Role of the Advisory Committee

Your graduate advisory committee plays a critical management role throughout your doctoral path. Their core functional responsibilities include:

• Collaborating with you to formulate your formal Graduate Study Plan (GSP) by your second semester.
• Establishing realistic, tailored milestones and operational timelines for project delivery.
• Reviewing course development metrics and providing ongoing research trajectory counseling.
• Assembling, testing, and verifying multi-stage comprehensive examinations and your public defense.
• Reviewing and submitting your required evaluation logs to the Graduate School.

Finalizing Appointment & Submission

The routing workflow is digitized. The tracking file can be initialized on the central page by you, your primary advisor, or your department’s graduate coordinator.

Go to Appointment of Committee Form

Milestone Action & Rules

In close coordination with your advisory team, map out your full structural timeline of coursework and research credit tracking. Your GSP acts as an agreement of mutual expectations between you and your faculty committee, safeguarding your academic trajectory as long as you maintain continuous program enrollment.

How to Build Your GSP

Consult with your advisor/committee before filling out the form, then execute these sequential steps:

1. Open the Form & Catalog: Open the active GSP form link. In a separate browser window, launch the UAF Academic Catalog (current) (Opens in new window) or matching the exact academic year you officially started your program path in the catalog archives (Opens in new window).
2. Locate Your Program: Click on the "Programs" menu at the top of the catalog page. Use the downward dropdown arrow next to "By degree type" and choose the degree you are seeking to view the live list of approved programs. Click your track.
3. Verify Credit Benchmarks: Pay strict attention to the Minimum credit requirements (located at the top of your program page), required thesis credits, and specific modules or coursework distributions mandated by your division.
4. Input Chronologically: When entering modules into the dynamic GSP form data fields, begin with the very first course you have taken or plan to take. To append additional rows for future tracking semesters, click the checkbox in the last column labeled "add another".

Annual Requirement

Each year, students, advisors, and committee members participate in an annual review to assess progress toward degree completion. As part of this process, students are required to submit a brief 2–5 page evaluation highlighting research or project milestones, academic achievements, challenges encountered, and goals for the coming year. You can use our Google Doc evaluation template (Opens in new window), PDF evaluation template (PDF) (Opens in new window), or create your own self-evaluation template.

Go to Annual Progress Report Form

Comprehensive Exams

Before advancing to candidacy, you must pass your written and oral comprehensive exams. For the oral defense portion, an objective faculty member from outside your department must be assigned by the Graduate School to oversee the integrity of the evaluation.

Achieving Candidate Status

Once your primary GSP coursework is behind you and your comprehensive exams are complete, you submit this form to officially advance to candidate status. This establishes with the grad school and degree services that you have met all degree requirements except for your written dissertation and dissertation defense.

Go to Advancement to Candidacy Form

Pre-Defense Setup

Prior to conducting your oral defense, you must request an Outside Examiner from the Graduate School and broadcast a public announcement of your defense date to the university community.

Post-Defense Documentation Workflow

Once your oral defense is complete, two formal documentation processes must be initiated immediately:

1. Report on Defense: Your committee submits the formal evaluation of your oral defense to the Graduate School within 10 days of your defense date.
2. Dissertation Approval Form: Initiate this dynamic form to collect required digital signatures confirming your manuscript is ready for departmental and administrative approval.

ProQuest Upload & Format Approval

Upload your manuscript as a single PDF to ProQuest ETD by the official semester submission deadline. The Graduate School will review your formatting and send required revisions directly to your email.

• Ensure preliminary pages (Title Page, Abstract, Table of Contents) adhere strictly to UAF formatting guidelines.
• Monitor your inbox for formatting feedback from the Graduate School layout reviewer.
• Submit all final formatting corrections within the 2-week post-deadline grace period.

Go to ProQuest ETD Portal (Opens in new window)