masters dissertation stress

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How To Deal With Dissertation Stress

There is something that many people avoid talking about when it comes to dissertations: dissertation stress. Few people are ready to admit that writing a dissertation is a very stressful process. And even fewer people admit that they are suffering from dissertation stress. Yes, we are all proud in our own way, but we need to realize when something is wrong. Otherwise, how could one take action to prevent stress?

As soon as you realize that you need to do some dissertation stress management, you are already on your way to achieving great things. Because getting rid of stress has only benefits. For instance, you will instantly feel more energized and more positive. You will have much more energy to work on the dissertation and do an even better job than before. Because let’s face it; stress will quickly force you to miss your deadlines. You need to deal with dissertation stress; now!

What Is Dissertation Stress?

Before we get to the things you can do to keep stress under control, let’s understand what stress with dissertation really is and how it manifests.

Stress appears when college students are under a lot of pressure to finish a difficult assignment, like a dissertation, in a very short time span. In addition, you will experience a buildup of stress when certain parts of your dissertation as not as they should be.

Perhaps your research doesn’t support your thesis, or perhaps your experiments are not working out. You probably don’t know how to recognize dissertation stress. It’s only normal, as you haven’t written any dissertations up to now. You don’t know how to deal with dissertation stress, but this will change by the end of this article. Here are some of the telltale signs of stress:

You are always feeling down and don’t know why.
You are feeling tired and can’t work at your full potential.
You don’t have any desire to continue working on your dissertation.
You are depressed and think negatively about your ability to finish the paper on time.
You are inpatient and lose your temper easily.
You can’t get a good night’s sleep and you wake up almost as tired as when you got to bed the last evening.

Causes Of Dissertation Stress

There are many causes for dissertation stress. For effective dissertation stress management, you need to learn about the main causes of this kind of stress. Here are the top 5 causes:

The deadline is approaching fast and you are not even halfway finished with your dissertation.
The topic is too complex and you are struggling to make any meaningful progress.
There are too many things you need to work on and you can’t get enough sleep.
You don’t know how to write the paper and can’t find any help anywhere.
You’ve received bad feedback from your thesis supervisor and this is discouraging you.

Now that you know what is causing you stress, it’s time to work on the best dissertation stress management technique.

How To Deal With Dissertation Stress – Useful Advice

If you are stressed out, you will never be able to finish the paper on time. Your productivity will be low while you are under a lot of stress. This is why you must learn how to deal with dissertation stress. There are a few things you can do. First, put yourself in a positive mindset. You can do this, and you will be able to complete the assignment on time!

Next, work on a plan and organize your time and your project. Make sure you achieve every milestone that you set. When you pass a milestone, get a day off to spend with your family and friends.

And another important thing you need to do to help yourself with stress is to go to bed early and wake up early. Get a good night’s sleep every night. College students often feel down because they feel they are all alone in this. You are not! Why not get some help with data analysis for dissertation from a professional academic writer? Having someone who has your back is very important for your state of mind. You are no longer struggling to complete your project all by yourself.

Relax And Be Positive

Follow the advice above and you will easily get rid of the stress associated with writing a complex dissertation. This is the best dissertation stress help you can get. And remember, you must always be in a positive state of mind. Relax! You will finish the paper on time if your follow your plan and if you stay productive. Keep in mind that your productivity will increase when you get rid of stress. Be optimistic and stop think about the worst case scenarios. So many students have managed to write their dissertations on time; you will succeed too! We wish you good luck.

Get Thesis Help Today

Finally, there is always an option of getting outside help with your thesis. There might be certain thesis related tasks that you can easily relegate to somebody else, as it is an intimidating and substantial assignment. That is why we are here. We provide a custom thesis writing service and all essential thesis help, and our writers are top educated specialists in wide varieties of fields. So, to decrease your stress levels, you can always get in touch with us.

Make PhD experience your own

Debunking dissertation stress

Plan and organise

First things first, plan and organise your day. Create a to-do list of everything you want to achieve in the day and set reasonable deadlines for yourself. One thing that’s helping me in this dissertation period is having a set idea of how much I want to achieve by the end of the day. Though I’m still learning that it’s okay if things go out of schedule, starting your day with a clear plan will help chalk out events in the day and give you time to destress and refresh for the next big chunk of writing.

Videos and sessions

Another good idea would be to go back to the dissertation writing videos and sessions that were organised by the Business School to catch up on, if you feel stuck in writing. Moreover, at the start of this month, the Business School organised writing sessions and other events so if you happened to be a part of either of those, you may have gotten some materials to go through! These sessions are specially designed and organised by the Business School to help you improve your writing, revisit your dissertation structure and more.

Read and revisit but also reset

Don’t forget to celebrate small wins and meeting self-curated deadlines. More importantly, find time to rest your mind and reset your body to effectively work the next time you get to it. According to the effort-recovery model, rest breaks, which involve interrupting the job in order to recover, is a viable way to decrease fatigue associated with high work demands. This all the more emphasises the need to rest and take breaks to recharge and reset your mind. Spend time to read your points and revisit them the next day. For all you know the points you wrote with your sleep-deprived mind have a different meaning the next day!

Don’t compare your progress

It’s important to remember that everyone works differently, everyone’s speed is different and moreover, everyone’s deadlines and targets are different. So, don’t compare your progress with others! It’s so easy to get lost in the chaos of working non-stop because you probably came across a peer post a story of them working on social media. Does that make you feel less productive? Stop and remember, you’re working well according to your deadlines.

Support each other

With everyone working on interesting yet different topics, supporting each other through this season is the only thing able to keep everyone sane. Set realistic deadlines. Get some fresh air (check the weather app!), walk around George Square to catch the beginnings of the festivities and plan events to attend during the Fringe Festival and lastly, put your best work forward! Take a deep breath and continue working on your dissertation. All the best! We’ve got this!

Rhema Joseph is studying MSc International Human Resource Management (class of 2022).

Downloadable Content

Stress and Coping Mechanisms Among College Students

Masters Thesis
Cornejo, Joaquin
Park, Hyun Sun
Brown, Jodi
Acuña, Maria
Social Work
California State University, Northridge
self-acceptance.
college students
self-compassion
Dissertations, Academic -- CSUN -- Social Work.
coping mechanism
2020-06-01T19:29:25Z
http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/216140
by Joaquin Cornejo
California State University, Northridge. Department of Social Work.

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3 tips for managing thesis writing stress

9 August 2019

Writing your thesis can be a stressful experience. Here, Dr Sonia Greenidge from UCL's Student Psychological and Counselling Services gives you her top tips to manage this stress.

The process of writing your thesis is a long one and the stress that can build up over this period of time can lead to writer's block and worryingly long periods of unproductiveness. Here are my top three tips to help you lower your stress levels allowing you to progress with your thesis.

Break it down

Rather than thinking that you have to dedicate lengthy periods each day to writing up, a helpful method to manage the stress of thesis writing is to break the day into small bite-sized pieces. Even if you dedicate a whole day to your write up, this should still be broken down into bite-sized periods.

Make sure that alongside your work times you also schedule in some break times. For example, work for 45 minutes and then break for 15 minutes, continue this until breaking for lunch for an hour then continue the 45-minute work and 15-minute break routine.

Be specific

Assign a specific task to do for each study period. Having a clear idea of what you are doing can alleviate the ‘so much to do, how am I going to do it?!’ stress. For example, plan to specifically ‘finish discussion paragraph on self-reflection’ not generally ‘write some more of the discussion’.

Assigning specific things to do in your break times can also help manage the stress that comes from feeling you have so much to do and so little time to do it all. Have a break for checking emails, a break for making calls, a break for making lunch etc. This way you still get all your 'life admin' done alongside getting that all important thesis written up!

Free writing

Experiencing writer’s block and feeling that you are not progressing as you would like to can be a huge trigger for stress. With free writing, you write whatever comes to mind on a topic without stopping to censor or make corrections.

Do this for a while until you feel yourself in the flow and then…keep going! You will probably have a lot of useful material from your free writing time that you can go back and tidy up later.

Dr Sonia Greenidge, UCL Student Psychological and Counselling Services (SPCS)

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How to keep motivated when working on your dissertation or final project

Is your summer filled with research and writing rather than relaxing? Motivation for a long-term project can be challenging to maintain, especially when it feels like everyone else in on a break. So we’ve put together our top tips on keeping motivated when writing your dissertation.

Write something every (work)day

On the days when you plan to work, aim to write a set number of words a day without fail. Giving yourself this target will do wonders to keep yourself motivated, slowly seeing yourself finishing up section after section while nearing the word count will give you an immense sense of progress. You can always go back and edit, but getting the words down is often the hardest part.

Plan your working hours throughout the day

Doing a 10 hour shift without any objective may seem like a productive session because of all the hours you’ve done but in reality it isn’t. Instead, work out what you want to achieve each day and break your day down into sessions. Give yourself a time in which you’ll get a certain task done. Depending what you want to achieve that day you might have one session, or you might have three if you’re really busy.

