Appointment of Master's Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation Committee (GO-16 Form)

This form must be submitted to Graduate Academic Services by the appropriate deadline.

Doctoral students must submit their GO-16 a minimum of six weeks before the anticipated date of the proposal defense.
For master’s students, the GO-16 submission deadlines are based on the intended term of graduation.

You must have current term registration in order for your GO-16 to be processed by Graduate Academic Services. You can submit a GO-16 even if you are not currently registered, but if you do not register shortly after submitting the form it will slow the approval of your committee appointment.

Your committee must be approved by Graduate Academic Services before you hold your defense.

Student Information
Committee Chair Information
Department Staff Information
Program Approver Information

Student

BEFORE YOU BEGIN filling out the form: carefully read the following instructions, down to the link to the GO-16 form, in their entirety.

You and your Thesis/Dissertation Chair must have already agreed on the composition of your committee.

You must have at hand when you fill out the form:

The proposed title or topic of your thesis or dissertation. A proposed title or topic is sufficient for processing purposes.
Your estimated date of defense, which is a final defense for a master’s student or a proposal defense for a doctoral student. We are only asking for an estimated date for processing purposes; this does not need to be a specific date, and if your defense date ends up being moved forward you do not need to notify Graduate Academic Services of this change.
Required documentation if using Human Subjects in your research: Human Subjects (aka IRB) approval if you have access to it. IRB approval is required even if only using secondary data. The GO-16 form can be submitted without IRB approval; however, missing IRB approval will slow the approval of your committee appointment. Please note doctoral students who are using Human Subjects in their research frequently will not have IRB approval at the time a GO-16 is submitted, so it is acceptable to answer "yes" to Human Subjects involvement but not upload an attachment; however, the IRB approval will need to be submitted to Graduate Academic Services prior to advancement to candidacy.
Required documentation for off-campus members: A CV for an off-campus member if you have access to it. CV's must be a PDF file of the CV itself. Do not upload any other document file types or a document with links to the member's information. The GO-16 form can be submitted without a CV; however, a missing CV will slow the approval of your committee appointment.
If you select MA as your degree, you must identify the language you are using to meet the MA second language requirement. You must have completed the second language requirement, and the appropriate notification received by Graduate Academic Services, before your GO-16 can be approved.
For PSU committee members: pdx.edu email address and department name for each member. Note that some PSU committee members may have courtesy appointments; a courtesy appointment allows a committee member to count as PSU faculty, but the member is not actually a PSU employee. If one or more of your committee members does not have a pdx.edu email address, you will need to select "off campus" for their status; however, if the member has a courtesy appointment, we will nevertheless still count the member as "on campus" in terms of the required minimum number of PSU committee members. If you have questions about this, please email us at grad@pdx.edu or contact your department.
For off-campus members: name, email address, and institution name.
For PSU emeritus faculty members: pdx.edu email address, department name, and possibly name
While emeritus faculty are eligible to serve on thesis and dissertation committees, they may no longer have an active employment status that will auto populate their name in the committee member section of the form. For a regular committee member, begin by entering the emeritus faculty member's pdx.edu email. If they do not have an active employment status, the form will prompt you to designate the member as "off campus" (we will nevertheless still count the member as "on campus" in terms of the required minimum number of PSU committee members). You will then need to manually enter their first and last name. For a Committee Chair, begin by entering the emeritus faculty member's pdx.edu email and then tab out of the field. If their name does not auto populate - STOP. You will need to contact your department; the faculty member will need an affiliate account in order to be recognized as committee chair. You will not be able to submit your GO-16 form until this issue has been resolved.

Composition of thesis and dissertation committees

Master's thesis committees must consist of at least three and not more than five faculty members. The chair of the thesis committee must be regular, full-time PSU instructional faculty, tenured or tenure track, assistant professor or higher in rank; the other two to four committee members may be non-tenure track or adjunct faculty. Two of the committee members (the committee chair and one other member) must be from the student’s department; the third member may be from the student’s department or may be PSU faculty from another department or OHSU faculty. If it is necessary to go off campus for one additional committee member with specific expertise not available among PSU faculty, a CV for that proposed member must be submitted with the GO-16 form; this off-campus member must be in addition to the required three PSU faculty members. Members with a courtesy appointment will count as PSU faculty members in terms of determining PSU vs. off-campus membership, but at least half of the committee members must be PSU employees. All committee members must have master’s degrees or higher.
Doctoral dissertation committees must consist of at least four and not more than six faculty members. The chair of the dissertation committee must be regular, full-time PSU instructional faculty, tenured or tenure track, assistant professor or higher in rank; the other three to five committee members may include non-tenure track or adjunct faculty and/or members of the OHSU faculty. If it is necessary to go off campus for a committee member with specific expertise not available among PSU faculty, a CV for that proposed member must be submitted with the GO-16 form; this off-campus member may substitute for one of the three to five regular committee members. Members with a courtesy appointment will count as PSU faculty members in terms of determining PSU vs. off-campus membership, but the majority of the committee members must be PSU employees. All committee members must have doctoral degrees.
Co-Chair on doctoral committees: At the discretion of the program, the designation of Co-Chair can be requested on the GO-16 form for one regular member of the committee. The designation of Co-Chair recognizes the significant academic advising role of the committee member, but oversight of the process and procedures and all administrative responsibilities remains with the Chair. The Co-Chair can be an off-campus member.
All faculty members should be consulted and have agreed to serve on your committee before you list them on your GO-16 form.

