Responsibilities

1.  Prior to the student's acceptance into the program

• Committment - provide a letter of support to Admissions Committee.  This letter should indicate the supervisor's committment to seeing the student through his/her entire program.  This letter is also evaluated as to whether or not the supervisor believes the student has the intelligence, the drive, and the discipline to finish a PhD and whether or not the supervisor believes that the proposed research is important, interdisciplinary, and doable?

2.  Building a program of study with the student

• Within the first month of a student’s program a Program of Study form must be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies office.  The form requires that after approval by the student's committee, you and the student sign-off on the details of the planned program.  As the details of the program of study change, you and the student will need to submit Program of Study Update forms to FGS.

3.  Providing guidance throughout the student’s program

It is expected that supervisors and committee members will support the student in the following ways:

• providing advice on funding
• encouraging publication & conference presentation writings
• determining the format and scheduling of comprehensives

As well, you will supervise the student's overall program of study, which includes:

• course selection
• preparation for comprehensives
• developing a thesis proposal
• conducting the necessary research
• composing and defending the thesis