Forcing yourself to work in designated time slots with specific aims will help you be more productive (and give you time to do other things too).

Take a proper break/ do other things

Taking a break could be the best thing to get your motivation back. Try taking a walk outside if the weather is nice,meet your friends in the park, or switch off and enjoy some well-deserved Netflix – you won’t regret it and you’ll feel even more recharged for your next bit of work.

Find study partners

In many cases, having a study partner(s) will keep you motivated and accountable to each other to keep going. Additionally, having someone else read your work could help identify any mistakes you missed.

Partnering up with someone who is committed as you will also make your study sessions go faster.

Create a progress chart

One of the most demotivating things is the feeling of putting the hard work in without seeing any return.

By tracking your efforts, the progress chart will remind you of where you are doing well and where you need to focus more. It could be a visual reminder that you are moving in the right direction. Do this however suits you – tick off a to do list, something bright and colourful – whatever will make you feel that sense of achievement as you progress.

Take a look at MLE courses on over summer and our pieces on writing productively, and proofreading for more advice.

Dissertation Stress: Don’t Ignore the Warning Signs

Writing a dissertation is a very lengthy and difficult process. The students working on a dissertation often become a victim of dissertation writing stress. Therefore, before the stress can worsen your dissertation, you need to identify the sign of dissertation writing stress and avoid them from occurring. The preventive methods suggested in this article will help you avoid the dissertation stress and its signs.

Writing a dissertation is not an easy task. You need to work right from the process of identifying the research topic, formulating the questions, selecting the right methodology, reviewing the literature, and analysing the results. With such a huge responsibility, the students often get stressed.

Need for Stress Management: Dissertation Writing Stress

The stress plays a very vital role in the success of PhD dissertation. Only those students succeed who are capable of dealing with their stress are successful with their dissertation. Therefore, the students need to focus on stress management for a successful dissertation.

Signs of Stress

The students working on their dissertation can experience two types of stress: emotional and behavioural.

1. Emotional Signs

Loss of interest in the activities that you felt interesting
Restless and anxious
Angry, argumentative and irritable
Concentration issues
Mental Laziness
Avoiding dealing with problems

2. Behavioural Signs

Difficulty in accepting things
Avoiding regular responsibilities
Behaving Compulsively
Poor self-caring
Financial and legal issues
Poor follow-through on task

Preventive Solutions

Now that you known the need and the signs of dissertation writing stress, it is essential that you deal with it to make your dissertation submission successful. The best way to deal with it is through preventive solutions rather than solving it after it occurs. The best preventive measures to avoid stress are

Time Management

1. Meditation

Meditation is a proven method of avoiding stress. The best thing about it is that it helps you clear your mind of the unnecessary thoughts that become the factors of stress. Achieving a meditating state depends on from one person to another. Some might achieve it in a silent place while some might active it in a natural place. While you meditate yourself out of stress, you can get help from dissertation writers in UK from the best dissertation writing services. These dissertation services in UK can complete your dissertation with a very high quality.

2. Exercise

Exercise is one of the most important tips that everyone provides. It is a very important and priceless tool to manage one’s stress. Moreover, as students working on dissertation have to sit for a long time, they definitely need some exercise to keep themselves physically active. Regular exercise increases the endorphin count in our body. This endorphin is responsible to energise you and elevate your mood. Moreover, doing exercise regularly reduces your cholesterol, which is one of the key chemical ingredients driving stress.

During your exercise, if the fitness freak within you awakens and you need to spend more time on fitness, you can get dissertation writing help from cheap dissertation writing services. These services will provide you dissertation services in UK at very reasonable prices without disrupting the quality.

Along with regular exercise, a well-structured diet plan is essential. The saying “you are what you eat” perfectly applies in this case.

When you eat junk food, your body will behave like a junk. While, feeding on a healthy diet will keep your body fit, active and healthy. The best ways to stay focused on your dissertation and avoid stress is to snack on fruits and vegetables and avoid deep-fried foods. In addition, some bottle of vitamins can keep you energized for your dissertation. While some might suggest caffeinated beverages, you should always to consume a small amount of caffeine.

Sleep is important element in human life that is difficult to ignore. Being a student working on a dissertation, you should sleep for around seven hours a day to remain active and avoid stress. Moreover, you need to ensure that you sleep regularly at the same time to maintain the circadian rhythm of your body. Keep in mind that oversleep is equally harmful as lack of sleep.

Have you wondered why to waste your time while sleeping? In that case, you must get help from dissertation writing services in UK who can provide you with best dissertation writing service in UK .

Stress might be a huge blocker for your dissertation and it is essential that you do not ignore the warning signs. However, why wait for the signs to appear? You can take the precautionary steps discussed in this article to avoid stress and their signs. On the other hand, if need dissertation help from someone, you can reach out to Uniresearchers , one of the dissertation writing services in UK. It provides dissertation writing help to all the students looking for cheap dissertation writing services.

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Home > Student Research, Creative Works, and Publications > Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations > 512

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The role of resilience, emotion regulation, and perceived stress on college academic performance.

Katherine A. Pendergast , University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Follow

Committee Chair

Ozbek, Irene Nichols, 1947-

Committee Member

Clark, Amanda J.; Rogers, Katherine H.

Dept. of Psychology

College of Arts and Sciences

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Stress is a common problem for college students. The goal of this thesis was to examine the relationships between protective and risk factors to experiencing stress and how these factors may predict academic performance in college students. 125 college students were surveyed twice over the course of a semester on emotion regulation strategies, trait resilience, and perceived stress. The relationships between these variables and semester GPA were analyzed using correlational, multiple regression, and hierarchical regression analyses. It was determined that trait resilience scores do predict use of emotion regulation strategies but change in stress and trait resilience do not significantly predict variation in academic performance during the semester. Limitations and future directions are further discussed.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my advisor, Dr. Ozbek, and committee members, Dr. Clark and Dr. Rogers, for invaluable feedback and support. Additional thanks to Dr. Jonathan Davidson, M.D., for his permission to use the CD-RISC to better understand resilience in the college population. Also, I would like to extend thanks to Linda Orth, Sandy Zitkus, and the entire records office staff of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for their willingness to collaborate and assist with this project. Lastly, I would like to thank the faculty and students of the Psychology Department for their overall support.

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Stress (Psychology); Academic achievement -- Education (Higher)

Stress; Resilience; Emotion regulation; Academic performance

Document Type

Masters theses

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Recommended Citation

Pendergast, Katherine A., "The role of resilience, emotion regulation, and perceived stress on college academic performance" (2017). Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/512

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Understanding and Managing Academic Stress: A Guide for Master’s Students

Stress among master’s students.

Stress is an unavoidable part of everyone’s life. The term ‘stress’ was first coined in 1936 by Hans Selye, who defines it as a ‘non-specific response of the body to any demand for change’. Although stress is a physiological adaptation to threats, stress has positive and negative effects. For some people, stress can lead to better thinking and boost creativity. However, in most cases, stress negatively impacts one’s physical and mental health ( Hazarika , 2021).

Master’s students may experience significant levels of stress as a result of competing demands and the rigorous nature of master’s programmes. Master’s students encounter the standard academic constraints of higher education and added professional stressors such as the pressure to publish, teach, and meet their guide’s expectations. Master’s students may ignore their emotional and physical health if pressured to reconcile academic and professional ambitions with outside family and job responsibilities ( Allen , 2021).

The following section deals with the causes of stress and ways to overcome it:

Causes of Stress among master’s students

Various studies have been conducted for measuring stress levels among graduate students. However, a qualitative study by Leslie (2021) elaborated on the following sources of stress among health professional graduates:

Institutional sources of stress: The institutional sources of stress are related to the curriculum and include workload, course, lack of time, instructions given for assignments, delay in posting grades, prioritisation of tasks and perceived non-essential coursework . Students often feel that the workload is very high, they need more time to complete their assignments, and they lack sufficient guidance from their mentors. Students also feel that they lack guidance from their supervisor. This finding is especially true among international students.
Psychological sources of stress: Students struggled to focus on their academic work because they had domestic tasks at home, and being away from home or separated from their families added to their academic-related stress.
External factors for stress: The external factors of student stress were related to the lack of timely feedback from the Ethics Committee; the wait time for approval from the Ethics Committee caused stress among students conducting research for their master’s dissertation.In some cases, students needed help funding their research for their master’s dissertation. Some students faced stress about funding a semester or dissertation, leading them to resit it.

