The Graduate Program

The PhD Degree

[ intro | requirements | timeline ]

The PhD in English is designed to be a five-year program requiring 30 hours of course work, including 18 hours of graduate seminars (8000 level). Students select and work closely with a faculty advisory committee to plan a course of professional study and training in their chosen primary and secondary fields. Course work is meant to provide deep knowledge as well as methodological sophistication. Students take doctoral written exams (8 hours in a primary field, 4 hours in a secondary field) in the third year and write a dissertation in the fourth year.

Requirements

Course work

The PhD candidate will usually take 30 hours of course work beyond the MA. At least 18 hours in English must be taken at the 8000-level (English 8095 and 9090 hours do not count toward the 18-hour requirement). Exceptional candidates with insufficient background in English may be required to take additional hours upon the recommendation of the advisory committee. A student may elect one English 8095 problems course (a maximum of 3 hours credit), with the prior consent of the Director of Graduate Studies. A minimum of 18 hours of course work beyond the MA (excluding research hours) must be taken in residence at the Columbia campus in order for the candidate to be eligible for a PhD from the University. Nine hours is considered "full-time" by the Graduate School, but in many cases students in their second year of the program might opt, with the approval of their advisers and the DGS, to take two courses and begin preparation for their comprehensive examination. Doctoral students teaching 6 hours per semester, particularly those who teach 6 hours every semester and need simultaneously to maintain full-time status, may enroll for English 9090 for 3 of the required 9 hours with permission of their advisers and the Director of Graduate Studies.

Selection of courses should be made in consultation with the student's adviser. For incoming and first-year students, the DGS acts as adviser. Beyond the first year, students should have chosen primary advisers in their field of particular interest. Students are strongly urged to emphasize 8000-level courses, which are graduate-only, in preference to the 7000-level courses which provide graduate credit for additional work completed in an undergraduate classroom.

Candidates’ course work and program of study will be designed to prepare them as competent scholars in the designated fields. All PhD candidates will be required to take

• English 8005, Introduction to Graduate Studies (one hour course in their fall and winter semesters of the first year in the program)
• a course either in the structure of the English language (English 4600/7600, English 8600, or an equivalent graduate course at another institution) or in the historical aspects of the English language (English 4610/7610, English 4200/7200, or an equivalent graduate course at another institution and
• a course in literary criticism (English 8050, 8070, or an equivalent graduate course at another institution).

All teachers of English 1000 (Composition) are required to take

• English 8010: Theory and Practice of Composition

Students may take up to 9 hours of course work outside English in fields related to their programs of study upon the advice and consent of the advisory committee. In general, students with limited backgrounds in related areas (such as history, philosophy, art history) are encouraged to take course work in such areas, while students with extensive background in other areas (e.g., one whose undergraduate major or MA is in a field other than English) should choose to concentrate course work within the department.

If any graduate work beyond the 30 hours allowed for an MA has been taken in residence at a university other than the University of Missouri-Columbia, up to 6 hours may be transferred and counted toward the degree at MU with the consent of the student’s advisory committee and the Director of Graduate Studies. Courses taken off campus after the student has enrolled at MU must receive prior approval from the committee.

Advisory Committee

By the end of the first year, students must meet with their advisers to organize their doctoral committees. Students then meet with this committee to plan course work and define their primary and secondary fields of study. This meeting satisfies the graduate school requirement for a PhD qualifying examination. The committee is made up of at least three English department members and at least one from an MU department outside English. Students meet with this committee to plan course work, define their primary and secondary fields of study, discuss a plan to meet the language requirement, and discuss future research plans.

The Qualifying Exam must be a formal meeting, scheduled by the committee chair, with at least three of the four members present. The outside faculty member need not be involved in this meeting, but all four members of the committee must sign the D-1 form. The student and committee chair should decide on a proposed Plan of Study to be discussed and approved at the meeting. The student is responsible for preparing the forms and bringing them to the meeting.

For further information on selecting an advisory committee, please see the section of this handbook devoted to choosing a committee.

Residency Requirement

A doctoral student must complete at least two 9-hour semesters or three 6-hour semesters in an 18-month period at MU.

Foreign Language Requirement

(Updated 12 November 2008)

PhD students should determine how they will fulfill the departmental language requirement in consultation with their faculty advisor and other committee members, since different projects and different areas of study will require different levels of language proficiency. A student's committee can always recommend that the student pursue language study above and beyond the level required by the departmental language requirement for the purpose of their chosen dissertation project.

However, the purpose of the foreign language requirement is to ensure that all students have at least an awareness of their entrance into an international community of scholars and scholarship and ideally an ability to read literature and critical studies in other languages. Although simple fulfillment of the language requirement may not guarantee fluency in another language or culture, it should prepare students to read primary texts related to their fields and equip them with skills to conduct scholarly research on important secondary literature. To this end, the department is committed to the principle that all doctoral students who plan to study language and literature benefit from exposure to another language or languages.

