Graduate Program Degree Overview
Degrees Offered
The Department of History at Rice University offers two advanced
degrees, the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy. Admission is
normally limited to students seeking the Doctor of Philosophy as their
terminal degree. Students have considerable leeway to tailor a program
of study and research to meet their individual needs. This program will
include courses, seminars, reading, writing, research, and
participation in professional activities. The department maintains an
active speaker and seminar program enabling graduate students to be
introduced to a wide variety of topics, fields, and methods.
Students looking forward to graduate training in history should
consider their career plans carefully. It is impossible to predict the
academic job market four or five years from now, but of the thirty-one
scholars who have received Ph.D.'s from our program in the 1990s, all
but six are employed in academic, editing, or similar positions. Over
the past ten years, it has taken students an average of 5.8 years to
complete their Ph.D.'s in our program, even if they enter without an
M.A. This is substantially below the national average of close to nine
years.
Program Roadmap
Progress toward an Advanced Degree—General
The departmental graduate committee will assign each entering
student an advisor who is a scholar in the field in which the student
wishes to specialize. If a student wishes to change advisor, he or she
should petition the departmental graduate committee to this effect.
Each student will select an examination committee by the process
described below. The M.A. examining committee of three persons will
conduct the oral defense for those taking the thesis option. The Ph.D.
examination committee consisting of three persons will conduct the
qualifying examination. It is expected that the student will discuss
his or her program of study with the professors on his or her
committee, but outside of the defense of the thesis and the qualifying
examination the committee does not normally meet. During the first year
of graduate study, students may take no more than two courses with one
faculty member.
Evaluations of student work are presented in three forms: grades for
courses taken, written reports from professors and other agencies with
whom the student has been in contact during each semester, and oral
examinations at key points in his or her career, as described below.
The grade "A" indicates good to excellent performance, "B" denotes
marginally acceptable performance, "C" unacceptable performance.
Students will not receive graduate credit for courses in which they
receive a grade of "C". Grades, along with the written reports, are
carefully reviewed by the departmental graduate committee at the end of
each semester, and the student is informed of the results of this
evaluation in an interview with the chairman of the committee and the
History graduate student representative. Students receive copies of all
but the confidential statements on these reports.
All graduate students are expected to participate in the
professional activities of the history department as part of their
training. Participation will normally take one of three forms.
Teaching Assistants (TA's) assist in the teaching of courses, working
under the supervision of the instructor. Research Assistants (RA's)
assist faculty members with personal research projects. Editorial
Assistants (EA's) assist in the work of the Journal of Southern History
or the Jefferson Davis Papers. Students will normally be expected to
perform TA, RA, or EA work during five of their semesters at Rice. The
Director of Graduate Studies is responsible for assigning all TA's,
RA's and EA's. Insofar as possible, assignments will be kept consistent
with the interests of students.
Each year the graduate students elect a graduate representative to
participate as a regular member of the department's graduate committee.
This student sits in on the evaluation interviews at the end of each
semester and acts in general as a liaison between the graduate students
and the graduate committee.
The department recognizes the importance of teaching to the graduate
student experience and to the professional training of historians. Some
students may be assigned the task of teaching assistant, which will
involve a mentoring experience with an experienced teacher. The
department also maintains a working relationship with local colleges
and universities and often can assist students in finding teaching
experiences in the Houston community. Other teaching opportunities are
available for qualified graduate students in the Rice Summer School and
Rice School of Continuing Studies. The university also conducts
workshops or practicums on teaching. With the endorsement of their
advisor, advanced graduate students may petition the graduate committee
for permission to offer a course of their own devising as one of the
regular departmental offerings.
Class III Admission
Occasionally the department admits students to graduate study outside
the regular degree program. Such students do not receive credit toward
an advanced degree, but the work they do is transferable, and it may,
upon recommendation from the department, be retroactively applied to a
Rice degree. (Class III students normally must take course work with at
least two members of the department before applying for admission to
the regular degree program.) Class III students are not eligible for
financial aid.