The Final Oral Examination Panel

Composition

The examination panel consists of 5 members as follows:
  • The project liaison. The liaison assigned by the Honors committee will chair the panel.
  • The project advisor. If the project has two advisors then the panel has six members and the advisors must share a single vote.
  • An outside examiner. This will be someone from outside the Moravian College faculty.
  • Two other individuals knowledgeable in the candidate's area of research.
Early in Semester 2, at the second Honors conference, the candidate should submit an Examination Panel Nomination form to the liaison. These nominations are considered by the Honors committee and the candidate will be notified of approval.

Function

The panel must establish (a) the academic merits of the candidate's project and (b) the acceptability of the written format of the candidate's Honors Thesis. The scholarly practices and standards prevailing in the candidate's discipline in each instance will serve as the panel's standard for judgment. Deviations from such standards must have been approved by the Candidate's project advisor, and a signed statement to this effect must be included in the Thesis.

The panel will judge the thesis using the following criteria:
  1. scholarship
  2. originality in terms of the Candidate's handling of the project
  3. fulfillment of stated objectives, allowing for reasons why these objectives were not or could not be reached
  4. external standards of the thesis (structure, style, spelling, etc.)
  5. effort required to achieve the results presented
The Liaison has the authority to postpone the award of the grade of Honors or Pass until the Candidate has met the panel's instructions regarding changes to the Thesis.