Changing thesis committee membership

[Trevor]

Hello all-I am new to this group and am looking for some advice. I am
a second-year masters student (psychology) currently writing up the
results through conclusion section of my thesis. I defended my
proposal a couple weeks ago. A few days ago I realized that things
are not going well with the professor that I have as the chair of my
thesis committee currently. There is a very important aspect of the
analysis which my chair wants me to change. I refuse to make this
change as it is crucial to my entire thesis (I won't go into details).
Also, my chair is the kind of professor who picks apart every sentence
that I write. This makes the thesis progress so slowly that I am
afraid I won't graduate. The new professor that I have in mind to
select as the chair also has more expertise in an area relating to my
thesis. While this isn't really important to me, as my thesis is a
project that I'm basically working on independently, it is also a good
reason to select this new professor and is another reason that I will
give to my professors for the change. So my plan is to see how things
go in the next week or so. If me and my current chair are not able to
resolve the issue with my thesis or if things seem to be progressing
slowly-which I'm sure they will be-I plan to approach the new
professor and ask her to be my chair. I only have couple of concerns
with this switch. I want the other two members of my committee to
stay on my committee, so I hope that they will be cool with this
switch. Also, I need the chair of my department to sign my thesis so
I hope this switch doesn't piss him off. Also I don't want the old
chair to be "starting shit" because he's pissed off over the switch.
For example, I don't want him coming to my defense to challenge me for
the sake of challenging me because he's pissed off that I chose
someone else to be the chair. I have not yet scheduled the thesis
defense although I would plan to have it in about a month and a half
if I have this new professor as my chair. Please let me know of
anyone has any advice on this.
Thank you very much
Trevor

[Y***@mail.com]

I was in a similar position and finally dropped from the program
because of the actions taken by my thesis chair. I went to another
school (private) to finish my MS about 7 years later. Don't assume
that the other committee members are on your side. They are probably
all in this together, although they are probably acting neutral in
order to obtain information. This includes the department chair. I
suspect that your thesis is of interest to them and that is why this is
going on. Email me at ***@mail.com.