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THE PHD PROGRAM
POLICY STATEMENT The following statement of policy, adopted by the faculty of the Department of English in spring 1974, and amended in 1995, is here brought to the attention of all students who are pursuing work toward the PhD. This statement is intended to guide students in planning and assessing their own progress in acquiring the knowledge and skills they will need as scholars, critics, and teachers. It is also intended to guide faculty in advising students, designing courses, and serving on exams. Given that graduate students in the program are preparing to become scholars and teachers, they should work to develop certain competencies associated with the PhD in English. Most important, scholarship and criticism in our field begins with textual, linguistic, and research skills; demands knowledge of the history of literature; and necessitates familiarity with different critical methods and with literary or cultural theories. Moreover, nearly every beginning teacher will be expected both to write and publish in an area of specialization and to teach a wide range of courses, including surveys. Therefore the Department believes that every graduate student, before beginning the dissertation, should have demonstrated through course work, language exams, and the oral fields examination the following competencies:
The Department expects that students will pursue these competencies through a variety of means during their years in the program, including, in addition to regular course offerings: reading courses and conversations with faculty; participation in graduate workshops and colloquia; attendance at extracurricular lectures, conferences, or exhibits; and, not least important, individual study and conversation with other students. Faculty advisers should (1) help students to assess their own progress in achieving these competencies and (2) work with students to plan programs that will address their needs. The Department also believes that students should acquire basic competence in teaching, through the pedagogy course (required of all students by the end of their third year), supervised teaching in the Department or elsewhere in the University, and independent teaching.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW The goal of the English PhD program is to prepare doctoral students for independent work, that is, to develop their individual ability to pose and investigate problems in the advanced study of literature and other expressive media. Departmental requirements are designed to move students systematically and efficiently toward that goal by introducing them to a variety of textual modes, critical methodologies, and historical/cultural problems and by providing extensive practice in research, discussion, argument, and writing. The Department recognizes that students come to the program with varying needs and with different levels of skills; some students, therefore, may need or wish to take more than the minimum number of courses or to set individual projects beyond those considered basic requirements. All students must, minimally, do the following:
ADVISERS At the beginning of their first year in the doctoral program, students will be assigned an adviser for the predissertation years. Advisers will help students to plan and maintain a course of study that will fit the student’s intellectual and professional goals, achieve the competencies described above in the Policy Statement, and meet the requirements for the degree described above in a timely fashion. Advisers should be certain that students understand program possibilities, requirements, and optimal schedules for completing them; they should discuss with each student course selections, preparation for the orals fields examination, the fulfillment of other degree requirements, the transition from courses to orals to dissertation, and other aspects of students’ professional preparation. Students must have the signed consent of their advisers to register for courses (and to drop or add them). They should keep their advisers informed of what they are doing to fulfill course and language requirements and to prepare for the oral fields examination, and they should consult with advisers about possible alternatives when they encounter problems in pursuing their plan of study. Advisers should monitor the student’s progress at their scheduled meetings and advise both the student and the Director of Graduate Studies of any problems they notice. Requests for leaves of absence should be discussed with the adviser and will need approval from the Chair and the Dean of Students. During their first and second years, students will meet with their adviser at the start of autumn, winter, and spring quarters. Students in their third year are required to meet with their adviser once in the autumn quarter and once in the spring quarter. At this time, the student and their adviser will review, if necessary, the progress made on the language requirements and the oral fields examination. This is also a good opportunity to consult with the adviser about the formation of a dissertation committee.
DEPARTMENTAL LECTURES Unless they have a course conflict, first- and second-year students are encouraged to attend departmental lectures. These will generally include the annual Carpenter Lectures, along with quarterly departmental lectures during the year. These lectures are offered to familiarize students with the kind of critical work being pursued both within and beyond their immediate field of interest.
