Approval of an External Master's Thesis


In certain circumstances, the program will waive the requirement of a Master's Thesis. In order to qualify for this waiver, the thesis must be issued in fields that fall within the domain of industrial relations and/or human resource management. In addition, the student must:

1. Receive approval of the thesis from the Graduate Director and a committee of at least two members of the IRHR Graduate Faculty. The committee will be assigned by the Graduate Director. Students must submit a copy of the final, defended form of the thesis to this committee. The committee will read the thesis and may choose to conduct an oral defense of the thesis. If the committee and the Graduate Director agree that the thesis meets their standards for an IRHR master's thesis, the master's thesis requirement will be waived. Approval of an external master's thesis will be given as early as possible in the student's first year, but no later than December 15.
   
   
2. The student must present the thesis to the Ph.D. Proseminar by February of their first year.
   
   
3. The student must rewrite the thesis into a journal article form for submission to an academic meeting or journal, preferably the latter. This article must be completed and approved by the above committee by August 1 just prior to the student's second year.
   
   
4. Additional requirements (e.g. translation in whole or in part) may be involved in the case of a thesis written in a language other than English.
   
   

Students who pursue this option will not receive the M.S. degree. Furthermore, their timetable for completion of the degree will be accelerated by one year. In order to maintain their status as a student in good standing, students who receive a waiver will be expected to sit for the Qualifying Exam in their second year and complete their dissertation in their fourth year.