School of Church Ministries
The School of Church Ministries offers several documents to help students in the preparation of both the prospectus and the dissertation:
Prospectus
- The initial stage of the dissertation process is the submission of a prospectus, which details the research questions and strategy for the dissertation
- Students must include the appropriate checklists with their prospectus submission
- There is one prospectus submission deadline each semester for SCM students, which is listed on the PhD calendar
Prospectus Hearing
- Students who submit a prospectus will be invited (if their prospectus is approved) to participate in a prospectus hearing in which they discuss and defend their prospectus
- There is one prospectus hearing date each semester for SCM students, which is listed on the PhD calendar
- After a successful prospectus hearing, students must make any revisions indicated by their committee and submit a finalized prospectus for faculty approval. The process for submission is as follows:
- First, make revisions to the prospectus and prepare an itemized list of all substantial changes to the prospectus with specific page numbers listed where the changes were made
- Second, submit electronic copies of both your revised prospectus and itemized list of changes to your supervising professor for approval
- Third, submit a hard copy of your approved revised prospectus to the Doctoral Studies Office for faculty approval` by the deadline indicated on the PhD calendar
Dissertation Defense Draft
- The dissertation defense draft is a completed version of the dissertation that students will defend at their dissertation hearing
- After students receive faculty approval of their prospectus, they may complete their research and craft their dissertation defense draft
- Students must include the appropriate checklists with their dissertation defense draft
- The Dissertation Submission Form must be turned in at the same time, which your supervisor must sign. If you mail in your dissertation copies, then an email from your supervisor is sufficient for their signature on the submission form
- There is one dissertation defense draft submission deadline each semester for SCM students, which is listed on the PhD calendar
Defense Hearing
- Students who submit a dissertation defense draft will be invited to participate in a dissertation defense hearing in which they discuss and defend their dissertation
- There is one dissertation defense hearing date each semester for SCM students, which is listed on the PhD calendar
- Students should bring a dissertation approval page to the oral defense for each copy of their final dissertation that they plan to submit (on appropriate paper) so that their committee members may sign them upon successful defense of the dissertation
Final Dissertation Submission
- SBTS Ph.D. and Th.M. thesis track students must submit an electronic copy of their final dissertation or thesis formatted as a PDF to Proquest/UMI. This electronic copy will also be placed within the seminary’s institutional repository. Details about electronic submission, creating PDFs, pricing and other information are available on the library website.
- Students must also purchase one bound copy of their dissertation or thesis for deposit within the library. The purchase of this copy takes place automatically as part of the electronic submission process. If students would like to purchase additional bound copies of their dissertation, they may do so when they submit electronically.
- The Boyce Library at SBTS has extensive information about the dissertation submission process, including a link to the dissertation submission service that students use to submit their final dissertation.
- Students will pay all fees associated with their dissertation through the Proquest/UMI dissertation submission interface. Final submission and payment of fees must be paid prior to graduation.
- Students are responsible for ensuring that electronic copies of the final dissertation are properly ordered according to the Dissertation Page Order Guidelines. Dissertations will be bound as received from the student, so any mistakes in page ordering made by the student will persist in the electronic and bound forms of the dissertation.
- SBTS Ph.D. and Th.M. thesis track graduates are required to submit to UMI’s publishing agreement as a part of the electronic submission process.
- SBTS PhD graduates are expected to participate in the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), which aggregates data about the educational history and future plans of doctoral graduates throughout the country. Students must fill out the online Survey of Earned Doctorates Questionnaire. After registering and completing the survey, students should choose to send the email confirmation of their questionnaire completion to thmphd@sbts.edu to notify the Doctoral Studies Office that they have fulfilled this requirement.
- Note: Failure to complete the electronic submission process or online SED questionnaire will prevent the Doctoral Studies Office from processing your final dissertation.
Fee Waiver
- Students who fail to meet graduation deadlines in a given semester can have their fee waived for the following semester if they meet certain requirements:
- Students must submit their completed defense draft prior to the final day of the semester. In other words, if students submit their defense draft prior to the final day of the fall semester in December, then they could qualify to have their spring tuition waived and graduate in May
- Students must submit a signed Fee Waiver Request Form with their defense draft prior to the last day of the semester
- Students must complete their oral defense and submit their final dissertation in accordance with the deadlines for the following semester
- Note: Fee waiver requests are evaluated on a case by case basis, and students should not assume that they qualify until their signed tuition approval form is approved by the Doctoral Studies Office