COURSE WORK First Year First-year students must take six courses for letter grades, of which at least two must be at the 500 or 600 level, normally one in autumn and one in winter, and three at the 300 or 400 level, normally one each quarter. Some of these 300- or 400-level courses (nonseminar graduate courses) may be taken outside the Department (should students wish to take courses outside the Department, they must secure the permission of the Director of Graduate Studies, but it is presumed that they should take most of their courses within the Department). Students must write two seminar-length papers (25-page minimum) in their first year, normally for 500- or 600-level courses in the Department. A form certifying that the student has completed a seminar-length paper, available from the Department office, should be attached to seminar-length papers when submitted to the instructor and, when returned signed by the instructor with the paper, should be turned in by the student to the Graduate Program Assistant in Walker 413. First-year students must also take the autumn quarter PhD colloquium for Pass (P) credit. All PhD students may, with the permission of their adviser, enroll in additional courses at the 300, 400, 500, or 600 level or take additional courses in other departments or programs; these courses may be taken either for a grade or (with the permission of the instructor) a P. Note: Students may count no more than one 300- or 400-level creative writing course toward the fulfillment of their requirements during their time in the graduate program unless they receive direct approval for this from the Director of Graduate Studies. The 500- and 600-level courses are normally intended to provide for critical discussion of course readings and student presentations among advanced students and the faculty instructor. For this reason, students may not substitute individual reading courses (599 or 699) or 300- or 400-level courses to fulfill the 500- or 600-level course requirement, except in unusual circumstances and when arrangements can be made with the instructor to supervise comparable occasions for advanced discussion and a presentation with group critique (group reading courses may allow for these). To complete the seminar-length paper requirement, students may under special circumstances write a seminar-length paper for a 300- or 400-level departmental course or a departmental reading course (599 or 699), with the prior permission of the instructor and their adviser. However, writing a seminar-length paper for a 300, 400, 599, or 699 course will NOT transform that course into a substitute for a required 500- or 600-level course. While students will normally look first to advanced courses in their primary areas of interest, they are strongly encouraged to explore other areas through these required courses as well. Individual or small group reading courses (300, 599, and 699, by arrangement with an instructor), 300- and 400-level courses in other departments, and informal student reading groups should be used to pursue areas of specialization when courses at the 500 and 600 level are not available. (Courses may be taken for a letter grade or a P but cannot be used to fulfill the seminar, 500- or 600-level course requirement; see above.) REMINDER: Students must turn in to the Graduate Program Assistant a substantial paper form signed by the instructor for every paper that they wish to count toward the seminar-length paper requirement (including papers from 300, 400, 500, 599, 600, and 699 courses). Any substitutions for the required 500- or 600-level courses must be approved by the instructor, the adviser, and (in writing) the Director of Graduate Studies. See above for the (rare) circumstances in which this may be possible and the reasons for the requirement. Second Year During their second year, students must again take six graduate courses for letter grades, of which three must be 500- or 600-level courses and two must be 300- or 400-level courses. Some of these six courses may be taken in another department or program, but most courses should be taken within the Department. In their second year, students must again write at least two seminar-length papers, to be certified as such to the Department by the signature of the instructor on forms obtained from and returned to the Graduate Program Assistant in the Department office. Students may wish to take additional courses this year, either in preparation for the oral fields examination and/or to fulfill the language requirement (see below). These may be taken at any level (including reading and independent study courses arranged with an individual faculty member—599 or 699) for a letter grade or a P and may include courses outside the Department. By the end of the second year, students, in consultation with their adviser, should have determined the fields in which they will be examined in their oral fields examination. Students Entering with an MA in English from Another Institution Students entering with an MA, subject to evaluation by the Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, are considered second-year students. Students entering the PhD program with an MA in English must take parts of two years of course work. In the first year, they take the regular load of courses for any first-year student: seven courses, including the PhD Colloquium in the autumn quarter for Pass (P) credit. Of these courses, three must be at the 500 or 600 level, and all but the PhD Colloquium must be taken for letter grades. They also must produce two seminar-length papers in 500- or 600-level courses. In their second year, they have to take at least two courses for grades at any point during the year. At a minimum, one must be a 300- or 400-level course, and one must be a 500- or 600-level course. Normally they will also take the required pedagogy course for a P credit in the autumn quarter of their second year. Third Year Students must take the required departmental pedagogy course during the autumn quarter of their third year (or second year if they entered the program with an MA from another institution). Sample Course Progression (for Students without an MA)
