The NYU Philosophy PhD
Requirements for Your Thesis Defense
Defense Committee
You need an defense committee of five examiners.
Three of these will be dissertation readers
; they must approve your thesis before a defense date can be definitively scheduled. It is both typical and highly desirable that they will have worked with you and given you feedback through the years the thesis has been written. In other words, they are the three faculty you would normally call your dissertation committee
.
The other two examiners can be recruited once the defense date is set. Typically, your dissertation committee will arrange them for you (though they may ask you to do it).
At least three of the examiners, including two of the dissertation readers
, must be full-time NYU faculty. (More precisely, they must be full-time Graduate School of Arts and Sciences faculty.) Faculty who used to be full-time at NYU but have retired or moved count for this purpose.
That said, NYU allows and where appropriate
encourages you to use an outside reader. The Vice Dean must approve an outside dissertation reader (i.e., someone not from NYU Arts and Sciences) at least four months before the defense.
Scheduling the Defense
The defense cannot be scheduled until it has been approved by the three dissertation readers
.
You must submit your thesis for approval to all three readers at least four weeks before the date you hope to defend. This will give them time to read it, assess whether the project is sufficiently complete for a final defense, and/or ask for revisions before the defense.
The Defense Itself
Defenses are open to the public, that is, to all interested parties who are not members of the examination committee itself (typically other faculty and graduate students in the department, friends, family and so on).
Although there are no official requirements, a defense may have three stages:
- The candidate presents a brief overview of the thesis.
- Both the examiners and the
public
ask questions about the thesis. - The examiners may in some circumstances ask further questions of the candidate in private.
Four out of the five examiners must vote to approve the dissertation, in order for you to pass the defense.
Timeline
- Arrange dissertation committee of three readers (at least two from GSAS).
- Write thesis under the committee's guidance.
- Talk to Debbie about formal and bureaucratic requirements for graduation.
- Ask your dissertation committee to recruit two further examiners for the defense.
- Submit thesis to readers for approval at least four weeks before you hope to defend.
- Defend.
- Graduate.