Graduate Milestones & Committees


 

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Graduate Milestones & Committees (PDF)

 

Introduction

All graduate students must complete certain academic and administrative requirements in order to graduate.  Some of these requirements, such as forming a thesis committee, defending a thesis or passing a general exam, are recorded as Graduate Milestones in SPIRE.  Note:  The Graduate School uses the term “thesis” primarily to refer to a master’s thesis and “dissertation” is used for a doctoral manuscript.  The rest of this document follows the Graduate School’s use of these terms.

View Graduate Milestones

  1. On your SPIRE Center, use the navigator to go to Academic Records > Career & Program Information > Graduate Milestones.
  2. The Student Milestones search screen opens.
  3. On the Student Milestones search screen:
  1. In the ID field, enter the 8-digit SPIRE ID of the student whose milestones you want see.
  2. If you don’t know the ID, enter the student’s Last Name and First Name farther down the screen.
  3. Click Search or press the Enter key. The Student Milestones screen opens. Note: If your search criteria match multiple students, a list of names appears on the search screen. Click any of the links associated with a student’s record to access the Student Milestones screen.
  4. On the Student Milestones screen:

Effective Date: Date of last update

Location

Field

Sample Values

Milestone Detail section

  • Milestone[1]
  • Milestone Nbr[2]
  • Milestone Complete
  • Academic Plan
  • Description of Milestone
  • Milestone Title
  • Transcript Level
  • Print Milestone Detail

M-OUTLINE, D-COMPS

10, 590, 1210

Completed, In Progress

MS-PSYCH

Master’s Outline/Prospectus[3]

Title of thesis or dissertation

Official, Unofficial

Always, Never

Location

Field

Sample Values

Attempts section

  • Attempt Nbr
  • Milestone Complete
  • How Attempted
     
  • Date Attempted

1, 2

Completed, In Progress, Not Completed

Exam Taken, Submitted work,
Submitted electronically

5/10/2015

[1] Milestones have 4 different letter designations: M (Masters)D (Doctoral), E (College of Education), P (Professional Doctoral). Language exams are listed without a letter designator but can be distinguished by the Milestone Number.

[2] Milestone number categories: 1-499 for Masters; 500-999 for Doctoral; >1000 for milestones entered by School of Education for their use only

[3] The terms “Outline,” “Prospectus,” and “Proposal” are used interchangeably by the Graduate School.

TIPS:

  1. SPIRE usually tracks one successfully completed attempt per milestone. Occasionally more than one attempt is recorded, e.g., when a candidate fails the dissertation defense and tries again.
  2. To see if a milestone will appear on the official transcript, check the Transcript Level and Print Milestone Detail in the Milestone Detail section.

 

 

 

 



View Graduate Committees

On your SPIRE Center, use the navigator to go to Academic Records > Career & Program Information > Graduate Committees:

Committee Designations Explained

The committee designation is made up of 6 characters, combined according to the following procedure: 

  • Start with the last 4 digits of the SPIRE ID.
  • Add M (Master’s) or D (Doctoral).
  • Add the first letter of the student’s last name if that results in a unique committee designation.  If the committee designation is already taken, try the next letter of the alphabet, and so on until a unique designation is found.

Example1234DL for Tom Jones, doctoral student, ID = 10001234.  In this example, the designations 1234DJ and 1234DK would have been used for d          doctoral dissertation committees for other students.  

We recommend that you access the Committees screen after you know the last 4 digits of the student’s ID.

  1. Using the navigator, go to Academic Records > Career & Program Information > Graduate Committees. The Manage Committees search screen opens.

Manage committees search screen

  1. On the Manage Committees search screen:
  • In the Committee field, enter the last 4 digits of the student’s 8-digit SPIRE ID.
  • Leave the other fields blank.
  • Click Search or press Enter.  One or more committees appear in the Search Results. Click any of the links in the row for the committee you want to view.
  1. On the Committee screen:

Location

Field

Sample Values

Committee tab

  • Committee
  • Effective Date
  • Status
  • Committee Name
  • Committee Type
     
  • Description

1234DB

03/10/2015

Active, Inactive

DDC for <student>

DISSRTATN, CAPTSONE, MASTERS, ADMIN

DDC[1] approved 9/8/08,
Outside member does not have GFS
[2]

Committee Members tab

  • Member Number
  • ID
  • Role
     
  • Start Date
  • End Date

1, 2, 3

1893XXXX

Chair, Co-Chair, Member

03/10/2012

05/04/2099


[1] Doctoral Dissertation Committee.  MTC (Master's Thesis Committee) is another possible value.

[2] Graduate Faculty Status

TIPS

  1. If the Committee Type field on the Committee tab is set to ADMIN, then there is a problem with the committee appointment. Comments about the problem appear in the Description field on the same tab.
  2. The Description field on the Committee tab usually contains the date the committee appointment was approved by the Graduate School. This field may also contain the date(s) the committee was revised or comments about a problem with the committee. 
  3. To see the members of a committee, go to the Committee Members tab.
  4. On the Committee Members tab, the End Date of any committee member will always be hypothetical (e.g., 05/04/2099).