Faculty Monitoring & Supervision
Student performance is monitored and evaluated for each of the three phases of the doctoral program. Each student in Phase I is supervised by an individual Ph.D. Advisory Committee appointed by the Interdisciplinary Group Steering Committee. Upon satisfactory completion of Phase One, each student forms a Supervisory Committee to guide her or him through the remainder of the program.
Credit
& Degree Requirements
Prior to the General Examination which concludes Phase
II of the program, six quarters of full-time (minimum of 10 credits per quarter)
study must be completed. Three out of four consecutive quarters must be full-time.
For the other three quarters, part-time (fewer than 10 credits) quarters may
be added together to equal full-time quarters. None of the credits counted
toward this requirement may be in UDP 800 (Doctoral Dissertation) credits.
At least 18 of the credits earned during the course of the program must be
at the 500-level or above, and at least 18 credits must be numerically graded
400- or 500-level courses.
Prior to establishing the Supervisory Committee and taking the General Examination,
the student must complete coursework in a required set of core seminars and
courses, and be evaluated and passed to Phase II of the program (explained
below under "The Core Curriculum") .
There are two major examinations in the program: the written and oral General
Examination, and the oral defense of the dissertation, called the Final Examination.
The General and Final Examinations are administered by the student's Supervisory
Committee. Successful completion of the General Examination results in admission
to Ph.D. candidacy (Ph.C. status). The equivalent of three full-time quarters
of study is required between admission to candidacy and the Final Examination.
All students must take a minimum of 27 credits of UDP 800, which represent
directed study for the dissertation.
Student Funding & Monitoring
The Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and
Planning attempts to provide funding for doctoral program applicants in a
way that makes the program attractive to the strongest potential applicants,
ensures their effective mentoring while in the program, and actively engages
and energizes faculty to improve the program and to bring research funding
to support students.
The Program attempts to provide three-year funding packages for each newly
admitted student. The first year of funding is a 9-month Research Assistantship,
the second year, a 9-month Teaching Assistantship, and the final 9 months
of funding is a Research Assistantship from faculty research grants.
Students are systematically mentored through the three-year process by gaining
competence in teaching and research. In the first year, students focus on
preparing for the qualifying examination. They are also mentored as an apprentice
in teaching and in research, but in both cases mostly as an observer, with
little operational responsibility. The second year, students are expected
to teach 2 sections of a course in Community and Environmental Planning Program
(CEP), the Department of Urban Design and Planning (DUDP), or the Program
on the Environment (POE). Students also begin taking a more active and productive
role in a faculty research project, and jointly authored papers are highly
encouraged. The third year involves a transition to a focus on the dissertation,
with an expectation that the program will lead to completion of the dissertation
by the end of the third year for a considerable portion of students. In the
third year, students are given the opportunity to design and offer a course
organized around their dissertation research topic, and are mentored to develop
a second or third joint or sole authored publication.