Methods to overcome stress

Engaging in extra-curricular activities: Engaging in outdoor activities like sports and going out with friends helped reduce stress among master’s students. Some students also found engaging in activities like listening to music and distancing themselves from work helpful for reducing stress.
Relaxation: Relaxation techniques like meditation, spirituality and yoga help students to reduce their stress levels. Effect of relaxation techniques includes sensations of fulfilment, positive emotions, calmness, and relaxation. They encourage self-reflection and improve attention. A study by Paul (2016) revealed that spiritual practices helped students pursuing master’s degree in management reduce academic stress and encourages cultivating spiritual practices among students.
Seeking support: Students must seek the help of a counsellor when they are feeling stressed. Communicating experiences helps in this regard. Counsellors may offer tips that are helpful for them ( Gondo , 2023).

Stress is a physiological reaction to perceived threats. While it may lead to positive effects like improved creativity, it affects students’ physical and mental well-being. Although it is prevalent among master’s students in various specializations, its intensity varies. Students may be stressed on aspects related to coursework and master’s dissertation . Factors contributing to stress could be related to institutions, psychological factors and external factors. Relaxation techniques, engaging in extra-curricular activities and seeking mental health support can help reduce stress.

About Tutors India

We are a team of professional academic writers and researchers who have helped master’s students with their dissertations and coursework. We understand that pursuing a Master’s degree can be stressful, so we offer customized help for students. We assist students at every stage of their coursework and dissertation and ensure that the work aligns with the university guidelines. We also offer numerous study guides and sample works that help students develop a well-structured dissertation and high-quality coursework.

To know more about how a master’s dissertation is written in various fields, check out our dissertation examples .

Hazarika, Dr. (2021). “A Study on The Levels Of Stress Among Post Graduate Students Of Dibrugarh University’’. Psychology and Education Journal. 58. 5897-5907.
Allen HK, Barrall AL, Vincent KB, Arria AM. Stress and Burnout Among Graduate Students: Moderation by Sleep Duration and Quality. Int J Behav Med. 2021 Feb;28(1):21-28.
Kadene Leslie, Kimarie Brown, Joyette Aiken, Perceived academic-related sources of stress among graduate nursing students in a Jamaican University, Nurse Education in Practice, Volume 53,2021,103088.
Gondo, D., Bernardeau-Moreau, D., & Campillo, P. (2023). Student Stress and the Effects of Relaxation: A Study Conducted at the University of Lille in Northern France. Social Sciences, 12(6), 318. MDPI AG. Retrieved from
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Help! I'm a postgrad: how to combat the stress of doing a master's

Deadlines are looming, you’re broke and student parties are a distant memory. Being a postgrad is tough at times, but you don’t have to suffer in silence

D oing a postgrad means signing up to having a bit more on your plate. You’ll be balancing finances, managing a high workload, figuring out your career and perhaps living in a new town, away from friends and family – all at the same time. But it’s an opportunity that’s likely to be rewarding, intellectually challenging and transformative. So how do you make the most of it while keeping stress at bay?

Student groups and universities are concerned about rising stress levels. Last year Universities UK’s mental wellbeing working group discovered that campus counselling services are seeing an annual increase in demand of about 10%, with mental health professionals identifying anxiety and stress as the cause.

A 2014 survey by the charity Student Minds found that stress was the second most commonly cited challenge to mental health among students.

The upside of all this research is that there is a more open conversation on campuses about mental health, and postgraduates are being encouraged to seek support if it’s needed.

Here’s some advice from experts and postgraduate students on what to look out for – and what helps:

You don’t have to be perfect

“Students on postgraduate courses are generally there because they did well in their undergraduate degree, and they have high expectations of success at postgraduate level,” says Mel Withers, head of counselling at the University of Sussex. “They can then put a lot of pressure on themselves and become perfectionists, which is hugely stressful and demanding.”

Coupled with this, Withers suggests that being older, postgraduate students might find it harder to admit that they are struggling. “Speak out. Speak to a colleague, to a fellow student, to a professional. Don’t think you’ve just got to struggle on because you’re an adult.

“Academics can help by managing students’ expectations about what they should have achieved at different stages of the course,” Withers adds.

Nicky Lidbetter, the chief executive of Anxiety UK, a charity that has issued guidance about stress for students , agrees that postgraduates tend to feel the pressure to perform. “There’s more of a financial consequence to doing well, due to being older and, in some cases, taking time out of the workplace. At undergraduate there’s a bit more leniency about having downtime.”

But while coping with this pressure isn’t easy, spending punishing hours in the library isn’t the solution. Lidbetter and Withers agree that allowing yourself to take breaks and plan fun things to do is the key to improving both your wellbeing and your performance.

Plan your year carefully, including holidays

“A master’s year is all about scheduling, really preparing yourself for what you’re signing up to for before diving in,” says Lidbetter. “That means looking at when those deadlines are going to hit and planning for them. But when I say scheduling, it’s not all work, work, work. It’s about short bursts of intensive concentration rather than long slogs in front of the computer.”

Postgraduate students agree. “I found it hard at first to have the confidence to take time out from studying,” says Rosie Edmundson, who completed an MA in education with the Open University while also working in student support at a school. “But the more anxious I got, the less motivated I was to work, so it was counterproductive not to have breaks.”

Olivia Havercroft, 27, who is doing a part-time MA in history at the University of Manchester alongside her job, says: “I’ve helped manage stress by taking a weekend when I can, and a week off each term, to relax.

“Getting that space away from academia is crucial. It helps you think more clearly, which will help you do better. Part of this is understanding that an MA is just an MA, it’s not my life.”

Seek peer support

“Having a good support network is very important and can help when things get tough,” says Nahid Saiyed, who works in student services at the University of Birmingham. “Luckily one of most enjoyable aspects about postgraduate degrees is the opportunity for building networks with other people.”

But the social side of a master’s can be something students find tough at first, Withers warns. They may have lost the busy social life they had as undergrads, and often find themselves doing paid work alongside their studies which cuts down on free time.Her advice is to “find a study buddy, or get other students in your cohort together once a week or a month to chat about the course”. While this has undoubted academic benefits, it also provides the social pleasures of conversation among people with shared interests.

“Once I got to know other students, we formed an academic support network – and going to the pub once a week helped,” says Havercroft. “I would recommend joining reading groups, talking to PhD students, going to work-in-progress seminars: these can all help if you’re serious about an academic career.”

Take care of yourself and make use of what the university offers

Find out at the start of the year what services your university provides for postgraduates; there are likely to be counselling, mindfulness or meditation sessions.

“At Sussex we have workshops specifically tailored for postgraduates. These services give advice around things like managing finances or navigating the assessment system. I’m sure most universities would do the same,” says Withers.

Saiyed adds: “At Birmingham we provide counselling, psycho-educational workshops, therapy groups, self-help resources and guidance on the disabled students allowance, all of which are useful for people experiencing mental health difficulties.”

In terms of how you can manage your own stress, Lidbetter recommends trying to keep some routine, eating well, not drinking too much caffeine and making sure you get enough sleep. “These are all things we know we need to do. It’s hard to remember while you’re studying, but they really impact on wellbeing.”

Edmundson recommends downloading an app such as Headspace , which teaches meditation and breathing techniques that can help if you’re feeling overwhelmed by essay deadlines.

Finally, remember that stress is normal from time to time. “It is almost inevitable that during the year there will periods that will be stressful, but provided it is acknowledged and managed, it can help with personal growth,” says Saiyed.

Grace Pickles, 23, who’s coming the end of a postgrad at Manchester University, says she accepted stress as part of the deal. “I put myself in this position. Reminding myself that while it was going to be a tough few years, it’d be worth it in the end, is what kept me going.”

Keep up with the latest on Guardian Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents – and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.

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Introduction to the Guide to Graduate Policy

A. introduction.

This guide is intended for use by faculty and staff graduate advisors. It presents policies governing the sequence of steps involved in completing a graduate degree at Berkeley and procedures to implement them.

For changing information, such as deadlines, phone numbers, and email contact information, consult the Graduate Division website. When communicating about policies or making requests under any of the procedures listed, please use the operational email addresses listed on the Graduate Division website rather than the email addresses of individual staff members, to ensure prompt receipt of requests and proper routing.

Admissions, appointments, degrees, and fellowships handbooks supplement this guide with detailed step by step instructions intended for staff. For graduate students, the Graduate Division produces guides for filing the Master’s thesis and Doctoral dissertation, and an overview of appointments called What You Need to Know About Being a GSI, GSR, Reader, or Tutor. Information in those resources supplements this guide, but in case of apparent contradiction, the Guide to Graduate Policy is authoritative.

A1. How to use this guide

Each section of this guide begins with a discussion of specific issues, citing relevant policy. Policies are often based on memos from the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, which are available on the Graduate Division website, and implement the regulations and decisions of the Graduate Council of the Academic Senate, which are published on the Academic Senate website.

Where appropriate, discussion of policy is followed by description of procedures to be used by programs to implement specific policies. Unless an alternative is described, requests for exceptions to policies should be made through a memo signed by the Head Graduate Advisor directed to the relevant Associate Dean for Admissions and Degrees or the Associate Dean for Fellowships and Appointments, submitted to the Graduate Divisions Degrees Office, Admissions Office, or Fellowships Office.

