Faculty Handbook

The Provost's Office works with the college Deans and the Faculty Senate to develop and document policies to ensure the quality of Lawrence Tech's academic programs. The 2012 Faculty Handbook  documents the governance structure and processes here at Lawrence Tech to develop policies.

Administrative Practices for Doctoral Supervision

Dissertation Committee Co-Chairs: This practice clarifies administrative practice related to the 2012 Faculty Handbook, Section 2.1.1, Primary Academic Teaching Provisions: n) supervising no more than five (5) concurrent doctoral student dissertations. Doctoral dissertations are typically supervised by one (1) full-time LTU faculty member who is academically qualified in the area of the student's study. Thee may be isolated cases where a doctoral student dissertation is co-chaired between two faculty members. In these cases, each co-chaired dissertation counts as one (1) student towards each faculty member's limit of five (5) concurrent doctoral student dissertations.

If the College determines that a doctoral student dissertation is to be shared between two faculty members, both faculty members must be listed in Banner as instructors for all dissertation course CRNs. Any petition for having two full-time LTU faculty members co-chair a dissertation committee must be approved in advance by the College doctoral program director and the Dean of Graduate Studies. The rationale for co-chairing must be directly related to the research focus of the dissertation and the relevant experiences of the faculty members. Credit for shared dissertation supervision will be split equally between the two faculty members and recorded for purposes of future release time or payout once the dissertaton is completed. Consideration will not be given to petitions for more than two co-chairs.

An academically qualified faculty member from an accredited university can serve as a member of a LTU dissertation committee with approval by the doctoral program director. The CV of the external committee member must be placed on file in the College. An external faculty member may not serve as chair of a dissertation committee.

An LTU faculty member serving as a member of a dissertation committee at another university may be compensated by that university according to its practices. Faculty members would not receive LTU dissertation supervision credit for external committee membership, but the College may determine that such external committee membership could qualify as professional service.

Co-chairships are treated as exceptions to policy but can be justified under circumstances such as:

• The faculty members are CO-PIs on externally funded research projects.
• The faculty members serve as the technical expert on separate portions of the research scope of work.
• The faculty members are equally qualified (as demonstrated by their scholarly record) in the same domain of research as outlined in the scope of work.

This administrative practice has been approved by the doctoral program directors and deans of the College of Engineering and Management, in collaboration with the Dean of Graduate Studies. The decision was shared with the Deans' Council in November 2012.