Choosing Courses Students will choose their courses, during both the first and second doctoral years, in consultation with their advisers. The selection of courses (and the number to be taken) will of course be governed primarily by the student's individual interests, needs, and goals. The Department makes every effort each year to achieve variety in the periods, genres, and methodologies it offers, but the number of courses available in any given year is necessarily limited. Students are urged to develop, during their first doctoral year, a tentative two-year plan for making the fullest possible use of course offerings in connection with their individual interests and their own private reading plans. Decisions about the number and variety of courses to be taken should be made after discussion, based on a full review of the student's record and future plans, with the student's doctoral adviser. NOTE: Since opportunities to teach in a single area are limited when graduate students are assisting in departmental courses and also later when they are hired as young professors at other institutions, students should be prepared to take courses in several different areas; indeed, too narrow a concentration in courses is not advisable.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT The Department of English believes in the appreciable literary and scholarly value of being able to work in and with languages other than English. We have therefore adopted the following standards for foreign language competence. The Department's standard is sufficient facility in one foreign language to be able (1) to read literary and intellectual texts in that language and (2) to demonstrate an understanding of their literary features and intellectual content. On historical grounds that still largely hold in the present, the foreign languages that have shown themselves most germane to the advanced study of English are French, German, Latin, Greek, Spanish, and Italian. Normally students will choose their foreign language from among this list, but it may be possible to obtain permission from the Director of Graduate Studies to substitute another language by showing its special relevance to a given field of specialization. Students may also apply for a language exemption based on fluency or substantial undergraduate course work in an accepted language. Students must formally meet the standard of the English Department's foreign language requirement in one of the following ways:
Please note that these formal requirements must be satisfied at the University of Chicago and must be fulfilled before students can have their dissertation prospectus approved and be admitted to PhD candidacy.
THE ORAL FIELDS EXAMINATION By the end of the third year of the program (second for those students receiving a year’s course-work credit for a previous MA in English), a student will take the oral fields examination. A student must have completed the required course work and substantial papers before taking his or her oral fields examination. The purposes of this examination are to ascertain a student’s readiness to proceed from advanced formal course work to a dissertation project and to ensure that a student has sufficient command of several fields in which to teach, which in turn will generate new research projects later in his or her career. Examiners will look for competence in areas 1, 2, 4, and 5 as listed in the Policy Statement (above). Students should use the selection and preparation of fields both (a) to focus their knowledge and the questions they ask in order to move toward a dissertation proposal and (b) to secure their mastery of a sufficiently broad range of material to prepare them for teaching. The student first chooses a major and two minor fields (advisers can help in this process). The major field or domain of literary practice should represent the student’s area of specialization—a set of texts sufficiently broad in conception to provide a firm basis for future research and teaching. These texts should be focused on an historical period, a genre, or a theory or methodology—and further chosen to allow exploration of one or more questions (these will probably emerge more clearly as the student prepares the field, but some thought should be given to issues and questions from the initial selection stages). The minor fields may directly supplement the major field and contribute to the student’s specialization (e.g., adding critical and genre areas to a historical area or expanding the major historical areas to an adjacent period), but students may also wish to use them to engage with historical or cultural areas quite different from their major field—an experience useful for both intellectual and teaching purposes. In either case, the student should articulate the relationship of minor to major fields and provide a rationale for their relevance to his/her professional needs and goals. The oral fields examination demands the ability to work within the concept of a field as a historical period or as an otherwise constituted domain of literary practice—as in the case of the theoretical-methodological fields. A student is expected to demonstrate a command of the individual works on the major and minor lists as well as their relevant contexts and must be prepared to discuss intelligently larger issues that arise in conjunction with a given field. In choosing the works that will constitute each list, students should both consult the sample lists prepared by faculty for some common historical, generic, or critical areas (available in the Department office) and discuss with relevant faculty specialists how they will modify these or construct their own fields in order to meet their own interests and professional needs. Conversations with faculty can be very helpful here, both in deciding what constitutes a field of the right size and scope and in providing suggestions for texts that the student may not yet know but that will be germane to the questions they wish to pursue. Sample lists cover many of the 25 historical areas of study in English listed below. These areas draw on a system currently used in our profession to subdivide the study of English into areas of specialization. In no way immutable or natural categories, these areas are human contrivances that serve institutional purposes. For example, the MLA Job List is organized by areas of specialization for the descriptions of open positions, as are the listings of new books and monographs in catalogs from scholarly presses. The areas also organize the advanced course work and/or faculty expertise within the Department. Since fields are constructs, however, we use them in a spirit of critical resistance, and we stay alert to their need for periodic revision. As students plan their major and minor fields for the oral fields examination, they should keep these areas in mind though they need not organize their own intellectual inquiry in the same ways. Students should, however, remember that employers will be looking for a teacher to cover at least one and preferably several of these areas when they hire. In particular, job applicants will usually need to command a strong and sufficiently broad historical area and also not to be limited to a single genre within an historical period. (Nonetheless, we urge students to construct some of their fields lists differently where their intellectual interests cross areas and suggest different organizing principles.) Lists should not be simply small subdivisions of one of the areas listed below. We can imagine examination lists of the following sorts, among others: British and American eighteenth