At the University of Maine, as at most universities in the United States, in order to be awarded a degree higher than a baccalaureate, one must seek out and constitute a Graduate Committee. This semi-formal body needs to meet only once. For most grad students, this is on the occasion of one's thesis or dissertation defense, an academic ritual in which one presents one's findings, demonstrates one's understanding of the material, is questioned as to one's methodology, and so forth. The committee then discusses the matter and decides whether the work merits the awarding of a degree.

In my case, I had to abandon my thesis during the great library shutdown of 2020 and complete my MA by coursework instead. I still have to have a committee, and it still has to meet once, but instead of a thesis defense, it's been described to me as more of a review of the work I've done as a graduate student, how it might be connected together, what further developments it might lead to, and generally whether I've been paying attention for the last... well, in my case seven years, because I've been a part-time student the whole time.

This has caused some problems.

The rules for constituting an MA committee at the University of Maine are simple, but fairly strict. It must consist of three faculty members in the same department as one's prospective degree (in my case, the History Department of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences). The candidate must have taken at least one course from each committee member. All must have been asked to take part and agreed (i.e., you can't just put their names down on the form and voilà, they're obliged to be on your committee).

I had my committee in place, my program of study filed, and whatnot last year, but between one thing and another, they weren't able to meet during the Fall 2021 semester, in which I actually completed the last of the required credits. That's why I'm taking a course this spring even though I don't really need it. Last week, my advisor (who is also the chair of my committee) and I determined that yes, everything's been done that needs to be done except the committee meeting, and set about trying to schedule it.

And it turns out to be impossible. There is literally no two-hour span within the month of March, when we'd have to do it in order for everything to go through for a May graduation, in which all three of them can meet. Not even virtually from different physical places. One of them is always teaching or attending to some other immovable duty when the others are available.

So, one of them (the one with the narrowest availability) chose to bow out. I'd have to replace him, and quickly, if we still want to get the thing done this semester.

And here's the thing: It's not possible. There is no one else who can take that spot within the rules described above. Apart from the three who were already on the committee, I've taken graduate courses from three other members of the University of Maine faculty in my time, but:

- One is not in the History Department (he's the Political Science professor who ran the Camden Conference course when I took it, both as an undergrad and then again a few years later for graduate credit);
- One has retired; and
- One is deceased.

So.

My advisor is now inquiring of the department and the Graduate School whether, under the circumstances, we can get permission to go ahead with two committee members. If not, she'll try to persuade the retired professor to join, which would still be legal as long as he's not the chair, although he is under absolutely no obligation to do so. Failing that, we'll have to wait until sometime in the summer term, or possibly next fall.

Punch line: Until fairly recently, MA committees at UMaine required (as PhD committees still do) five professors. Presumably the department was bigger then. Although, looking at the website, there are quite a number of history professors I've either only worked with as an undergrad, or never met, presumably because they're into things I wasn't interested in taking courses about. Perhaps there's an attempt to steer students toward "well-roundedness" built into the system that I missed, although that seems like a weird thing to be trying to instill at the graduate level, when we're supposed to be specializing.

So yeah! That's a thing that's happening. Or rather not happening, as of right now.

The fact that some of my grad-level coursework goes back seven and a half years, to the tail end of my undergrad career (when I started taking above-400-level courses for later graduate credit), is a separate issue. I don't even remember some of my earliest grad courses. I do have all the files that I can reread to remind myself, but you know, this is not a great time to be trying to concentrate.

--G.
By an odd coincidence, that second Camden Conference I attended as a grad student, way back in February of 2015, had as its topic the resurgent threat to world stability posed by Russia, which had seized the Crimea the year before. I even wrote a paper suggesting that the rest of Ukraine was probably next.
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