Throughout this guide, “program” refers to a degree granting program, whether housed in an academic department or administered by a graduate group; “student” means an admitted graduate student; “applicant” means a person who has applied for admission, but has not yet been offered admission and replied to the offer using the SIR form.

A1.1 Partners in Student Progress

The Graduate Council, faculty Graduate Advisers, Faculty Advisers for GSI Affairs, Faculty Equity Advisers, and Graduate Student Affairs Officers are partners of the Graduate Division. Each has a unique role to play in graduate education.

Graduate Division

The administrative arm of the Graduate Council of the Academic Senate, it is empowered to enforce regulations and policies developed through faculty governance. The Graduate Division appoints faculty Graduate Advisors and Faculty Advisors for GSI Affairs as its representatives in graduate programs. The Graduate Division supports Graduate Student Affairs Officers with online systems, information about policy updates, and training in new procedures.

Within the Graduate Division, different offices provide support for graduate students, faculty, and staff addressing distinct issues. The Admissions Office handles all aspects of the admissions process. The Fellowships Office manages university fellowship competitions and administration of fellowships managed through the graduate division. Appointments reviews all proposed academic appointments for graduate students for compliance with policy. The Degrees Office monitors graduate student progress through benchmarks, and receives and processes all petitions concerning course enrollment, changes or additions of majors, appointment and changes of committees, and the filing of the thesis or dissertation.

The Graduate Division also offers professional development for graduate students, primarily through its GSI Teaching and Resource Center and Academic Services.

Assistant Deans and Associate Deans are consulted by these offices when needed, but unless noted specifically in the Guide, requests addressed to the Deans normally are routed first to one of these offices. The Assistant and Associate Deans are responsible for policy development and implementation, strategic planning for new and existing programs, and handle student grievances and student and faculty consultations about less routine aspects of policy.

Graduate Council

The Graduate Council is the committee of the faculty Academic Senate charged with safeguarding the excellence of graduate education at Berkeley. It consists of 12 faculty members, plus three graduate students nominated by the Graduate Assembly. The Dean of the Graduate Division is an ex officio voting member of the council and chairs its Administrative Committee.

The Graduate Council sets the policies and standards for graduate admission, fellowships, and degrees. The Council reviews established degree programs and proposals for new fields of study or degrees; establishes qualifications and policies for Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Researchers; and responds to issues referred to it by the Dean of the Graduate Division, the Chancellor’s Office, and the Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs.

Head Graduate Advisers and Graduate Advisers

Graduate Advisers are faculty members responsible for the academic advising of graduate students. They are official deputies appointed by the Dean of the Graduate Division to act in matters affecting graduate students in their programs. When a program has more than one officially appointed Graduate Advisor, one is designated the Head Graduate Advisor. The Graduate Council requires that the Head Graduate Advisor be a tenured Academic Senate member. Other Graduate Advisors ideally are also tenured, but an Assistant Professor may serve with the Dean’s permission.

Role of the Graduate Adviser

Graduate Advisers are responsible for assisting students in selecting programs of study, and acting on petitions to add or drop courses. Graduate Advisers should maintain records of their advisees and review the records of all graduate students in the program once a year and inform the Graduate Division, in writing, if a student is not making adequate progress toward a degree.

Role of the Head Graduate Adviser

Only the Head Graduate Adviser can sign documents or make requests to the Graduate Division on matters concerning graduate enrollment, degrees, progress, and financial aid, such as admission, reenrollment, change or addition of major, graduate standing, and appointment of Qualifying Examination and dissertation committees.

Faculty Advisers for Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) Affairs

The Faculty Adviser for GSI Affairs functions as a liaison among the Graduate Division, program faculty, and GSIs; provides information concerning policies relating to GSIs to faculty and GSIs in the program; and raises issues on their behalf with the administration. Like the Graduate Advisors, they are nominated by the program and appointed by the Dean of the Graduate Division, and must be tenured Academic Senate faculty unless the Dean approves an exception.

Faculty Advisers for GSI Affairs are expected to be thoroughly familiar with the Graduate Council’s policies on GSI mentoring. The staff of the GSI Teaching and Resource Center supports the Faculty Advisors for GSI Affairs through its programs.

Faculty Equity Advisers

The Equity Adviser, or, in units with more than one Equity Adviser, the Head Equity Adviser, is approved by the Vice Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion. Among their functions, they consult with the Head Graduate Adviser and the other Graduate Advisers in the program to ensure that diversity is taken into account in the recruitment, selection, and retention of graduate students. The Equity Advisor must be a tenured member of the Academic Senate. The Equity Advisors’ Workbook is available through the web site of the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion.

Graduate Student Affairs Officers

Graduate Student Affairs Officers (GSAOs) are program staff members who are responsible for the administrative advising of graduate students. They remind students about registration and fellowship deadlines, stay abreast of admissions, degrees, fellowship, and appointments requirements, as well as manage administrative paperwork on behalf of the program and its graduate students. Departments may add other roles and responsibilities to the work of these staff graduate advisors.

Annually, the Graduate Division sends program chairs a form to nominate the next academic year’s Graduate Adviser and Faculty Advisor for GSI Affairs. The nominees are reviewed and appointed by the Dean of the Graduate Division, on behalf of the Graduate Council.

A “Delegation of Authority” form is provided to the program at the same time as the call for nominations, allowing the delegation to a Graduate Student Affairs Officer of signature authority for many student petitions and requests for exception.

Both forms must be returned by the stated deadline, or the Registrar and Graduate Division staff may not be able to act on submitted petitions signed by individuals not yet recognized by the Graduate Division.

If for some reason a Graduate Adviser can no longer serve, the program chair should immediately notify the Graduate Division in writing.

MEMO November 1982: Academic Progress Evaluation, Academic Standing, and Appeals Procedures for Graduate Students
MEMO March 6, 2006: Best Practices For Faculty Mentoring of Graduate Students Approved by the Graduate Council

A1.2 Special Resources for Students with Difficulties

Faculty and staff working with graduate students can refer students with specific challenges to a number of offices and programs that work with graduate students or have resources specific to their needs, and/or are partners with the Graduate Division.

Faculty and staff may provide information about a student under the exception to FERPA for Health and Safety Emergencies authorized by the U.S. Department of Education:

“In an emergency, FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] permits school officials to disclose without student consent education records, including personally identifiable information from those records, to protect the health or safety of students or other individuals. At such times, records and information may be released to appropriate parties such as law enforcement officials, public health officials, and trained medical personnel….This exception to FERPA’s general [student] consent rule is limited to the period of the emergency and generally does not allow for a blanket release of personally identifiable information from a student’s education records. In addition, the Department interprets FERPA to permit institutions to disclose information from education records to parents if a health or safety emergency involves their son or daughter.”

Ombuds Office for Students and Postdoctoral Appointees

The Ombuds Office provides neutral assistance in situations where students may feel they have been treated unfairly or need help with a procedural or academic problem.

University Health Services (Tang)

Provides counseling and psychological services. Approves medical withdrawals recognized by the Graduate Division.

Berkeley International Office

Works with international graduate students to ensure compliance with US visa requirements, advise on family and work issues, and lists resources for English as a second language.

Gender Equity Resource Center

Provides programs and guidance to university resources for LGBTQ students, faculty, and staff.

Disabled Students Program

Provides students facing challenges from vision and hearing impairment, AD/HD, psychological impairment, mobility impairment, speech impairment, acquired brain injury, chronic illness, or other disabilities guidance about how to verify their disability and request accommodations.

Students of Concern

The Student of Concern Committee “is a multi-disciplinary body of stakeholders from across the University which receives referrals pertaining to students of concern, collects additional information, and identifies and enacts appropriate strategies for addressing the situation”. The Graduate Division is represented on this committee. The committee website provides links to resources across the campus that may be useful in different situations.

A student can be brought to the attention of the Student of Concern Committee by submitting a report through a secure online form accessed on the committee website.

In immediate emergency situations, faculty or staff should contact Tang Center’s Counseling and Psychological Services, and/or the UC Police’s Threat Management Unit.

Admissions Policy

B. admission.

The Admissions office of the Graduate Division monitors all matters dealing with applications for graduate study and recommendations of admission. Changing information, including deadlines, contact information, and specific information needed, is available through other information sources made available by the Admissions office. An Admissions Handbook for staff supplements this Guide with changing information.

B1. General Admission Policies

The Graduate Division sets targets for total enrollment, and determines the number of admission recommendations that may be made by each program. These numbers are sent annually to each graduate program in the fall semester. If a program admits for both fall and spring semesters, targets for both cycles are included in the same memo.

