COMMITTEE PARTICIPATION

IMPORTANT NOTES

Regardless of who you want to work with, you'll want to be in touch with potential advisors and committee members as early as possible. (Ideally you'll be in contact with us prior to your application to Auburn)
You are ultimately responsible for keeping track of your own progress through the program through the Doctoral Checklist.

With all prospective students, we will have at least one initial meeting. In that meeting, I want to find out:

Based on your answers to those questions, we will decide when/how often to meet, our expectations for those meetings, and when to submit stuff to me.

I expect that all students interested in working with me will have taken at least one class with me, and done your best work. If this is impossible because of my teaching rotation, I will encourage you to contact me about auditing a comparable undergraduate course.
I strongly encourage students to select courses that allow them to consolidate their knowledge base and try out new methodologies, and to think about their seminar papers as ways to test out ideas in service of their research.

When I agree to serve, I expect to know:

Who your chair is. Your chair will be able to guide you to select committee members who share compatible expectations. My first question to you will be "who is chairing?" as all major decisions are a collaboration between you and your chair.
Your rough timeline to completion. That way I can let you know if some vital component of your plan may be affected by anticipated leaves, etc.
What your dissertation/eportfolio is "for" -- what kind of scholar do you want to be? What are your current post-degree plans?
The structure of your dissertation/eportfolio
What you and your chair envision my contribution to be. What field am I representing in your work? What kind of reader do you need? How often do you expect to share work with me, and at what stage?

Once I am on your committee, I expect:

Written work submitted in a timely manner. At the beginning of semesters, I can turn around work in 3 weeks or less. The closer it gets to midterm or the end of the semester, the longer that wait will be. While I will ensure that your work has priority in the lead up to your defense, you will still want to give yourself a good buffer.
Related note for doctoral students: at minimum, I expect to be notified of your intention to defend at the same time that you notify Auburn of your intent to graduate (in other words, by the end of the semester before the one in which you expect to graduate). I will be even more pleased if I am kept in the loop on an annual/semesterly basis about your progress.

You can expect an engaged and enthusiastic supporter of you and your work, regardless of your future path.
You can expect me to be clear about my availability as far into the future as I can.
You can expect to get email responses within 48 hours.
You can expect to use me as a sounding board about professionalization: what conferences to attend, doctoral or job applications, etc.
You can expect me to facilitate introductions to scholars in your field to the best of my ability when you request it: in person when we attend the same conference, virtually before you go off to a conference on your own, etc.