century, a twentieth-century list that incorporates literary and mass culture of one or more nations, a narrative theory list that incorporates a variety of genres and modes of publicity as central examples, an American Literatures field, a field in postcolonial literatures that merges national and subcultural theory and practices, and so on. Historical Areas of Study in English With the caveats listed earlier, here is the list of conventional areas of study (fields of study are underlined): BRITISH Renaissance and Early Modern (1485–1659): Nineteenth Century (1783–1900): Twentieth Century and Beyond: AMERICAN AREAS OTHERWISE DETERMINED A major field list will contain roughly 40 items. For instance, an item might be a novel, a large cluster of lyrics from one poet, a cluster of theoretical articles on one topic, or a series of plays. A minor field will contain roughly 20 items. Sample lists for minor fields based on the areas listed above are available in the Department office. While the sample lists should give the student a sense of the appropriate range of each field, they should not simply be replicated; on the contrary, generating an equivalent list of one's own is considered a crucial part of the value of the examination. This process might well involve challenging the boundaries of any given period or field and staking out an argumentative terrain for an alternative set of texts and intertextual relations. However, it is not necessary to select a topical or thematic focus to constitute a field; period and/or genre can be perfectly adequate and may be desirable as a way to allow consideration of a broader range of the issues suggested by the selected works. The student may propose an examination with one major field and only one minor field. In that event the list in the major field must be proportionately more ambitious. Length and comprehensiveness are not the only criteria; intellectual scope and invention weigh just as significantly. Students proposing a two-field exam should choose two faculty members to examine in the major field and one faculty member to examine in the minor; see below. When selecting major and minor fields, the student will also choose an examining committee consisting of three faculty members in the relevant fields. Requests to include faculty from other departments in the University on an orals committee can be considered only when (1) no faculty member within the Department can examine in the proposed field and (2) the student can demonstrate that the field in question is essential to his or her future as a scholar and teacher. (NB: Field examiners may be different from the dissertation directors the students will later choose, though there is often overlap.) The student will develop appropriate field lists in consultation with his or her prospective examiners. At an early stage in the process (three-to-six months before the expected exam date), students must consult the Director of Graduate Studies for approval of the general topics and tentative contents of their lists. When the lists are finalized, each list must receive the signed approval of the respective faculty member, on a form available from the Graduate Program Assistant in Walker 413. The lists and the form should then be submitted to the Director of Graduate Studies for final approval. The Director of Graduate Studies will confirm that the student has completed all course and substantial paper requirements (with no incompletes remaining) before signing the form. The signed form and lists (five copies) should be filed with the Graduate Program Assistant (Walker 413) at least 60 days before the proposed date of the examination. At least two weeks before the examination, the Department will assign to the examining committee an additional faculty member, usually a specialist in the student’s major field, who will serve as chair of the examination. While preparing to take the oral fields examination, students are encouraged to discuss the texts on their lists with faculty in the relevant fields and with other students preparing the same or similar fields. Several sample questions are included in the information about the oral fields examination that is available in Walker 413. In addition, a student is strongly encouraged to schedule a "mock" oral fields examination with the group of fellow graduate students in order to get practice with the format of the examination and useful feedback and encouragement. The examination will be two hours long, with one hour of questions on the student's major field (one and a half hours for students with a two-field exam) from the two (or three) faculty specialists in that field, and half an hour of questions on each of the student's minor fields, with one faculty specialist for each minor. The exam typically follows the following format: there are two rounds of questions; the first round provides 20 minutes to each examiner including the examiner chair. Usually the chair’s questions address the major list. The second round provides each faculty with 10 minutes to ask questions. Examiners can ask questions addressing books on other lists as well as their own list and can join the conversation between the candidate and any other examiner if it is appropriate. A brief break between rounds is permissible if agreed to by all participants. The four-member faculty committee administers and evaluates the student's oral fields examination. After the two-hour examination segment and a brief recess for the examiners to confer, the student who has passed will return for a concluding discussion (up to 20 minutes) with the examiners. Students whose performance in any field of the exam is judged unsatisfactory must retake that portion of the exam in the presence of the full committee at a later date (the same committee, with appropriate substitutions for any faculty who may be out of residence or otherwise unavailable at the new date). Scheduling and Fulfilling Prerequisites for the Oral Fields Examination All students are expected to take their oral fields examination, at the latest, before the end of their third year. Students must have completed the requirements regarding course work and seminar-length papers before taking these exams. When they have done so and are ready to schedule an exam, they should apply through the Graduate Program Assistant for an examination date during the quarter preceding the one in which they wish to take the exam. Note: students who need to postpone their oral fields examination beyond the end of their third year (second for those entering with an MA in English) must get the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies to do so. Students in their third year and beyond who have not passed their oral fields examination are required to meet twice per year with their academic adviser. Oral fields examinations, however, are typically not scheduled during the summer quarter.
