Information for current graduate students

Receiving NAU credit for courses taken at another institution requires the completion of a transfer credit petition. This petition must be approved by your advisor, ME administrators, and the NAU Graduate College before transferred courses will appear on your transcript.

Please see some instructions useful in correctly completing this petition and then contact the Program Coordinator for further assistance.

The authoritative resource for almost all important policies governing graduate study is the NAU catalog, and graduate students should review all policies (particularly if you are involved in our educational mission through a graduate teaching assistantship, since you will also need to master policies related to undergraduate programs). Some particularly important policies to more carefully read through include:

• Academic Continuation, Probation, Dismissal, and Readmission – Graduate (100319)
• Academic Appeal Policy and University Graduate Committee Hearing Panel (UGCHP), Graduate (100103)
• Academic Integrity Policy (100601)
• Applying for Graduation, Graduate Students (100334))
• Continuous Enrollment, Graduate (100326)
• Course Loads and Overloads, Graduate (100324)
• Course Repeat, Graduate (100318)
• GPA (Grade Point Average) Requirements for Graduate Students (100407)
• Requirements for Master’s Degrees (100811)
• Requirements for the Doctoral Degree, Ph.D (100805)
• Requirements for Theses and Dissertations (100806)
• Transfer Credit, Graduate Students (100336)

Program Requirements 

First semester

• Attend orientation with the Graduate College and separately with your department
• Meet with the faculty contact/project advisor in your department to develop your program of study
• Submit a petition for transfer credit if you have transferrable courses
• Project students only: submit your record masters project committee form by the end of the semester
  submit your project proposal

 Second semester

• Submit your program of study form to the department

Semester before graduation

• Submit your graduation application to the graduate college. Your program of study must be uploaded to the milestones area in LOUIE before you can submit your application.  Information on the graduation application, deadlines, and commencement can be found on the graduate college website.
• Coursework only students: Talk to faculty about serving on your exit interview committee
• Project Students only: Meet with your project committee to complete a project progress report

 Final semester

• Submit a final program of study if change have been made
• Review program timeline as well as graduate college’s checklist to ensure that all requirements are met
• Coursework only students: Plan your oral exit interview
• Project students only: Plan your project defense in agreement with your committee

Project Defense/Exit Interview Information:

• Defending in the spring semester? Book your room before Spring Break. Plan to defend in April.
• Defending in the fall semester? Book your room before Veteran’s Day. Plan to defend in late November or early December.
• If necessary, you can defend in the summer. Book your room before Independence Day. Plan to defend in late July.

Forms

• Program of Study
• Project Proposal
• Advisory Committee
• Oral Examination
• Learning Objective Evaluation

Program requirements

First semester

• Attend orientation with the Graduate College and separately with your department
• Meet with the faculty contact in your department
• Determine who your faculty advisor will be
• Meet with your faculty advisor to develop your program of study
• Submit a petition for transfer credit if you have transferrable courses
• Plan research and thesis timeline with your faculty advisor

Second semester

• Submit your advisory committee form to the department
• Submit your program of study form to the department

Semester before graduation

• Submit your thesis proposal to the department early on in the semester
• Submit your graduation application to the graduate college. Your program of study must be uploaded to the milestones area in LOUIE before you can submit your application.  Information on the graduation application, deadlines, and commencement can be found on the graduate college website.

Last semester

• Submit graduation addendum form to the department if any changes must be made to your application
• Review program timeline as well as graduate college’s checklist to ensure that all requirements are met
• Plan your thesis defense in agreement with your advisory committee

Note: Once you begin taking thesis credits you must continue to be enrolled in at least one credit of thesis until you graduate. Each semester you plan enroll in thesis credits email egrmasters@nau.edu before the start of the semester with information on the number of credits you wish to be enrolled in and the name of your faculty advisor.

Information on Thesis Defense

You will defend your thesis towards the end of your last semester. In addition to our departmental guidelines, please consult the Graduate College’s checklist and thesis webpage for additional information that you will need.

A step-by-step guide to planning your thesis defense is provided below:

Schedule your defense

• Determine availability with your advisory committee; all your committee members must all be present at your thesis defense
• Email egrmasters@nau.edu to request a date and time. Your thesis defense will be scheduled for a two-hour time frame
• IMPORTANT- Follow these guidelines for your scheduling and defending
  • Defending in the spring semester? Book your room before Spring Break. Plan to defend in April.
  • Defending in the fall semester? Book your room before Veteran’s Day. Plan to defend in late November or early December.
  • Summer defenses are not allowed except for in exceptional circumstances. Contact the program coordinator if you need to defend in the summer.

