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Normal Progress Towards the Degree

  1. Entering masters candidates will be asked to speak with all ES faculty during the first month they are in the program, and will then be asked to give three choices for someone to serve as their mentor in the first semester. Taking these choices into account as much as possible, given the need to share mentoring responsibilities, each candidate will be assigned an ES faculty member who will serve as their primary faculty contact until they have been matched with a thesis supervisor at the end of the first semester. You should check in with this person regularly during this period. Although the mentor assigned for the first semester is a likely choice to serve as the thesis supervisor, candidates may elect other faculty as supervisors, depending on choice of topic and faculty availability.
  2. After the end of each semester, the ES faculty will review the progress of each master's degree candidate and will report the results of this review to each candidate (with a copy for each candidate's file). Performance in courses, progress toward completion of the thesis, quality of teaching (if appropriate) and contributions to the Center and particularly to the graduate student community will be considered.
  3. For full-time students (taking 3 course each semester in the first year), six courses should be completed satisfactorily by the end of the second semester. Part-time students obviously will require more time. A thesis proposal should be approved no later than the beginning of the second semester (for full-time students) and the beginning of the third semester for part-time students. The second reader for the thesis should be identified within a month after the thesis proposal is approved, and the third reader should be identified by no later than a month before the review draft of the thesis is submitted. Generally, the second reader is a member of the Brown faculty, who is not on the ES faculty, and the third reader usually is someone expert in the subject matter area of the thesis who is not on the Brown faculty. You should state your preference for a thesis supervisor (always an ES faculty member) at the time you submit your thesis proposal.
  4. The first semester of thesis registration (ENVS2980, usually taken in the second semester) is mandatory Satisfactory/No Credit. At a minimum, to receive a grade of Satisfactory, by the end of the semester, a solid thesis proposal must have been prepared.
  5. During the final semester of the student's work at Brown, results of the thesis will be presented to the Brown community as part of the regularly scheduled seminar series.
  6. At a time selected by the thesis supervisor (normally after the review draft of the thesis has been read and commented on by all readers), a thesis evaluation will be conducted by the Environmental Studies faculty and the readers of the thesis. The candidate will make a summary presentation of thesis results, and respond to questions about these results and their implications. The thesis supervisor will be responsible for communicating the results of the evaluation to the candidate, including the specifics of revisions or additional work that will be required.
  7. The requirements for the degree should be completed in no more than three years after entering the program (two years in the case of integrated degree candidates). If an extension of this deadline is necessary, a written request should be submitted before the end of the three-year period. Extensions will not be routinely approved, and will be granted only under extenuating circumstances and when the request sets forth a realistic plan for expeditious completion.