Graduate Milestones
Guidelines and deadlines for completion of
graduate
degree requirements
Milestones in place as
of 12/2005
By the end of the first quarter after admission to the PhD program,
the student will constitute a PhD committee, in accord with Graduate
School requirements. As part of this process, the student will work
out with the committee members (by email or in person) a strategy
for degree completion. (Details about setting up a PhD supervisory
committee are found at the end of this document.)
Within six months of the oral (general) examination, the student
will present a formal dissertation proposal to the subset of the
PhD committee members who constitute the Reading Committee along
with a proposed calendar for the completion of the dissertation.
You may download/print the
Linguistics Graduate Program
Worksheet or the Romance
Linguistics Graduate Program Worksheet in pdf
format to assist in planning your program. In addition, please be sure to
read the M.A. and Ph.D. requirements listed on the Graduate
Degrees Offered page.
Please see the graduate school web pages for other specific requirements
imposed by the graduate school rather than the department:
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Additional milestones
[The following milestones are guidelines for students entering
linguistics graduate programs before Autumn, 2001. Such students
should take all reasonable steps to catch up with and follow these
guidelines. They become obligatory for students entering in Autumn,
2001 and later. Requests for exceptions should be discussed with
the MA or PhD supervisory committee in consultation with the Graduate
Program Coordinator. Because they are fairly new, these milestones
are relatively untested. The department will be flexible until we
work out the kinks.]
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Master's degree:
1. All requirements, including filing of MA thesis, must be completed
within 6 full-time quarters from quarter of admission,
excluding
summers. A maximum of three years may elapse from the quarter of
entry if any part-time quarters are undertaken.
Example: a student entering in Autumn 2000 and attending
full-time must complete all requirements and file the MA thesis
by the end of Autumn, 2002. The 6 quarters are Aut 2000
;Wtr,
Spr, Aut 2001; Wtr, Spr 2002.
Example: a student entering in Autumn 2000 and registering
part-time for two quarters accrues two more quarters of leeway
and must finish by the end of summer, 2003. The three years are
AWSpS 2000-2001, AWSpS 2001-2002, and AWSpS 2002-2003. Additional
part-time quarters do not extend this deadline.
See on-leave
policy for the intervention of on-leave time.
2. An MA student must form a departmental supervisory committee
by the end of two quarters of study, whether full- or part-time.
This committee should consist of two people -- the chair of the
committee and the second member. In the default case, these faculty
members will be the chair and second reader of the MA thesis, though
the committee membership can be changed. This committee has official
status only within the department. After consulting with the relevant
faculty members and receiving their agreement to serve, the student
should inform the graduate program coordinator of the membership
of the committee by letter. No official steps are taken with the
graduate school. While the student may continue to consult with
the graduate program coordinator on general matters, the committee
can better advise the student on particular questions of course
selection and academic direction. Committees can be modified if
a student’s interests or direction change.
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PhD degree
(including those already established but now modified)
1. By the end of the first quarter after admission to the PhD program,
the student will constitute a PhD committee, in accordance with
Graduate School requirements. As part of this process, the student
will work out with the committee members a strategy for degree completion.
The student is responsible for scheduling a meeting at which all
members of the supervisory committee are present (unless they are
on-leave or unavailable during the quarter). Normally the meeting
should occur within one month of the forming of the committee. As
with the MA committee, the PhD supervisory committee can be modified
during the course of the degree.
2. The two generals papers and the oral general exam must be completed
within 12 full-time quarters (excluding summers) after entrance
into the MA program. If part-time study is undertaken, the generals
must be completed within a maximum of 16 quarters. Students entering
the PhD directly from another university must take their generals
within 4 quarters of forming a PhD supervisory committee, that is,
within 5 quarters of entering the PhD program. PhD students entering
the program with significant coursework deficiencies to make up
may petition for two additional quarters before the generals must
be completed.
3. Within six months of the oral (general) examination, the student
will present a formal dissertation proposal to the subset of the
PhD committee members who constitute the Reading Committee along
with a proposed calendar for the completion of the dissertation.
The form of the proposal is at the discretion of the supervisory
committee.
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Departmental on-leave policy
1. Leave will not normally be granted for more than one consecutive
academic year (3 quarters plus a summer). During the entire MA-PhD
program, leave will not be granted for more than 9 quarters (not
including summers) Students entering the PhD program with an MA
from elsewhere may not accrue more than 6 quarters (plus summers)
of on-leave status.
2. Students must consult with their MA or PhD supervisory committee
before going on-leave. With this committee, they will form a written
plan for making progress toward the degree (a calendar for writing
or completing a set of readings while on-leave, a plan for attending
colloquia. etc.), including an agreement to meet with the supervisor
while on-leave (by email if they are not in the area); the time
when they will return; and the coursework and/or written work they
will be prepared to complete when they return. The plan should contain
an overall goal for completing all degree requirements. At that
time, the student will sign a contract stating that they understand
that leave is generally not granted beyond the number of quarters
specified in (1) above.
3. The graduate program coordinator cannot approve on-leave petitions
until the above requirements have been met and the plan and contract
presented in writing, Last-minute petitions cannot be granted except
in case of unforeseeable emergency.
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How to form a PhD supervisory
committee
If you entered from the UW MA program, discuss membership with the
faculty member who agreed to chair your supervisory committee when
you were admitted. If you entered the PhD program from another university,
decide on a supervisory committee chair and discuss the membership
with him or her. You need at least two more faculty members
(they need not be from Linguistics) and one GSR to complete your
committee. Members can be added and subtracted
by formal request to the graduate school at a later date. When all
the members have agreed to join your committee, proceed to the formal
stage:
As soon as the committee members and its chair have been determined,
the student emails their names to the department’s graduate
program assistant, Kathryn Speranza, with a copy
to the graduate program coordinator.
The graduate program assistant will then prepare an on-line request
to the Graduate School. The Graduate School will officially set
up the committee following the procedure described on the Graduate
Student Services web page.
Roles and
Responsibilities and Selection Process of a
Graduate School Representative
Please refer to
Doctoral Supervisory Committee Roles and
Responsibilities on the UW Graduate School website.
Guidelines for
Locating a GSR
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If you have any further questions or comments please contact us
at phoneme@u.washington.edu
Last modified 6/17/04 by Joyce Parvi
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