Thesis and Dissertation
Thesis and Dissertation Deadlines
Deadlines for Fall 2026:
Deadline to submit to the dean’s office is Tuesday, December 1st.
All successfully defended theses and dissertations for the Fall 2026 term must be uploaded to the library by Wednesday, December 16th.
****All theses and dissertations uploaded are to be the FINAL version of your work. Once it is submitted to the library, it cannot be taken down.****
Helpful Tips for a Smooth Submission Process
The submission process is a multi-stage process. First you submit to the College dean’s office so that we can check that all documents and formatting are in order. Once you have College approval, you submit to the library’s document portal (“Vireo”). Here are three documents that are designed to help you with these steps:
You can find links to other helpful documents on the right-hand side of this page.
Thesis and Dissertation Committees
A master’s thesis committee consists of at least three members, one of whom may be a designated external reader; a doctoral dissertation committee consists of at least four members, one of whom must be a designated external reader. Departments may have their own rules about who may chair such committees and is eligible to be an external reader. In fall 2021, the CLASS graduate affairs committee developed some guidelines regarding external committee members based on common practices in the College. These are not requirements, but they may be a useful starting point for students and graduate advisors when discussing committee composition.
Many departments require students to gain departmental approval for their thesis or dissertation committee by a specific point in the program, usually in advance of a student’s final semester. Both the thesis committee form and dissertation committee form are available for this purpose. Please check whether your department uses these forms and, if so, at what point in the program they are due.
Obtaining College Approval
Once a thesis or dissertation has been successfully defended and approved by a faculty committee, the final version of the manuscript must be submitted to the dean’s office of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. The committee certifies that the manuscript is approved as to style and content, but the dean’s office has final authority in the acceptance of the manuscript. The manuscript must be grammatically correct, reflect clear communication ability and follow the standards presented in this document and in the specific style manual adopted by the program of study. Errors and omissions in the final version of the manuscript may delay the student’s degree conferral. The student should work closely with the advisor on issues of format and style.
The student should submit the properly formatted final copy as a PDF document to the office of the dean: CLASSGrad@central.uh.edu; the student’s committee chair should be cc'd on the email to receive a copy. The email should also have attached (as a PDF)
- the fully signed thesis/dissertation approval forms.
- an Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Report for the submitted research document showing that there are no sections that fail the review. See below for additional information.
All documents should be submitted no later than the deadline listed for each semester. Typically, this is two weeks prior to the conclusion of the semester. We encourage students to turn their thesis in earlier than this deadline to allow time to deal with any formatting or other problems that sometimes emerge at this final stage.
Students with questions about formatting or process may submit these to CLASSGrad@Central.uh.edu. We will respond as quickly as possible, but please allow 48 hours for a reply due to the heavy volume of queries.
College Graduate Program Staff will notify students once the thesis/dissertation has been reviewed, either to state that approval has been granted or to request any revisions that need to be made. Once approval has been obtained, the student must submit the digital copy to the Texas Digital Library(TDL). Please allow at least 5 business days for the College review process.
Formatting for Accessibility
All thesis and dissertation documents must comply with federal rules regarding accessible formatting. At UH this is checked once the final document is in PDF form, with students running an Accessibility Report inside Adobe PDF to verify that their document meets the minimum requirements set by UH. This document provides further information. The Graduate School web page may also provide additional resources to help you fulfill this requirement.
Preparing the Bound Copy(IF your department requires a bound copy)
Some departments may require students to submit one bound copy of their thesis/dissertation. Check with your home department to determine if this is required. The student is responsible for all costs and actions associated with binding and printing.
Printing Instructions
Students who wish to have a thesis or dissertation professionally bound may contact TrueColor Graphics directly. Documents may be submitted in person or electronically. Students are responsible for all printing and binding costs.
TrueColor Graphics
9020 Kirby Drive, Houston, TX 77054
Email: Rebeca Franco at rebeca@truecolorgraphics.com
Please allow 3–6 months for binding completion.