THE DISSERTATION PROPOSAL The following procedure has been designed to cut through the mystery that can surround the production of the dissertation proposal and to suggest concrete timetables and guidelines for students and their advisers alike. At the same time, space remains for negotiating individual variations of these guidelines and timetables. This procedure should relieve students of some stress, bridge the gap between the oral fields examination and the dissertation, and, ideally, cut the time to degree. Topic and Committee In order to identify a topic and a dissertation committee, students should begin the proposal process by talking with faculty members in their area of specialization (who might serve as a dissertation committee) about their ideas for a dissertation project. Often these conversations will begin during the preparation of a student’s major field for the oral fields examination and will involve the major field examiner, though the student is free to select different dissertation directors. As soon as possible after the exam the student should resume (or begin) these meetings. Students should have selected a topic and secured a committee (or at least one director) within one quarter of successfully passing the oral fields examination. If the student does not meet this deadline, he or she must continue consulting with his or her regular faculty adviser at the annual advisory meeting (see below). Hereafter, the dissertation director(s) will serve as the student’s faculty adviser(s). Together the student and the potential director(s) should take stock, discussing the outcome of the exam, dissertation ideas, and other likely readers for the proposal and dissertation. At their meetings, the students and the director(s) will also negotiate (a) the imagined form of the proposal (see immediately below) and (b) a timetable for drafting the proposal. Normally a dissertation committee has two faculty members. Sometimes a third member is useful, particularly when the student’s project crosses conventional area boundaries (or involves a faculty member from another department). Students always have the option of seeking additional advice or showing all or portions of their work to other faculty members and asking for their comments, but the committee responsible for directing the dissertation should not swell beyond two or at most three. The director or codirector of the dissertation should always be a member of the Department of English. Faculty from other departments or, in special cases, other universities may serve as members of the committee, subject to approval by the director or codirector, the Chair, and the Director of Graduate Studies. Note: Usually one member is clearly the principal director (for reasons of expertise, professional seniority, or personal style); at other times, the faculty directors may prefer to share responsibility more or less equally. Dissertation directors should work out with the student in advance how they wish to proceed (including whether chapters should be submitted to all directors simultaneously or to the principal director first). The Dissertation Proposal Writing Workshop In the fall of each academic year, students who have passed their oral fields examination during the previous spring quarter and students who expect to pass their oral exams early in the current autumn quarter are all required to participate in the Dissertation Proposal Writing Workshop. This workshop is entirely student-run and meets approximately four times throughout the autumn quarter. It is designed to help students initiate the processes required to write their proposals; by the end of the autumn quarter, it is hoped that students have had contact with their dissertation committees and have a portion of the proposal drafted. Ideally, students are expected to have a completed and approved proposal by the end of the academic year. There is one introductory meeting that takes place the previous spring quarter during which the Director of Graduate Studies outlines the workshop’s aims and directs a faculty panel on the topic of the dissertation proposal. The Department provides a template for the direction of the workshop, but the students each year refine the format to meet their distinct needs. Management of the workshop is provided by a participating graduate student who is paid a modest fee for organizing, copying, and so forth. The Proposal Most proposals will be brief, from 12 to 20 pages (excluding bibliography), and most will accomplish the following:
These are meant as guidelines, but they will serve to give both students and faculty members some sense of what general purposes a proposal must serve. A dissertation project that exceeds the length stipulated by these guidelines should be carefully considered and justified The Annual Advisory Meeting All students who have passed their oral fields examination must have an annual advisory meeting each year, starting in the year after the successful completion of that exam. This policy assumes, therefore, that upon completion of orals, students should move to form a dissertation committee as quickly as possible, so that the coming academic year's annual advisory meeting will involve all committee members. If students complete their orals in July or soon after, they should nonetheless be checking in with their advisers sometime during that calendar year, even if they do not need an official annual advisory meeting during that year. After the dissertation proposal is approved, the annual advisory meeting occurs each subsequent academic year (somewhere between July 1 and June 30); it then serves to assess the progress of the dissertation. The meeting is not an exam but a crucial occasion for constructive advice. Through these meetings, the Department aims to continue the regular intellectual and professional support provided earlier through classroom contact and advising sessions. This annual advisory meeting can take place any time during