Prepare to Chair: Leading the Dissertation and Thesis Process

by Gretchen Oltman, Jeanne L. Surface, Kay Keiser

Leading the thesis or dissertation process can be a challenging and rewarding experience. However, serving as a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis Chair is often a role assumed with very little faculty development and a lot of guesswork. Many new (and yes, even experienced) Chairs rely on the secondhand advice of seasoned faculty or on their own lived experiences as graduate students (both good and bad). This can lead to confusion, frustration, and contentious relationships. Without a chairperson who is invested and who has a clear set of best practices, both the Chair and the student are left guessing as to the best course to proceed This book provides a clear set of best practices for the dissertation or thesis chairperson by providing hands-on tools, real-life illustrations, and practical advice for any faculty member guiding and coaching the student through the thesis or dissertation process.

239 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 24, 2019

Reviews

[Marci Stone]

There are very few books out there that help you to prepare to be a doctoral chair. I am new to this and found this book helpful. This book has quite a few useful tips for a new chair and it was easy to read. I loved one of the quotes early in the book about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. It’s a great suggestion and works well for those students who think they know everything (and yet seem to stand in their own way) as they move through the process of completing a doctoral dissertation.

I would’ve like to have seen some information on the actual process of developing a doctoral dissertation, and moving students through the five chapters. There seems to be several different thought processes of how to do this, and perhaps even touching on what those are, and what they mean would be useful to new chairs as they try to determine the type of chair they’d like to be.