The Graduate Division provides a central platform for application to graduate study at Berkeley. Individual programs are responsible for reviewing applicants and recommending admission for the top applicants in each cycle. The Graduate Division monitors whether the minimum application requirements established by the systemwide Academic Senate and the Berkeley Division’s Graduate Council have been met and has the ultimate authority to approve or deny admission. An applicant is not officially admitted to the university until notification from the Dean of the Graduate Division is received .

B1.1 Admission and Enrollment Allocations

The Graduate Division sets admission and enrollment allocations for each program. Graduate enrollment is carefully monitored by the state, and it is vital that programs adhere to their assigned allocation.

How the Graduate Division Determines Admissions Allocations

Graduate admissions allocations are calculated based on success in maintaining student progress, awarding degrees, and minimizing the number of students who leave without a degree. These factors are weighted to produce a projected number of openings for new students, which when added to expected continuing and returning students, will equal the enrollment target. This target number of newly admitted students is mutiplied by the “show rate” from recent years for that program (the proportion of applicants who were offered admission and then enrolled).

How the Graduate Division Determines Enrollment Targets

The enrollment target is the total number of students in a program; it is approximately equal to the annual number of students admitted times the Normative Time to degree for a program. Enrollment targets are set based on the ability of a program to support students financially, to provide academic advising, and to guide students to success in meeting benchmarks for retention, advancement within normative time, and completion of the degree. The Graduate Division produces reports for programs that provide standard measures of these progress benchmarks.

Programs may wish to make a one-time request for additional admissions allocations for the current admissions cycle, to admit specific, identified applicants. Requests are made using the cover form distributed with the admissions allocation notification, accompanied by a memo signed by either the Program Chair or the Head Graduate Advisor, following the instructions on the cover form.

Requests for additional admissions allocations can only be made after review of applicants, because they must be justified by comparing the applicants proposed for additional admissions nominations to previously recommended applicants. Both the form and the required memo should be submitted via email to the Associate Dean for Admissions and Degrees.

Programs may request consideration of an adjustment to increase or decrease their ongoing enrollment target, not affecting the current year’s admissions allocation, by responding to a questionnaire available by writing to the Associate Dean for Degrees. The questionnaire asks for assessment of financial and advising capacity, as well as any other bases to change the enrollment target, and will be reviewed in conjunction with data on program success in retention, advancement within normative time, and completion of the degree. Once set, a new enrollment target will stay in place for three years, and then be reviewed against program outcomes.

B1.2 Admission Cycle and Requirements

The online application provided by the Graduate Division is available to applicants in early September each year. Graduate programs normally consider applicants for the following fall semester. Some also consider applicants for spring admission of the following year. Individual programs set the deadline for completion of applications. For programs taking part in fellowship competition, deadlines may be set within the range of December 1–January 5. The final deadline for all applicants can be no later than February 10. (The Berkeley Law School oversees applications for law degrees, which may not follow all the procedures outlined here.)

Programs establish expectations for the content of a complete application within the Graduate Division regulations, and should post on their websites any specific information applicants might need to complete a competitive application.

Applicants may only apply to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Procedure for Readmission

Applicants previously formally enrolled at Berkeley, however briefly, who wish to be considered for a new degree program must apply to the new degree program through the Online Application for Admission per the program’s normal admissions and review cycle. This policy is to ensure a transparent, thorough, and fair application review process, independent from an applicant’s current or past enrollment at Berkeley. There is no need for these applicants to submit the former “Application for Readmission” or the “Change of Major” forms.

Note that students returning to the same degree program after a period of withdrawal are covered under the “re-enrollment” process in the new Student Information System; they do not need to use the Online Application for Admission.

Required Documents for Admissions Applications:

Official transcripts. Transcripts of all college-level work must be uploaded into the application system for review. In general, international applicants are required to upload official copies in the original language and accompanied by English language translations. Specially prepared English versions are not acceptable in lieu of the records in the original language.
Letters of recommendation. Applicants can request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
Evidence of English language proficiency. All applicants from countries/regions in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This requirement applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, Israel, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, most European countries, and countries in Africa in which English is not the official language. However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a recognized U.S. institution may submit an official transcript from the U.S. university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement: 1) courses in English as a Second Language, 2) courses conducted in a language other than English, 3) courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and 4) courses of a non-academic nature. If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests.

B1.3 Evaluation of Applicants

Admission to graduate study at Berkeley is granted on a competitive and equitable basis. The Graduate Council encourages programs to develop diverse communities of graduate scholars. A transparent admissions process provides assurance to faculty, Graduate Council, and Graduate Division that all applicants are reviewed equitably. Accordingly, graduate programs are required to:

Have an established graduate admissions committee , whose term and composition are determined by program faculty. Programs are encouraged to consider committees that are diverse and may be composed of faculty, staff, graduate students and/or alumni, as appropriate.
Outline of the admissions committee makeup ;
Mission Statement and goals of the particular graduate program, including any research, educational, and diversity goals;
Procedures for the holistic review and evaluation of graduate applicants, including a description of the department’s assessment protocol for graduate applications, both qualitative and quantitative, as applicable (e.g. evaluative criteria, rubric, checklist, rating scale, etc.);
Attestation of “No Conflict of Interest” from committee members.
Program admission committees should review the Graduate Council Statement: “ Diversity in Graduate Student Recruitment and Selection ” to ensure that review includes a variety of criteria to facilitate the selection of applicants who are well-qualified and would contribute to the university’s goals in this area.

Uniform Minimum Requirements for Admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

a bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
a minimum grade-point average of B or better (3.0);
if the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g. Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, 90 on the iBT test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7; and
enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Related Memos

June 29, 2022: Policy Changes regarding the Evaluation of Applicants In Graduate Programs
November 8, 2005: Admission and GSI Appointment Scores on the iBT/Next Generation TOEFL
July 10, 2014: TOEFL Scores

Applicants Who Already Hold a Graduate Degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without undertaking a graduate program, unless the fields are completely dissimilar.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics Ph.D. could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a Ph.D. in statistics.
Applicants who hold the Ph.D. degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Program Admissions Criteria and Processes

Beyond the uniform minimum requirements for admission, a program may choose any criteria that are appropriate as a basis for its evaluation, including but not limited to undergraduate and graduate grade-point averages, work experience, test scores, letters of recommendation, and evidence of past achievements.

Participation by current graduate students in admission review is permitted, at the discretion of the program. If students participate, they must be briefed on and abide by the standard rules of confidentiality.

Admissions criteria and ranking procedures are subject to review by the Graduate Division.

Recommending Deferred Admission

Programs can recommend that an applicant’s admission be deferred, once, if the applicant has been recommended for admission but is unable to enroll on schedule and wants to begin graduate school in a later semester. Departments that admit only for fall semester can recommend deferring an admission only until the next fall semester; those admitting for both semesters can recommend deferral until spring or the following fall.

Deferred admission may be offered only to superior applicants. Applicants admitted by exception may not be deferred. Applicants whose entry might be deferred must be reviewed and ranked with the current applicant pool. Under no circumstances can deferred admission be offered to an international applicant who has not yet received a basic degree or whose scholarship, preparation, or English proficiency does not meet the university’s minimum admission standards.

Applicants with Deficiencies in Preparation

Applicants with serious deficiencies in preparation should be denied admission. Programs should recommend limited status for students who are making a radical change of field and who would need to complete an undergraduate major. Limited status is an undergraduate classification. Applicants who lack some course work but not the entire undergraduate major may be recommended for admission through an exception request. For more information on limited status and other options available to applicants who do not meet requirements for admission, see “Special Categories of Students” (section B1.8).

The Graduate Division maintains a record of the current procedures each program uses to evaluate applicants and make admissions decisions. Anytime procedures change, programs should send an updated description to the Associate Dean for Admissions and Degrees.

After a student has been admitted and has completed SIR, the academic program should submit the “Request for Deferred Admissions” form to the Graduate Admissions Office, justifying the reason for the deferral (deadline: June 1). Graduate Admissions will send a deferral status memo to the department once the deferral is processed.

A deferred student’s admission counts against a program’s admissions allocation only for the academic year in which the student was originally admitted. Unless special exceptions have been approved, a deferred student must join the program no later than one year after the original review date and recommendation for admission.

Deferrals must be requested via the “Request for Deferred Admission” form by the Head Graduate Advisor, uploaded into the student’s application record.
The deadline to submit deferrals for the following year is June 1.
Departments can only defer applicants who have accepted admissions through SIR.
TOEFL exam scores must be valid for the deferral period.
If a department that admits only for fall requests a one semester deferral to the following spring, the request requires an exception to the normal starting date of the program. The department must explain why the applicant will not be at an academic or financial disadvantage by starting in the spring.
July 23, 2014: Updates to Policy re Deferral of Admission
November 7, 2017: Deferral Policy Effective Fall 2018

B1.4 Redirection of an Application

The Graduate Division wants to ensure that programs recruit from pools of applicants who have selected the best program for their interests. Given the richness of graduate program offerings, a prospective student can easily find more than one program which might fit their interests and experience. Sometimes an admissions committee judges that a well-qualified applicant would be better served by consideration by a different graduate program. This option should only be considered when the alternative program is either on the same level (e.g., a PhD applicant may be redirected to another PhD program) or is on a more advanced level (e.g. a masters’ applicant may be redirected to a PhD program). The program asking to redirect the applicant is affirming a belief that the applicant has the credentials for general admission to a Berkeley graduate program.