A student may satisfy the foreign language requirement for the PhD in English by demonstrating either 1) basic proficiency in two foreign languages or 2) advanced proficiency in one foreign language.

To demonstrate basic proficiency the student must pass with a grade of B or better a) the intensive introduction to a language or b) the three-semester introductory sequence or c) one course at or beyond the third semester level in the language chosen (such as French or German 4110), or the equivalent of these courses elsewhere. The courses must have been completed or the examinations taken not more than five years prior to the candidate's enrollment in the PhD program. Because not all languages are taught using this format at the University of Missouri, students have the option to demonstrate basic proficiency in one of their two chosen languages by taking an introductory course in another language that is relevant to their research. A student who wishes to obtain this exemption must submit a letter, signed by the student and the chair of his or her committee, explaining why the course is relevant to his or her program of doctoral study. This exemption will be granted only for University of Missouri courses taken during the student's official degree program. Courses taken at another institution, or before the student begins the degree program, are not eligible for this exemption. Students cannot request this exemption for languages taught at MU using the regular structure outlined above (i.e., in a 3-course introductory sequence or a one-semester intensive introduction).

To obtain advanced proficiency the student must either a) pass with a grade of B or better two upper class undergraduate courses (3000- or 4000-level, or the equivalent elsewhere) in the literature of the language chosen or b) pass with a grade of B or better one graduate class (7000- or 8000-level, or the equivalent elsewhere) in the literature of the language chosen. These courses may not be in translation, and any graduate course in a modern language must be taught in that language. Overall, the department recommends taking a graduate-level course as the best option for students who are able to do so, since such courses can also count towards the nine hours of non-English department coursework that PhD students can include in their program of study. Undergraduate language courses (4000-level or below) do not count towards graduate study at the University of Missouri.

The Director of Graduate Studies will work with students to try to arrange for testing for students with proficiency but without course work in an acceptable language (for instance, those who have lived in another country for an extended period of time). This option, and all other exceptions to the language requirement described above, are contingent upon 1) the student's ability to demonstrate a substantial connection between the language in question and his or her program of study and 2) consent of the student's advisor.

Proficiency in English

International students should consult the web site of the Program for Excellence in Teaching for university and state requirements regarding teaching at the university.

Comprehensive Examination

After all course work, the foreign language requirement and the residency requirement have been completed, the student takes the PhD comprehensive examination. This exam consists of a written section (the Preparatory Essay) and a two-and-a-half hour oral exam. For the comprehensive examination to be successfully completed, the doctoral program committee must vote to pass the student on the entire examination, both written and oral sections, with no more than one dissenting or abstaining vote. If a student fails either part of the exam, he or she will be allowed to retake that part. No student will be allowed to take any part more than twice. All doctoral candidates should realize that no comprehensive exam is limited to the candidate's course work.

Please see Comprehensive Examination Guidelines for further information.

Continuous Enrollment

After students have taken their 30 hours of coursework, they can take two hours per semester of "continuous enrollment" credit that will allow them to maintain enrolled status with the Graduate School. While preparing for the job market, students can take two hours of the Job Placement Workshop to maintain continuous enrollment. If students have loans that are dependent on enrollment status, they should check the specific requirements of that loan before choosing anything other than typical two-hour full-time enrollment. Here are guidelines for continuous enrollment:

• Doctoral students who have completed all but their dissertation (ABD) and who are employed not more than 20 hours per week may use a "deferment form," available at the Graduate School, and enroll for 2 hours of English 9090 (Research) for Fall, 2 hours for Winter, and 1 hour for Summer, which is considered full-time for ABDs. Completing this form will mean that your 1 or 2 hours of 9090 will be the ABD equivalent of full-time enrollment. This form has to be completed for every semester and for the summer.

Dissertation and Defense

As soon as possible after passing the comprehensive examination - but within three months of the exam - a candidate should explore a dissertation topic under the guidance of the student’s adviser. All PhD candidates in English must formally present and describe the topic in a prospectus that explains the nature of the study to be undertaken, the present state of scholarship on the subject, the approach to be used, and, if possible, the nature and extent of the expected contribution to knowledge. A copy of the approved prospectus will be placed in the candidate’s file in the Graduate Studies office. The dissertation itself will be read by the student’s adviser and a minimum of three other readers. One member of the committee must be a member of a department other than English.

PhD candidates in Creative Writing usually write a “creative dissertation,” which may take the form of a novel, a novella, a book-length collection of short fiction or a collection of poetry. To exercise this option, the candidate must have taken 9-12 hours of creative writing seminars as part of the PhD course work. In addition to the “creative” part of the dissertation, the candidate will compose a prose introduction (2500-word minimum), to be written after completion of the creative project, to demonstrate the correspondence between the candidate’s academic studies and the creative project. When the dissertation has been read and approved, the candidate must pass an oral examination (approximately two hours) on the dissertation and its field administered by the five members of the committee.

For further information on the PhD dissertation, please see this handbook's section on theses and dissertations.

Time Line

The timeline below describes a typical student's PhD career, including examinations.

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