely fashion.

You must enroll for dissertation credit (Geology 600) each semester, including the summer semester, in which research is performed using University facilities and/or involving any faculty consultation. Once you begin registering for Geology 600, you are required to continuously register for a minimum of three hours of Geology 600 each semester. A total of 24 hours of Geology 600 are required for graduation. Students who will be absent from the University may request a leave of absence of up to two calendar years. During this period, the student need not register for Geology 600. This request must be approved by the Dean of The Graduate School.

The dissertation constitutes theofficial report of the results of your research. You are required to prepare the dissertation for journal publication. Typically two, three, or even more publications result from the research. Each may constitute a chapter, or several chapters, in the dissertation. The style in which the chapters are written depends on the nature of the material and the journals to which they have been or will be submitted. Additional data, background material, or description of procedures, which are not appropriate for journal publication, should be included as appendices in the dissertation. In some cases the dissertation work may be published prior to the defense. These chapters should be approved by your dissertation research committee before they are submitted to a journal for review. In such cases, the student must be the first author, the manuscript must be reviewed by the committee before submittal, and the work must have been performed while in the PhD program at UTK to be acceptable for inclusion in the dissertation. Research results submitted, but not yet accepted for publication, may be included in the dissertation. The final format of the dissertation must be approved by The Graduate School. Thesis consultants are available there to help ensure that margins are the proper size, acceptable fonts and other formats are employed, and so on. Usually, the only changes that are necessary to satisfy The Graduate School for dissertations with individually published chapters are to compile the individual references for each chapter into one bibliography and to maintain a consistent citation style. Dissertations prepared with reliable word-processing programs make editing and reformatting easy.

You are required to defend the dissertation, even if you have already published it! The dates before which the defense is to be scheduled, the dissertation defended, and the dissertation turned in to the Office of Graduate Admissions and Records in final form are published each semester in The Graduate School News, posted on the Graduate Program bulletin board on the second floor of Geological Sciences Building.

The first draft of the dissertation is normally submitted to your advisor. When the advisor concludes that the dissertation is suitable for distribution, a revised draft is presented to the other committee members for their comments and approval. The dissertation committee must receive the dissertation for review not less than two weeks before the anticipated date of defense. This is necessary so that the committee has time to read and approve the dissertation, the student has time to make changes, and a copy is placed in the departmental office one week prior to the defense for review by the faculty. The committee may require a longer period for review for lengthy dissertations. The dissertation that is defended should be complete in every respect, including text, maps, figures, tables, references, and appendices.

You must also post an announcement of the defense and an abstract of the dissertation on the Graduate Program bulletin board on the second floor of Geological Sciences Building at least one week prior to the defense. A notice will be posted in the student newspaper, The Daily Beacon, by The Graduate School. You must notify The Graduate School, in advance, of the date you intend to defend your dissertation.

The oral defense consists of two parts. The first is a public presentation of 20 to 30 minutes in length of the results of the research with a question-and-answer period following. The second is an examination, in private, by the committee and other interested faculty members. The committee, however, decides whether the student has passed the defense or not. The dissertation approval sheets are signed by the committee when the dissertation is acceptable in final form.

You are required to supply two unbound copies of the final dissertation to The Graduate School, one hardbound copy to the department, one copy to your advisor, usually hardbound, and one copy, generally softbound, to each of the members of your committee, if requested. The distribution of the copies is part of the requirements for the PhD and arrangements are to be made prior to graduation.