Both the original program and the suggested alternative program must agree to redirect the application. The applicant must have two weeks to decide whether to accept the proposed redirection or ask that the original program make a final decision. If both programs and the applicant agree to redirection, the original program should contact the Graduate Division’s Admissions office to arrange for the application to be made available to the alternative program by changing the requested major. The applicant’s consent must be confirmed directly.

B1.5 Ranking of Applicants

Rankings provide an objective measure of a program’s basis to recommend admission or denial for a particular candidate. The applicant’s rank enables the program and the Graduate Division to be specific about the faculty judgment of an individual’s qualifications compared with competing applicants. If a disappointed candidate asks for a detailed explanation or takes legal action, rankings can be essential to explaining and defending the program’s recommendation. For these reasons, programs must rank all applicants, even those who are clearly inadmissable.

Sept. 16, 2002: Applicant Review and Ranking Procedure
January 10, 2012: Comprehensive Evaluation of Applicants for Graduate Admission

B1.6 Reporting Admission Recommendations to the Graduate Division

Candidates for admission who are ranked by the program within its admissions offer allocation are recommended for admission through the Graduate Admissions online application system. Applicants offered admission after review by the Graduate Division must complete the Statement of Intent to Register form online.

Programs directly enter recommendations for admission into the Graduate Admissions database.

Each recommendation for admission must specify:

the major and degree to which the applicant is to be admitted;
for domestic applicants, the grade-point average for work completed for the bachelor’s degree, computed on all undergraduate course work completed after the first two years and up to the award of the bachelor’s degree;
the applicant’s ranking in program review
the test scores, if appropriate, for TOEFL or IELTS.
required academic records

The designated Program Administrator enters the recommendation information, GPA, and program ranking in the admissions database. After the application is reviewed and approved for admission, the applicant is notified of the official decision.

The program must outline how the applicant does not meet Graduate Division requirements and their justification for requesting permission to admit the applicant in a memo to the Associate Dean for Degrees and Admissions. The Graduate Division may approve the plan or make suggested changes as a condition of approving admission with deficiencies.

Once the Associate Dean for Degrees and Admissions approves admission, the program must provide the applicant in writing (with a copy to the Graduate Division) a description of:

the nature of the deficiencies;
the approximate time allowed to resolve them; and
whether the background work can be taken concurrently with graduate study or whether the applicant must complete the course work before beginning the graduate program.

This letter establishes the Graduate Division’s expectations for the admitted applicant to resolve the deficiencies. Students will not be permitted to continue to register if they do not meet the conditions of their admission within the stated period.

If a program wants to recommend admissions for a student already holding a masters or doctorate to a second Ph.D. or to a lesser degree, the head Graduate Advisor must request an exception in writing.

B1.7 Informing Applicants of Admission or Denial

Programs must not inform applicants that they have been admitted until the official notice has been sent by the graduate division..

When a program recommends admission of an applicant, and the applicant fulfills the minimum requirements or an exception is sought and granted, and the program has not used up its admissions allocation or has sought and been granted an additional admissions allocation, the Graduate Division will issue an admission notification from the Dean of the Graduate Division to the student. Only written notice from the Dean of the Graduate Division constitutes an offer of admission.

Deadline for admissions decisions for applicants who are citizens or permanent residents:

Admissions decisions for programs admitting for fall semester should be finalized by June 1 (for programs admitting students to begin in fall). Programs are encouraged to review the response to offers of admission by May 15, and if necessary, request additional admissions offers based on lower than expected acceptance rates. Any applicants whose status is still “undecided” on July 1 will be changed to “declined”, to ensure that applicants receive notice of the final decision concerning their applications.

Deadline for admissions decisions for applicants who are not citizens or permanent residents of the United States:

Applicants who are not citizens or permanent residents of the United States must be recommended for admission no later than May 1 for fall semester and October 1 for spring semester in order to allow time for their visas to be processed.

After the program recommendation, the Graduate Admissions Office will send the student the official admissions notification. Admitted students must notify the Graduate Division of their intent by completing the Statement of Intent to Register form online. For students who accept the offer of admission, they will receive an email with their Student ID number and instructions on how to create a CalNet ID to access the student portal CalCentral to start the on-boarding process. The student must review the on-boarding messages and checklist items under “Tasks” on My Dashboard that they will need to complete in order to register.

Response Deadline for Applicants Offered Admission

Applicants indicate their intent to accept admission by completing the online Statement of Intent to Register (SIR).

UC Berkeley subscribes to the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) policy, “Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants,” which states: “Students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of this Resolution.”

Programs may set a response deadline that conforms to this resolution, as long as applicants offered admission with financial support are not required to respond before April 15. There is currently no Graduate Division deposit required for those who accept the offer of admission, and no Graduate Division deadline for students offered admission unless they are offered fellowships requiring response by April 15.

Notifying Applicants Who are Denied Admission

All applicants denied admission should be notified in writing. Programs must enter the denial decision into the admissions system before July 1. The program must retain supplemental materials (transcripts, forms, letters of recommendation, etc.) for at least two years. To ensure that all applicants receive a final decision, unless an exception has been made, any applicant whose status is still “undecided” on July 1 will be changed to “denied”.

Rescinding an Admission Offer

While mistakes are rare and we strive to avoid them at all costs, UC Berkeley Graduate Division may rescind an offer of admission if that offer was made in the case of administrative error, or due to incomplete or inaccurate information submitted on the application.

B1.8 Special Categories of Students

Graduate students at Berkeley are normally engaged in full-time study leading to a degree. Course work only status, visiting student researcher status, Education Abroad Program Reciprocity status, and limited enrollment status for undergraduates, are special categories each of which has specific requirements, and limitations in relation to graduate programs.

Course Work Only

Course-work-only status permits students who are not working toward a higher degree to enroll in a maximum of two semesters of graduate work. These students must meet the same requirements for admission as those set for other entering graduate students. Course-work-only applicants, therefore, must be evaluated and ranked with all other applicants.

Course-work-only status is appropriate only for students who want to enroll in courses that are not available elsewhere or who want to complete a limited amount of course work for professional advancement. After two semesters, the registration of course-work-only students will be blocked. Course-work-only status cannot be used as a probationary status preliminary to being admitted to a degree program. These students will not be permitted to enter a degree program at a later date, unless they are current UC employees.

Course-work-only students, except UC employees and students in the Education Abroad Program (EAP), count in program admission allocations. Course-work-only students are not eligible for the fellowship competition and may not be appointed as Academic Student Employees or Graduate Student Researchers.

Students Working for Graduate Degrees at Another Institution

Applicants who want to study at Berkeley before they have completed work toward a graduate degree at another institution may apply for admission to

course-work-only status (above); or
visiting student researcher status; visiting student researchers a) visit to conduct research for the purpose of meeting doctoral degree requirements at another university; b) conduct research of mutual interest to and endorsed by an academic department, ORU, or other Berkeley campus unit; and c) are appointed for at least one month and not more than one year in duration. The Visiting Scholars and Postdoctoral Affairs program manages this process.

Education Abroad Program Reciprocity

In 1980, the Education Abroad Program (EAP) inaugurated non-degree/no-fee direct exchange programs with a number of universities abroad. Prospective participants apply initially to the University of California Study Center located at their home institution abroad. The individual study centers select the successful participants and submit applications for those students to the Systemwide EAP office located in Santa Barbara. The Systemwide EAP office will complete an online application for Course Work Only status for the specific program. Students who enroll in this non-degree category are not eligible to continue in a degree program upon completion of their course work, and their registration is limited to a maximum of one year.

EAP Reciprocity applicants do not count against the program’s admissions allocation. They are not required to pay the application fee. If accepted, they are admitted to course-work-only status (see above). Applicants must meet all minimum University requirements for admission, including an appropriate basic degree, an acceptable GPA, and English language proficiency. If a program has a GRE requirement, it should notify the EAP applicant. Applicants are required to submit official transcripts from U.S. colleges or universities in sealed envelopes. Academic records from abroad certified by the Systemwide EAP Coordinator are acceptable in lieu of official copies normally required of international students applying for degree programs, since EAP reciprocity is not admission to a degree program.

The applications of EAP applicants should be reviewed following procedures used for all other applicants, and they must be recommended for admission or denial. Programs must report the rank for all EAP applicants recommended for admission. Since EAP applicants recommended for admission will not count in the program’s allocation, the program may rank them as a separate group, i.e., EAP-1, EAP-2, and so on.

