Supervisory Committee

Major Advisor: To ensure timely direction, a student is accepted into the Master program only if a tentative major advisor has been arranged. The assignment of a tentative major advisor occurs during the admission process (see Admissions). Students interested in working with two faculty members can be assigned co-advisors.

Note: Only Biology Graduate Faculty can serve as Major Advisors. Adjunct Graduate Faculty can serve as co-Advisors. If a student has a co-Advisor, they must also have a Major Advisor who is a member of the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences. Furthermore, the co-Advisor must have Graduate Faculty status in their home department or Adjunct Graduate status in the Department of Biological Sciences, UNC Charlotte.

Supervisory Committee: The committee, selected by the student in consultation with his/her major advisor, must include three members from the Biology Graduate Faculty. A typical Committee consists of a Major Advisor and two additional Committee members. Each student must submit a Request to Establish a Supervisory Committee form to the Graduate Coordinator. Special requests can be submitted to replace one member of the committee with a tenure-track faculty member from outside the Department of Biological Sciences, provided that the person holds graduate faculty status in their home department. The committee may include a fourth member, including Adjunct Faculty, only if that person has Graduate Faculty status. If the Major Advisor is not a member of the Biology Graduate Faculty, one of the three members from the Biology Faculty must serve as Co-Advisor. All Supervisory Committees must be approved by the Graduate Committee. The composition of the Supervisory Committee can be changed at any time through a petition to the Graduate Coordinator.

All Master’s students, both thesis track and non-thesis track, must have an approved Supervisory Committee by the end of the 2nd semester of graduate course work, and are strongly encouraged to establish their Supervisory Committee during the first semester of their two-year program, to ensure timely completion of program progression requirements (see Progression Requirements, Deadlines and Forms).