This message is being sent on behalf of Susan Porter, Dean and Vice-Provost, Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
Re: upcoming changes related to doctoral final examinations.
Summer Exam Room Availability
Unfortunately, the Graduate Student Centre will once again be undergoing renovations this summer that will make our doctoral examination rooms unsuitable for exams. We have been able to reserve two rooms in the Anthropology and Sociology Building (6303 North West Marine Drive; rooms 202 and 207) for defenses from July 13th to August 30th, and these can be booked through the G+PS Doctoral Exams Office in the usual way.
I’d also like to encourage programs to consider holding their students’ defenses in their own spaces. Guidance on room requirements and responsibilities is available on our website at https://www.grad.ubc.ca/current-students/final-doctoral-exam/scheduling-final-oral-defence.
Fall Exam Room Availability
Building construction in the Graduate Student Centre will continue into the fall and may continue to affect the suitability of our doctoral examination rooms. From August 31st onward, we will no longer have access to the rooms in the Anthropology and Sociology Building, and there may be days or weeks when, depending on the construction schedule, our rooms in the G+PS building will also be unavailable. In the absence of these rooms, programs will need to book and to hold their defences in their own spaces or elsewhere on the UBC campus or at one of the UBC-affiliated research sites. We are very sorry about this unpredictability, and will do our utmost to ensure that the exams are run as smoothly as possible.
Examination Programme Requirement Lifted
Due to questions as to the usefulness of the paper examination programmes provided to the examining committee at the defence, we have decided not to require that students submit a completed programme to our office. However, students, research supervisors, or graduate programs are still welcome to create and distribute a program should they wish to do so. For those seeking guidance, a template is available on our website at https://www.grad.ubc.ca/forms/examination-programme.