Final decisions on EAP applicants should be made no later than June 1, particularly for those denied admission, to enable the Systemwide EAP Coordinator to place them at another UC campus. Admission of EAP applicants may not be deferred because their home institution abroad determines their selection for eligibility.

Students enrolled in this category do not pay nonresident tuition or educational fees. Although the campuses do not receive instructional support resources from the state or the Office of the President for these students, the Education Abroad Program transfers an amount equivalent to the registration fee to the receiving campus. Note that the Office of the President does not include EAP students in the census of campus FTE enrollments.

Upon completion of two semesters, the registration of admitted EAP students will automatically be blocked. If a former participant in an EAP program at the graduate level subsequently applies for a graduate degree, the program would need to request an exception to recommend admission. Payment of retroactive fees for the time spent in graduate study would then be required.

Limited Status

The Colleges of Chemistry, Natural Resources, and Engineering may consider admitting students in limited status, which is not a graduate status. The limited status program allows an undergraduate who has received a recognized undergraduate degree with a record of good scholarship (an overall grade-point average of at least 3.3) to pursue course work in a field unrelated to any prior degrees, for a specific and clearly defined purpose. Often this involves preparation for graduate study.

Students who complete a program in limited status are not automatically eligible for graduate study at Berkeley. To be admitted, a person who has completed limited study must submit an application for admission by the required deadline. They must be evaluated for graduate admission on the same basis as other applicants. While on limited status, students are not allowed to take graduate courses (200 series). Undergraduate courses completed while on limited status cannot be used to satisfy subject or residence requirements for an advanced degree or credential, if the applicant is admitted.

B1.9 Documentation of Admission Decisions

Admission records, including ranking procedures for each cohort, should be retained for those admitted and denied for at least two admission cycles..

These records may be needed to respond to legal complaints. Federal agencies require the University to summarize the qualifications of successful as well as unsuccessful applicants in order to demonstrate that a complainant’s qualifications were below the level of those admitted for a particular program and semester, according to the program’s criteria for evaluation. The Graduate Division can compile most of the statistical information needed to respond to legal investigations, but programs alone have information on their assessment of the particular strengths and weaknesses that contributed to decisions about individual applicants. Programs should keep records to support their response, such as letters of recommendation, the results of interviews, and computations of applicant scores or ranks.

B2. Applicant Records

Release of applicant information.

In compliance with California’s Information Practices Act of 1977 (IPA), the Graduate Admissions Office will release information on an applicant’s status only to the applicant. Applicant records can only be released to an alternate contact listed in the section of the online graduate application for admission that grants permission to release information, or if the applicant submits a written statement giving permission to a person specifically named.

The Graduate Division’s policy, based on IPA guidelines, is to hold in confidence all information provided in application materials except the names of applicants, and the programs to which they applied, which is considered public information. An applicant can include a written request to withhold that information with the application, and must also inform the program not to release this information.

Rights of Applicants

Under this Information Practices Act, letters and statements of recommendation and admission committee appraisals are considered “personal information.” The IPA requires disclosure of personal information to the individual concerned. Applicants legally have access to letters of recommendation and admission committee evaluation material unless they have formally waived that access.

Applicants complete the waiver question on the letter of recommendation page online and submit it with their letters of recommendation. If an applicant has not waived the right of access, then the program must disclose the letters of recommendation to the individual upon request, regardless of where the letters are filed.

Programs may wish to consider adding a waiver of access rights form specifically for comments that might be recorded during review. Any such waiver would have to be voluntary and could not be required as a condition of admission or review.

B2.1 Registration of New Graduate Students

Under the CalCentral registration system, most new graduate students receive their registration information from their programs when they arrive on campus. The Graduate Admissions Office will block the registration of entering students who have not yet submitted required proof of degree and academic records. Students who received bachelor’s degrees the preceding spring or summer have until the fourth week of the fall semester to submit proof of degree. For further information on admission status, programs can contact the Graduate Admissions Office.

Diversity Policy

C. diversity.

The University of California, Berkeley, is committed to encouraging diversity in graduate education. The Graduate Diversity Program, reporting to the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion and the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, provides primary guidance in efforts to maintain and increase diversity.

C1. Graduate Council Statement: “Diversity in Graduate Student Recruitment and Selection” — Reissued February 1998

The University has moved into the post-affirmative action era as defined by Proposition 209. There is no doubt that the recruitment, selection, and support of graduate students has been and will continue to be affected by these new realities. However, the policies of the Graduate Council relating to student recruitment and selection, as formulated in 1985 and reaffirmed most recently in January 1996, remain unaltered, as do the assumptions upon which they are based. In particular, we believe that the educational experience is enhanced by a graduate student body that is heterogeneous with respect to economic circumstances, gender, and ethnicity, as three of many markers of diversity. A diverse student body also serves California’s future needs for a diverse body of academics and practitioners. To this end we reaffirm the following policies governing admission to graduate study at Berkeley.

The Graduate Council encourages graduate programs on the Berkeley campus to maintain and enhance an active outreach program to recruit talented, qualified applicants with diverse characteristics from diverse backgrounds.
The Graduate Council supports the use of multi-year fellowships and other sources of student support (GSIships and GSRships) to maintain and increase the diversity of the student body.
The Graduate Council urges graduate program selection committees to weigh carefully a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative criteria in their selection of graduate students.
Programs with less experience and success in recruiting and attracting a diversity of students should draw on the experience of other programs that have been successful in this area. A list of these programs should be obtained from the Dean of the Graduate Division or from the Chair of the Graduate Council.

C1.1 University of California Statement on Diversity

Adopted by the Assembly of the Academic Senate May 10, 2006 Endorsed by the President of the University of California June 30, 2006 Adopted by the Regents of the University of California, September 19, 2007

The diversity of the people of California has been the source of innovative ideas and creative accomplishments throughout the state’s history into the present. Diversity — a defining feature of California’s past, present, and future — refers to the variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance. Such differences include race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language, abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and geographic region, and more.

Because the core mission of the University of California is to serve the interests of the State of California, it must seek to achieve diversity among its student bodies and among its employees. The State of California has a compelling interest in making sure that people from all backgrounds perceive that access to the University is possible for talented students, staff, and faculty from all groups. The knowledge that the University of California is open to qualified students from all groups, and thus serves all parts of the community equitably, helps sustain the social fabric of the State.

Diversity should also be integral to the University’s achievement of excellence. Diversity can enhance the ability of the University to accomplish its academic mission. Diversity aims to broaden and deepen both the educational experience and the scholarly environment, as students and faculty learn to interact effectively with each other, preparing them to participate in an increasingly complex and pluralistic society. Ideas, and practices based on those ideas, can be made richer by the process of being born and nurtured in a diverse community. The pluralistic university can model a process of proposing and testing ideas through respectful, civil communication. Educational excellence that truly incorporates diversity thus can promote mutual respect and make possible the full, effective use of the talents and abilities of all to foster innovation and train future leadership.

Therefore, the University of California renews its commitment to the full realization of its historic promise to recognize and nurture merit, talent, and achievement by supporting diversity and equal opportunity in its education, services, and administration, as well as research and creative activity. The University particularly acknowledges the acute need to remove barriers to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of talented students, faculty, and staff from historically excluded populations who are currently underrepresented.

C1.2 Resources for Increasing Graduate Diversity

Every department has a designated Faculty Equity Adviser. The Graduate Division considers the Faculty Equity Adviser to be the departmental liaison in all matters related to recruitment, selection, and retention of graduate students in order to promote diversity in graduate programs. To enhance their efforts, the Graduate Division and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion encourage cooperation with Divisional Diversity Coordinators and with the Graduate Diversity Program.

All faculty Graduate Advisers and Graduate Student Affairs Officers should be aware of the importance of diversity and the ways in which they can assist their departments in implementing the goals of the university:

To increase the enrollment and graduation of students in fields where they have been historically underrepresented or denied equal educational opportunity.
To ensure equal educational opportunity for all students who have experienced economic, social, or educational disadvantages that may have interfered with their ability to demonstrate their academic potential.
To promote a student body that is diverse with respect to points of view, culture, life experiences, socioeconomic backgrounds, and educational preparation.

The Faculty Equity Adviser must be a member of the departmental admission committee (and also the fellowships committee, if it is separate from the admission committee) by decision of the Graduate Council in 1986. Since 1999, the Graduate Council has required the signature endorsement of Faculty Equity Advisers when graduate students are being recommended for admission and fellowship support.

All admission recommendations and fellowship recommendations for diversity applicants must be signed by the Faculty Equity Adviser as well as by the Head Graduate Adviser in each department.