the academic year at the mutual convenience of the student and the committee. The committee and the candidate might wish to address a portion of writing the student has submitted ahead of time. In most instances, unless otherwise specified by the committee and student, writing of some length will be expected; the student must give the committee at least one month prior to the meeting date to read the work. This meeting can occur in a conference call if committee member(s) and or the dissertation candidate cannot otherwise participate. The student will bring to the meeting the Annual Meeting Form (available in Walker 400A), on which he/she will describe progress; the committee will then add a few brief remarks and also sign the form. The Department considers these annual meetings a crucial component of the PhD program. If a student does not schedule an annual meeting with the committee by July 1 for each of the relevant years, he/she will face departmental administrative withdrawal. In the final year, the dissertation defense will replace the annual advisory meeting. The dissertation should be submitted one month before the scheduled defense. The Final Dissertation Proposal Approval After this conference, the student will continue to submit drafts of the proposal to the readers until all agree that it sufficiently paves the way for a dissertation. At that point, the student will need to complete the Dissertation Proposal Approval Form (Pink Form, which is also available in the bookcase next to the stairs to Rosenwald in Walker 400A) by securing the signatures of each committee member, which indicates final approval of the proposal. The form, along with a copy of the proposal, should be submitted to the Department Coordinator in Walker 420. Admission to PhD Candidacy Students who have approved proposals can apply for admission to PhD candidacy. Students should have completed (1) the required course work including substantial papers, (2) the foreign language requirement, (3) the oral fields examination, and (4) an approved dissertation proposal. Students need to fill out the Candidacy Application Form (also available in the bookcase next to the stairs to Rosenwald in Walker 400A) and submit it to the Department Coordinator in Walker 420. At this point, the Department will recommend the student for admission to candidacy. The paperwork is first approved by the Director of Graduate Studies and then forwarded to the Dean of Students office for further approvals. Students are informed by the Dean of Students office when they have been formally entered into candidacy, usually two to three weeks after submitting the completed paperwork.
WRITING THE DISSERTATION Work should be submitted to your committee chapter by chapter. Each reader should receive a copy of the completed material. The student should always keep a copy of the material submitted. While a student should produce at a minimum one approved chapter per academic year, it is expected that most students will have two or more chapters approved. Note: It is reasonable for readers to return chapter drafts to the student with comments within a month. If for some foreseeable reason they will be unable to do so, they should warn the student on receiving the draft. The Department expects that the dissertation process, from proposal to defense, will normally be completed in one and a half to two and a half years. Changes in Committee Where changes are made in the dissertation committee after the proposal has been approved by the original committee, the student and committee members must discuss it with each other and notify the Director of Graduate Studies. Needless to say, the decision to resign or to add to or subtract from the committee should not be made lightly, especially after the dissertation is begun, though in rare cases it may be necessary or desirable. A resigning committee member and the other members of the committee should make every effort to help the student find a replacement where necessary. The Department Chair should also be notified in writing of any change in the constitution of the committee; this document should include the signature of any new committee member signifying his or her willingness to join the student's dissertation committee. The Final Push Students are normally expected to defend their dissertation no later than six academic years after entering their program, or, if they enter the program with an MA, after five academic years. Timely completion of the dissertation is important for the strong profile it provides on the job market. Long delays in completing the dissertation can also make it difficult to maintain a coherent and up-to-date project. Moreover, delays can challenge both the student and the committee in their efforts to sustain their engagement in the project. Such difficulties can be compounded because of the financial burdens often incurred during a prolonged period of dissertation writing. The Department nevertheless recognizes that sometimes there are compelling intellectual and personal reasons for a student to take more than six (or five) years. After six (or five) years of academic residency, if a student has not defended his/her dissertation, he/she must gain written permission from the members of the committee and the Department Chair to extend his/her study for each additional year in the program. Students in their seventh (or sixth) year and beyond will obtain this permission during their annual advisory meeting. There is a section on the Annual Meeting Form where the dissertation committee can approve annual extensions. A student will normally be granted an extension if the faculty advisers remain supportive of the student’s candidacy AND if the student can show reasonable progress and a credible plan for completion of the dissertation. This procedure is to ensure continued productive commitment on the part of both the candidate and the committee to the dissertation project and its timely completion.
