Why Your Dissertation Committee Choice Might Backfire! (Avoid These Mistakes)

There are mistakes that people make. One of the mistakes I've seen people make is making the assumption that the person will automatically be on your committee. They can say, no, you don't want to just say, I'm choosing a committee member and I've decided that you're going to be my chair. That can be off putting to people saying, I've decided, here's what work you're going to do. Allow them to have free will to be part of this. So that's one of the mistakes. People get too familiar too quickly. We live in a world where I'm happy with people calling me Steve, but you should always default to oh, hi, you know, dear Dr. Jones, dear doctor and insert their name, showing the respect. Let them say, but call me Sam or Frida or whatever they like to be called. But if you violate that early, before they've given you permission, some people can tend to just be put off by that and say, yeah, no, I'm too busy. Another mistake I've seen is when you tell someone, I want to do research, a qualitative study on a certain thing, and this person has never done any qualitative research in their life or never been involved with qualitative research or quantitative. It can work the other way, meaning you haven't explored who they are and they more often than not are just going to reject, you know, your foray into getting them on your committee. Once you have found a chair, the person you want to work with, more often than not, you're going to need one, two, three, maybe even four other committee members, depending on your school. The composition is pretty much dictated. Before you go look for other committee members, it's always wise to ask your now new chair, are there people that you work well with that you would suggest we have part of this committee, which is the opposite of saying, are there people you don't want to do work with that you've had conflicts with? Very few people are going to answer that question, but they are going to tell you who they like. Because you can say, I need a methodologist. Is there you know, someone you recommend for this type of study? I need a content expert, I need someone from outside the department, if that needed, and you draw on their likes, preferences. But also when you're going to ask these other people, you are now saying, doctor, so and so has agreed to be my chair and has suggested that I ask, you know, see if you have interest in serving as whatever the role is on this committee on this topic. So again, you're asking them politely you want to introduce yourself, but now you have what's almost a referred lead because you get to use your chair's name, and that's going to get their attention more than you because they don't know who you are. So in my experience, the people who've done this well have started from a position of respect, understanding the uneven balance of power. The you don't have a lot of power in this situation. The people who come and say, look, I'm a consumer. You have to meet my needs. School may agree to that. But the individual faculty members are reluctant to be forced into something like that and reluctant to be involved in a nice way. And you want people feeling good at the beginning of the process, not feeling forced into things. I can think of a situation where a committee member left and I was put on the committee. So the student didn't even have a choice. I was just put on the committee. From that perspective, the student really should reach out and try to establish a bond with the new committee member. But what this student said was, well, I got delayed. You've got to approve this. And my response was, look, I understand where you are and I understand your concerns, but I have to read this and make sure that it complies with what's right for the institution, but also for you. So you're going to be putting out a good product. And he balked at that and said, no, it's got to be done. Because my plan was to finish at a certain date. And again, I said, I understand you had a plan, and I'm going to try to help you as best I can, but I can't just automatically approve. I did what I could for him, but I wasn't happy with the way I was treated. And you want happy committee members. So if a professor says no, they don't want to serve on your committee, that's fine. They have that option. You should go on to somebody else. If there are other options, you move forward and ask another person. Because if somebody says no, you don't just want them to. You don't want to force them into doing something they've already said no to. Should I ask the person in person or by email? More often than not, you're going to have to do it by email. Either you're at an institution where you're, you know, you're in Montana and your committee member or this potential committee member is in Georgia, or you're both in Georgia, but different schedules. It's hard to get catch up with them. Office hours maybe sometimes are Aspirational as opposed to something that are firmly kept. So an email and allowing a time to set up. Asking for a time to set up where you can have a conversation in person's great. You may not have as an option. Some people wonder how they impress a potential supervisor or committee member first. Don't try. If you try to impress, they're going to see through it. Be straightforward, tell them what you want to do in a sentence or two and ask if you can have a conversation. And from that conversation, that's where you get the chance to impress. Not by attempting to impress or bringing them flowers or whatever. It's allowing them to see your grasp of the material and your desire to work. Can there be negative consequences of trying too hard? Yeah, there can. You know, people can sense desperation. It's hard to work with somebody who's desperate sometimes. It's also hard to work with someone who already knows the answer. You don't know the answer. You're asking the questions at this point. So if you come in to your potential and say, I want to do research to prove that, insert whatever your area is, they're going to say, well, you already know the answer. Why are we doing the research you want to talk about? Well, what we don't know is A or B or C. And I want to explore that. That shows you have an inquisitive mind and involved in the scientific method. What can happen at times is committee members can disagree with each other and that's okay. A good discussion, a good exploring about different concepts or different ways that look at something can make your paper stronger. You're less likely to get disagreements if you get your committee set up properly at the beginning. But even then there can be different points of view, different things to talk about, and you comply and go along with that and try to answer what they're looking at. If it comes to the end and committee members still aren't agreeing, that's when your chair has to step in, hopefully a tenured chair, and be able to use some of their power as a chair and use that term loosely to help people find a path through to helping you end your journey successfully. Every once in a while I get a question, oh, I want somebody outside my university to be on my committee. There are schools that say you have to have somebody from outside of your department or your school on the committee. Typically, though, they mean within the university. Sometimes you can get people from outside the university. There can be pitfalls to that one. If your university says you need four committee members and they need to be three from your department and one from another department. And you want someone from outside your university. That means you now have a fifth member of your committee and that's five different voices to hear. And from the other side of this, you're asking someone to be involved on your committee and do work. Will your university pay them? A number of times they'll say no, it's not a mount environment, people. We're not going to pay them. And then it gets harder for someone to put in a considerable amount of time without being paid. So these are things to think about when you do this. How many people should be on a dissertation committee is a question. I've heard one is ideal because then there's only one you have to keep happy. What does your university say is the minimum number or the number you need? And that's the number you want to shoot for. The typical range of people on a committee that I'm seeing now is anywhere from counting your chair two to four. I've seen five. It's just more people. I've seen one once with six and that's more people to comment. But. But let's think about the other end of this process. If I want to set up a defense or a meeting with three people, I'm looking at three calendars, me and the two committee members. If I've got six committee members, I've got seven calendars that we have to coordinate with, which in this world today, you know, we might be talking two, three, four, five weeks out to coordinate that. So if you're on the dissertation journey and you found you know what we're talking about to be interesting and helpful and you're looking for more, join our free groups because we have master classes and more information like this. All you have to do to join is click the link below and we'd love to have you in the community. If you are at the beginning of this dissertation process, you're thinking of ideas and you're thinking, I need a committee. It's exciting, it really is, but it can also. You think about the fact that this is a journey. It's not a straight line, but you will be able to make it. And there's many people out here who are on your side and willing to support you, so good luck.