The GO-16 form uses adaptive display. Once you complete and tab out of a field, or select a radio button, the next section of the form will be displayed. You must use the Tab key to exit out of the textboxes – do NOT use the Enter key.

In order to keep the GO-16 form as streamlined as possible, there are minimal instructions on the form itself. You may wish to keep this webpage and our walkthrough document open for reference while you are filling out the form.

Your work will not be saved; you must complete and submit the form in one session. The form will time out after 8 hours (the time out resets overnight, so it could be less than 8 hours overnight).

Appointment of Master's Thesis or Doctoral Dissertation Committee (GO-16 Form)
Digital form - Single Sign-On required

Committee Chair

You will receive an email with a link to the GO-16 form the student has submitted; you will need to authenticate through SSO using your Odin username and password. Please review the form carefully to ensure:

committee makeup matches what you and the student agreed on
estimated defense date is appropriate
verification that Human Subjects approval and/or CV for off-campus member(s) are attached, if applicable; if not, attach the documents if available
overall completeness and accuracy

Note: If one of the committee members has a courtesy appointment at PSU but does not have a pdx.edu email address, the student has been instructed to designate them as "off campus" on the GO-16 form. We will still count the member as "on campus" in terms of the required minimum number of PSU committee members; however, at least half of the committee members must be PSU employees for a thesis committee and a majority of the committee members must be PSU employees for a dissertation committee.

You can add an optional Comment if you wish to share additional information with the Department Staff, Program Approver, or Graduate Academic Services.

You must select either “Approve” or “Withdraw Form” and then MUST press the “Submit” button to complete the form.

IF you select “Withdraw Form”, a box will appear where you must enter a comment that will be emailed to the student explaining why the form was withdrawn.

Department Staff

You will receive an email with a link to the GO-16 form the Committee Chair has reviewed; you will need to authenticate through SSO using your Odin username and password. Please review the form carefully to ensure:

compliance with program policies for committee appointments
verification that Human Subjects and/or CV for off-campus member(s) are attached, if applicable; if not, attach the documents if available
overall completeness and accuracy

Courtesy Appointment Letters: these CANNOT be submitted as attachments through the digital GO-16 form as they contain confidential information that should not be available to the student and other committee members. As such, courtesy appointment letters MUST BE EMAILED to grad@pdx.edu with the student’s last name and “courtesy appointment letter” in the subject line. Please send the email as soon as possible after you have completed your checks and submitted the form.

Note: Per the instructions above, the student has been instructed to designate committee members who do not have a pdx.edu email address as "off campus" on the GO-16 form even if the committee member has a courtesy appointment and is considered to be PSU faculty for the purpose of the committee. We will still count the member as "on campus" in terms of the required minimum number of PSU committee members; however, at least half of the committee members must be PSU employees for a thesis committee and a majority of the committee members must be PSU employees for a dissertation committee.

You can add an optional Comment if you wish to share additional information with the Program Approver or Graduate Academic Services.

You must click the checkbox indicating you have completed your step and then MUST press the “Submit” button to complete the form.

In some programs, staff may not always perform checks before the form is routed for approval; nevertheless, the digital process has been built to route to staff so an action will need to be taken by staff in all instances.

Program Approver

You will receive an email with a link to the GO-16 form the Committee Chair and Department Staff have reviewed; you will need to authenticate through SSO using your Odin username and password. Please review the form carefully to ensure:

compliance with program policies for committee appointments
overall completeness and accuracy

You can add an optional Comment if you wish to share additional information with Graduate Academic Services.

You must select either “Approve” or “Withdraw Form” and then MUST press the “Submit” button to complete the form.

IF you select “Withdraw Form”, a box will appear where you must enter a comment that will be emailed to the student explaining why the form was withdrawn.

Once the Program Approver submits the form, it is routed to Graduate Academic Services for processing. Once the committee has been appointed, a notification email will be sent to the student, all committee members, and Department Staff.

The Graduate School considers a thesis or dissertation committee appointment to be for the duration of the student’s program. However, if the committee membership needs to be updated, a new GO-16 will need to be submitted that will supersede the previous one. If you have questions about revising a committee, or are unsure if a new GO-16 needs to be submitted, please contact Graduate Academic Services at grad@pdx.edu.

Please note that a new GO-16 should NOT be submitted in order to revise an estimated defense date or a proposed title or topic. If you think there is a vital change to a defense date or title/topic Graduate Academic Services needs to be aware of, please contact us at grad@pdx.edu.