  Defend your thesis

•  Two weeks before defense:
  • Submit your thesis to your advisory committee for review.
  • Confirm your date and time with egrmasters@nau.edu.
  • Submit your thesis to NAU ETD website.
• One week before defense:
  • The department will announce your public thesis defense to all faculty and students in CEIAS.

• Day of your defense:
  • Ensure that your thesis committee has a blank copy of the Final Oral Defense form and Learning Objectives forms.

Forms

• Program of Study
• Advisory Committee
• Thesis Proposal
• Oral Defense Form 1
• Learning Evaluation Evaluation

Program Requirements

• Doctor of Philosophy in Bioengineering
• Doctor of Philosophy in Earth Sciences & Environmental Sustainability- Engineering Sustainable Systems

Current Programs of Study

• Doctor of Philosophy in Bioengineering
• Doctor of Philosophy in Earth Sciences & Environmental Sustainability- Engineering Sustainable Systems

You can also review catalog descriptions and programs of study for previous catalog years.

The NAU Graduate College provides an up-to-date listing of deadlines associated with applying for graduation, deadlines associated with thesis and dissertation defenses, as well as a repository of most important forms you may need as a graduate student.

The department offers two types of assistantships: Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTA) and Graduate Research Assistantships (GRA). Both types of assistantships normally require approximately 20 hours of work per week and include a full tuition waiver (excluding university and program fees), a waiver of fees for student health insurance, and a stipend paid to the student (as of Fall 2018, the stipend for master’s students is $17,000 per academic year and the stipend for doctoral students is $20,000 academic per year). Graduate assistants (either GTA or GRA) with 20 hour/week assistantships are prohibited from any additional employment at NAU without a specific exception being granted–contact the Associate Director for Research and Graduate Programs for more information.

It is important to emphasize that you may have a balance due on your account, even if you’re being supported by an assistantship, due to the fees that are not normally included in your assistantship. GRAs who are funded through grants or some other faculty-provided means may contact their research supervisor directly to inquire as to whether these fees are something that the advisor has funding to cover.

The NAU Graduate College provides more general information about assistantships in their handbook.

Graduate teaching assistantships

The ME department  is the employer for GTAs, so your GTA duties are assigned to you directly by the Associate Chair for Research and Graduate Programs, not your research advisor. Before any term during which you are employed as a GTA, you will receive an email asking you to report your time availability for a variety of potential course assignments. Using this information, you will then receive a notification email letting you know which courses and/or lab sections you have been assigned to–this email will also include contact information for the NAU faculty that are assigned to supervise GTAs in that course. All further details, instructions, and day-to-day supervision will happen directly with supervising faculty. All GTAs also undergo an annual performance evaluation conducted by the department, where feedback is solicited from supervising faculty, and the outcomes of this evaluation are a major factor in the awarding of future GTA positions.

Graduate research assistantships

Individual faculty who are principal investigators of grants are the employer for GRAs, and GRA duties are directly assigned by these faculty supervisors. Who this faculty is communicated when a student is awarded a GRA position, and all further duties will be assigned by this supervising faculty. GRAs are evaluated directly by their supervising faculty.

A number of fees are mandatory of all NAU graduate students, are not included as part of either Graduate Teaching or Graduate Research Assistantships, and are the responsibility of each student. All students should review NAU’s fee descriptions, and a summary of mandatory fees appears below (amounts are current as of Spring 2018):

• Health and Recreation fee: $250/semester
• Information Technology fee: $168/semester (for 12 units of enrolled classes; less for fewer units)
• Athletics: $75/semester
• Transportation fee: $75/semester
• Financial Aid Trust fee: $41/semester
• Graduation application fee (only in the semester of graduation): $35
• Student Activity fee: $25/semester
• Graduate Matriculation fee (only in the first semester): $25
• ID Card fee (only in the first semester: $25
• Graduate Student Government fee: $23/semester
• Green fee: $5/semester

Other fees

Other fees are not mandatory, and depend on specific student situations and course selection. These fees may include: Class fees, parking permit costs, fees associated with housing and meal plans, late payment fees, late registration fees, and fees associated with special petitions or requests.

Most ME graduate courses are offered every other year.  A few select classes (e.g. ME 554 and 556) are offered every year.