THE DISSERTATION DEFENSE This examination is conducted by a committee consisting of the directors of the student's dissertation, members of the Department whose field is the same as the student's or is closely related to it, the Department Chair (or designated representative), and the Dean's representative from another department within the Division. The examination turns chiefly upon a defense by the student of the method and conclusions of the dissertation and upon a demonstration of general and contextual competence in the field of study and research. All members of the English faculty may attend and participate in questioning. The Department also has procedures for allowing a small number of advanced graduate students to attend the final oral examination, subject to the candidate's consent. (See the Graduate Program Assistant for details.) Although meeting the above requirements and writing an acceptable dissertation are the major hurdles for a doctoral student, there are many details to take care of before the student can officially receive the degree. It is essential that students inform themselves about the various deadlines for meeting requirements set by the Graduate Program Assistant and about procedures for getting on the convocation list. To be certain of not missing a step or overlooking a requirement, the student should consult the University Dissertation Office and the Graduate Program Assistant. Notes for scheduling either the oral fields examination or the final defense of the dissertation:
UNIVERSITY DISSERTATION REQUIREMENTS Doctoral dissertations are original contributions to scholarship. As such, they should be and are made available to the scholarly community at the University of Chicago and elsewhere. As a condition for receipt of the doctorate, all doctoral dissertations produced by students at the University are bound and placed in the circulating collections of the University Library. They are made available to researchers here through direct borrowing, and copies may be purchased from ProQuest Information and Learning. An abstract is published in "Dissertation Abstracts" and made available electronically through ProQuest Digital Dissertations along with the digitized full text of the dissertation itself. The booklet "University-Wide Requirements of the PhD Dissertation" describes in detail the rules to which all students must adhere regarding format, paper, fonts, photographs, and the like. It is available in the Dissertation Office on the first floor of Regenstein Library (phd@lib.uchicago.edu) or on the Web (http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/phd/). Once the dissertation manuscript is in final form, two copies each of the dissertation, the abstract, and the title page as well as all required forms must be submitted to the student's academic unit. The Chair or the Dean of Students in the Humanities must certify that these materials are in compliance with University-wide requirements. After the two copies each of the dissertation, the abstract, and title page have been accepted in their final form, they must be deposited in the Dissertation Office accompanied by a Departmental Approval Form signed by the Chair of the Department, along with other required forms. The Dissertation Office performs a second audit to ensure that the copies of the dissertation meet University-wide requirements. If there are deficiencies, the Dissertation Office notifies the student and the department or school, detailing the necessary corrections for the student to be eligible to receive a degree. If deficiencies cannot be corrected by replacing a few pages, both manuscripts will be returned to the department or school. The corrected copies must be resubmitted to the department or school for approval. After the student receives the degree, one copy of the dissertation is added to the University Library's collections. The other copy and the abstract and title page are sent to ProQuest Information and Learning. All students are required to execute a publication agreement with ProQuest. Because the dissertation is published, students should be aware that they must obtain permission from the holder of the copyright to include copyrighted material in the dissertation. The publication agreement, available in the Dissertation Office, has details. The Dissertation Office will require documentary evidence that the student has obtained all necessary permissions or has made a good faith effort to do so. Two approved manuscripts, the Departmental Approval Form, the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form, the abstract, and all other forms are due on the Wednesday three and one half weeks before the date of the Convocation in which the student expects to receive the degree. Since the Dissertation Office checks manuscripts in the order in which they are received, all students, particularly those living outside Chicago, should try to secure the Department's approval of the final manuscripts and complete all requirements well in advance of the deadline.
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