DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Additional Requirements for all Doctoral Students

Every student is required to present ongoing work in the annual Spring Forum as long as he or she is in residence.  After completing her or his coursework, the student is expected to be prepared to take the qualifying examination.

Spring Forum

The Spring Forum is an event to mark and encourage scholarly development and to support and promote the idea of the academic community.  It is intended to be a generative and positive occasion.  Students use the Spring Forum to exhibit what they have been learning and doing over the past year, with purposeful presentations fashioned specifically for the occasion.  Students and faculty members treat the event as a means of focusing on scholarly development, or growth and change, over the course of the academic year.  The student makes an oral presentation of approximately fifteen to twenty minutes to a group including all faculty members working with doctoral students and all students enrolled in the program.  The presentation may take various forms, chosen by the student and his/her advisor.

Qualifying Examination

A committee of faculty working with the student's advisor designs the qualifying examination for the individual student .  It is a written examination that occurs when the student has completed course work.  It consists of three questions, one based upon general course requirements and the others based upon concentrations and other reading the student and advisor choose to include.  It takes place over a three-week period in which the student spends a week per essay on each of the three questions.  The faculty members involved in designing the examination are responsible for evaluating it.  The evaluation becomes a constructive tool for the student in developing and refining skills necessary for scholarly analysis, synthesis, and interpretation.  The examination is graded as follows: 0=failure; 1=Pass; 2=Pass with distinction.  In the case of a failure, the student has one opportunity to retake the examination within one semester.

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