Academic Senate policy states that a draft of the dissertation shall be given to each committee member at least four weeks before the examination date. Any departmental policy which is different must be cleared with outside members. The policy also states that the committee conducts the examination which is to be public and announced as such.

All committee members are required to be present at the examination. Graduate Council has, permitted any absent member to examine the candidate in advance of the exam date and to then sign off on the Final Report and the Signature Page. If the absent member has questions for the committee to consider at the exam, these should be forwarded to the committee chair and the committee chair should then withhold signature until those questions are resolved. This procedure should not be undertaken without the department and committee chair's advance approval. The committee chair and the tenured outside member must always be present at a defense exam.

The candidate is not "finished" until the dissertation has been filed with the Library and OGS has signed off on all paperwork

All committee members original signatures must be on the Final Report and on the Signature page of the thesis/dissertation.