Graduate Student Contact Address
Share your current residential address, phone number, and email address with Ms. Candice Lewis, Administrative Assistant in the Consumer and Design Sciences Department Office (Spidle 308). It is your responsibility to keep this updated.

Also make sure that your name, address, and phone number listing in university records is correct and updated as needed. This can be done on AU Access. Sign up for AU Alert for emergency notifications.

Access to Department and Graduate Student Offices
If you are a GA, you will be assigned to a graduate student office space on first or third floor. Some of these have card-swipe access and others require checking out a key from Auburn University Facilities Management (334-844-4810). All GAs should get a key for access the Department Office (308). (A single key can open both your office and 308. You will be accountable for returning the key/s to Facilities Management when your assistantship is completed.

Use of CADS Office and Supplies
Department-purchased supplies housed in 308 are only to be used if needed for completion of GA responsibilities and tasks. This includes using the copier/printer. Supplies, printer, and copier are NOT for personal use, e.g., course, thesis, or dissertation requirements. You will be given an access code for the copier only if you regularly require its use for your assistantship, e.g., in teaching tasks. Otherwise, your assistantship supervisor may need to allow you to use her code to complete a specific task.

Access to Spidle Hall and Computer Labs
Your Auburn ID card will give you card-swipe access to Spidle Hall when it is locked following business hours except on the weekends of home football games and during holiday breaks. (Building locks at 5:00 p.m. Friday and does not unlock until noon on Sunday.) Your card will also give you card-swipe access to the two computer labs in Spidle (110 and 302). These doors are automatically locked in non-business hours. If you have problems with your card working, contact Walter Tolbert (Spidle 266) with CHS IT Help (chshelp@auburn.edu).

Card-swipe cautions: The names associated with all swipes are recorded in the locking system. DO NOT leave any door of the building propped open to let someone else enter sometime after you; doing so will cause your swipe privileges to be removed. DO close the classroom or computer lab doors after you enter in off-hours. If you do not, and someone enters after you, and then you leave, but they do not, and they do not close the door when they leave, then your swipe privileges will be removed.

The CADS manuals for the master’s and doctoral programs present guidelines and regulations required to obtain each degree. CADS guidelines should be used in conjunction with those of the Graduate School. If you have questions about interpreting rules and policies for the University or CADS, consult your Major Professor, Graduate Program Officer (GPO), or Department Head.

• M.S. Manual - Thesis and Non-Thesis
• Ph.D. Manual
• Accelerated B.S./M.S.

In general, in order to get clearance for graduation each student must have taken the following steps:

• • Submit the Committee, Transfers, Exceptions and Candidacy (CTEC) Form no later than the semester prior to the expected graduation.
• • Submit a final (revised if necessary) approved Plan of Study (POS) to the CADS Graduate Program Officer (GPO) no later than the semester prior to the expected graduation;
• • finish the course work and fulfill all entries in the POS;
• • finish the research and thesis/dissertation or project work, and have the thesis/project/dissertation approved by the your MP, Graduate Advisory Committing (GAC), and the outside reader (for a dissertation);
• • submit a Graduation Application (AU Access > My Academics > Grad Application) to the Graduate School in the semester preceding the graduation semester and notify the Graduate School advisor of the intention to graduate prior to the beginning of the graduation semester;
• • register for the semester of graduation;
• • clear incomplete grades by the deadline indicated on the Graduate School academic calendar;
• • meet the due dates on the GS calendar.

The Master’s Degree Checklist and Doctoral Degree Checklist can be consulted for further information.

Also, check whether you are on track to graduate HERE.

If, as you approach your final semester, you find that you cannot meet the deadlines posted for submission of thesis/dissertation or completion of non-thesis requirements, but you can completely finish and have your work approved by your GAC by the end of the semester, contact the Graduate School to ask about the absolute deadline for submitting your final approval paperwork at the end of the term. If you meet the deadline for that, you will have to pay a “clearing for graduation fee” the next semester and officially graduate then, but you will not have to enroll and pay tuition. If you wish to do that and participate (early) in the graduation ceremony of the current term, the deadline will be at least three weeks prior to the end of the term, but the Graduate School can tell you that.