Scheduling a PhD committee meeting

A colleague recently asked how I scheduled my PhD committee meeting.

In my case, it was challenging to bring multiple committee members into the same room at the same time. I think this is a challenge most PhD students face. Since scheduling committee meetings is such an important part of graduate education, I thought I might write it up as a guide to help, because poor scheduling can delay a meeting by weeks.

Now the challenge is that a committee meeting needs four or five busy academics in one room. Most people offer every possible time slot and ask each member to mark what works. This rarely finds a common slot. Claus Wilke advises against polls with 120 options. Eva Lefkowitz found that a 56-option poll made her answer without care. A long poll gives worse information, not better. So use the poll to confirm a time, not to find one.

Decide the time first and keep the options few

For a PhD dissertation, both the internal departmental exam and the final exam need your advisor, three to four committee members, and a chair, depending on the university. You and your advisor are the easiest to schedule. So fix a time with your advisor first. The poll then only has to fit the others.

How many options? Opinions differ. Wilke says three to five, and calls more than ten a mistake, because a short poll gets a fast reply. Lefkowitz says 10 to 20: too few find no common time, too many invite careless answers. Both agree on the basics. Fix a time with your advisor first. Remove the impossible times before you send the poll. Never show a full calendar.

I prefer the smaller number of at most 10. The more you settle first, the fewer options you need. So eliminate first, poll last. Do the groundwork and a few times are enough. Either way, every option should be one you have already checked.

Step 1 Agree with your advisor and remove the impossible times

Agree a time with your advisor before anyone else is involved. Once the advisor’s time is fixed, the poll has far less to do. Ask your supervisor directly, not through the poll.

Then remove options, do not add them. Drop the times your advisor cannot make. If the exam is in summer or near a holiday, ask each member about travel. Wilke goes further: just ask which days or times do not work. Faculty answer that fast, and it spares you from proposing times they would decline. Faculty calendars fill early, so start at least a month ahead. What is left is your set of options. It should already be short. In my case, though, I did not ask my committee members which days they do not work. But I did get the time from my advisor first.

Step 2 Place a tentative hold on the calendar

You and your advisor now have a preferred time and one or two backups. Put a tentative hold on those slots in both calendars before you send the poll. This keeps the advisor’s slot from being taken while the committee replies. It also gives you an event to confirm later. Keep it tentative. You are reserving the time, not announcing it.

Step 3 Build a short poll

Build the Doodle with only the options that survived Step 1. Give it a clear title, set the duration, and set your timezone. The rest of my setup was this:

No paid account or special feature is needed. What matters is few, vetted options, and deciding first.

Step 4 Send one short email

Send the poll link in one short email. Thank the committee, ask for their availability, and give the link. Send it to the members whose times you still need. Copy your advisor, who already knows from Step 1. This is close to what I sent, with the committee anonymized:

Once the poll closes

Pick the option everyone can make. Email the committee the confirmed time at once, before the slot is taken. Turn the tentative hold into the final invite. If someone did not reply, send them reminders. If no time works for everyone, send one more short poll. A second round may be needed, and is better than one large poll.

Checklist

• Started at least a month ahead
• Preferred time and one or two backups agreed with your advisor
• Impossible times removed: advisor’s conflicts, teaching schedules, travel
• Tentative hold placed on the remaining slots before polling
• Poll kept short, in one-hour blocks, with a clear title, duration, and timezone
• One short email with the poll link, advisor copied
• Confirmed time emailed to all, final invite sent, other holds cancelled