Dissertation Defense - Pass With Honors

The following are Proposed Guidelines for a Pass with Honors for the Ph.D. Final Defense (Approved April 2013)

The award of a Pass with Honors for the Ph. D. defense is the decision of the Ph.D. committee. Currently the criteria used are entirely at the discretion of the committee. The following guidelines are intended to help standardize this decision in the department.

The following elements will generally all need to be present when granting a Pass with Honors.

  1. Original research with a publication record.
  2. Overall well written and presented thesis. Using the department’s “Written Communication Learning Outcomes”, the student should have a score of at least “very good” in each of the six written communication learning categories from a majority of the committee members. These categories are:
    1. Introduction / Statement of the Problem
    2. Grounding in the Literature
    3. Methodology / Approach
    4. Results / Analysis
    5. Discussion / Conclusion
    6. Quality of Writing
  1. The student should be perceived by the committee to be in the top quartile (25%) of defending Ph.D. students in the department
  2. The decision to grant Honors should normally be the consensus of at least four of the committee members.

Very good oral presentation and defense indicating detailed understanding of the thesis and related issues and the ability of the student to think and communicate well on their feet.

The committee is requested to write up a brief paragraph to serve as a summary statement outlining their rationale for awarding Honors.