C1.3 Admissions Procedures to Enhance Diversity

The Graduate Division and the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion encourage the use of comprehensive assessment of graduate applicants. Comprehensive approaches infer an applicant’s potential for success from those indicators shown by research to be reliable predictors of success, such as the general academic record and record of special achievement, letters of recommendation, statement of purpose and writing samples, research experience and drive to succeed, and their personal circumstances and goals. This approach avoids over-reliance on GRE scores, especially in the preliminary stages of assessment, in determining a candidate’s worthiness for admission.

The Graduate Council discontinued requiring the use of GRE scores in assessing applications for graduate admission, allowing individual programs to determine whether and how to use GRE scores. The Graduate Division encourages programs in which GRE scores still figure prominently as a criterion in graduate admissions, especially in the preliminary selection and de-selection of applicants, to move toward comprehensive approaches to evaluation. It encourages programs to consider de-emphasizing GRE scores in favor of a relatively comprehensive review in those cases in which the applicant’s scores clearly contrast with other aspects of the academic profile considered for preliminary review.

Consideration may be given to applicants’ backgrounds and life experiences that contribute significantly to an educationally beneficial mix of students and enhance educational diversity. This may include applicants who have had limited access to educational resources, or who are physically disabled, or who are in the first generation of their family to achieve a college degree, or who come from families headed by a single parent, or who enhance geographic diversity (such as growing up in a severely depressed area), or who have persevered over economic disadvantage, or who have shown exceptional fortitude by working many hours to support themselves during their education, or whose experiences have brought about a perspective not widely represented within the discipline. Race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin may not be used as categorical criteria for admission under California state law. The University of California is governed by Federal legislation that requires tracking and reporting of data on access to higher education using recognized categories and requests self-identification by applicants on a voluntary basis in compliance with Federal law and policy. Reports on program performance in maintaining equity and inclusion and increasing access over time are provided to programs by the Graduate Division.

Programs may request additional admissions allocations to expand admission to include well qualified applicants not selected within the original admissions allocation, whose addition to the admitted cohort would increase diversity in the ways described above. Requests are made using the cover form distributed with the admissions allocation notification, accompanied by a memo signed by either the program Chair or the Head Graduate Advisor, following the instructions on the form.

Updated: January 10th, 2012: Comprehensive Evaluation of Applicants for Graduate Admission

C1.4 Graduate Student Retention

The Graduate Division, in cooperation with the Graduate Diversity Program (GDP) and Divisional Diversity Directors, provides a number of programs to ensure the success and retention of a diverse student body.

Student Advising

The GDP produces a student list-serve and hosts receptions and professional development workshops throughout the year. The Graduate Division sponsors and/or provides funding for dissertation workshops, grant proposal writing, and networking receptions and seminars, including some conducted by the Graduate Assembly.

Financial Support

The Graduate Division administers fellowships intended to support diversity (such as the Mentored Research Fellowship and Chancellor’s Dissertation Fellowship). The Graduate Diversity Program and Divisional Diversity Directors support efforts by programs to seek federal and private funding sources on behalf of underrepresented students, and research grants that require a diversity outreach and retention component.

Review of Program Outcomes

The Graduate Division collects data on student benchmarks that can be used by programs to analyze their own success, particularly in preparation for academic program reviews.

C1.5 Graduate Diversity Program: Best Practices for Retention

The GDP provides resources and recommends best practices for programs to promote creation of a diverse graduate student community. Many of these are also practices required or suggested by the Graduate Council and Graduate Division.

Establish a Procedure to Monitor All Students’ Progress Each Semester or on an Annual Basis

The Graduate Council requires review of first year students each semester; recommends written review of all graduate students at least annually thereafter prior to advancement to candidacy; and requires an Doctoral Candidate Review for each student after advancement to candidacy for the doctorate, involving a meeting with at least two dissertation committee members.

Establish an Effective Mentoring Program Within Your Program

Identify faculty and senior graduate students who understand and appreciate the unique difficulties that students from diverse backgrounds might face; ask them to serve as mentors to incoming students.

Establish an effective communications network to disseminate program and University information (for example, fellowship deadlines) to all students

Head Graduate Advisors should ensure information about the program, as well as about university-wide opportunities, reaches all students.

Provide Research Opportunities

The Mentored Research Fellowship administered by the Graduate Division provides support for graduate students whose backgrounds, life experiences, and/or work contribute to diversity to conduct pre-doctoral research while developing and strengthening relationships with faculty advisers.

Provide events where all students and faculty in your program can engage socially.

Seek and obtain federal and private funding to provide fellowships and research assistantships to support a diverse student population through each stage of students’ academic careers.

C1.6 Financial Assistance

The Graduate Division provides fellowship support to students whose backgrounds, life experiences, and/or work contribute to diversity within their discipline or in the graduate community at large. Programs nominate incoming students in doctoral programs at the time of admission who are eligible for the Chancellor’s and Eugene Cota Robles multi-year fellowships. Terminal masters and professional degree programs can nominate new students students for one year GOP awards. Continuing students who have shown strong academic achievement in the face of economic, social, and/or educational disadvantages can be nominated by departments for the Mentored Research and Dissertation Year Fellowships.

The Graduate Diversity Program Director can assist programs with fellowship questions regarding nominations and general assistance to enhance the procurement of student fellowships.

Registration Policies and Exchange Programs

D. registration and exchange programs.

All graduate students are subject to policies concerning registration that are administered by the Graduate Division, through the Degrees office. Deadlines and contact information for many specific registration issues are set by the university Registrar, and forms required may be available through the Registrar’s website, as noted in this section.

D1. Registration

Students must be registered whenever they are using University facilities or faculty time. Students are expected to be registered continuously throughout their graduate careers. Students satisfy the continuous registration requirement by enrolling during regular academic semesters (fall and spring); registration during the spring semester maintains graduate status until the beginning of fall semester. Students may not register and enroll the semester after the award of the degree for which they were admitted unless they have been approved for a new degree goal or major.

D1.1 Registration and Enrollment Requirements

The Office of the Registrar considers a student officially registered for the semester once the student:

has enrolled in at least one course (note that complete enrollment for students not advanced to candidacy is a minimum of 12 units);
has paid either full fees or at least 20 percent of assessed registration fees; and
has no registration blocks.

Enrollment Requirements

The minimum enrollment requirement for all graduate students who are not yet advanced to doctoral candidacy, including those holding academic appointments, is 12 units per semester. There may be exceptional circumstances in which an international student on an F-1 or J-1 visa may enroll in fewer units and be considered full-time in compliance with the regulations of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).

Filing Fee status allows students to file their dissertations or theses but they are not registered (as defined above). They are ineligible for university services.

See Section F1.2 for academic residence requirements for a master’s degree.

See Section F2.2 for academic residence requirements for a doctoral degree.

Registration and Fee Payment Deadlines

Students must register no later than the Friday of the third week of instruction (fourth week of the semester), and are responsible for paying fees by August 15 for the fall semester and January 15 for the spring semester.

Consequences of Failing to Register On Time

Students who miss the registration deadline will be subject to late fees and must submit the Petition for Late Enrollment/Registration, for which there is an additional processing fee.

Students with academic appointments at 25 percent time or greater may lose their fee remissions if they are not registered and enrolled by the deadline.

Most international students have non-immigrant visas (F-1 or J-1) that require registration for the fall and spring semesters of each academic year. In order to comply with federal immigration requirements under the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the University must report whether students with F or J status are registered by the 30th day after the first day of classes. Failure to register in a timely manner can result in jeopardizing a student’s visa status, leading to possible deportation and ineligibility to re-enter the United States. International students who do not register by the deadline should be advised to immediately contact the Berkeley International Office (BIO) .

May 1, 2007: Minimum Enrollment Requirements for Graduate Students

D1.2 How Students Register

Students enroll in classes via the CalCentral Dashboard, which can be accessed online. CalCentral provides immediate, up-to-the-minute feedback on the status of registration and class requests. CalCentral is a system within the Student Information Systems (SIS) Project.

Late Registration and Enrollment

If students fail to enroll through CalCentral by the end of the fifth week of instruction, already active students must file a Petition for Late Enrollment/Registration to enroll in classes, available from the Office of the Registrar. Inactive students (e.g. after a withdrawal period) will need to apply for re-enrollment and should start by contacting their department’s GSAO.

International Students Who Register and Enroll Late

International students with F or J visas who fail to enroll in at least one class by the end of the third week of classes must consult with an adviser at the Berkeley International Office (BIO) as soon as possible. Not doing this could result in invalidation of the student’s immigration status and lead to deportation and ineligibility to reenter the United States. A Petition for Late Enrollment/Registration must also be submitted but it is essential that the Berkeley International Office be consulted immediately.

Adding and Dropping Classes

Students may add or drop classes through CalCentral without a fee during Phases I and II or the Adjustment Period, which ends the third week of instruction. Students may also petition to change the grading option for classes.

After the third week, and up to the end of the semester, students must fill out a Petition to Change Class Schedule available from the Registrar’s website. Each instructor for a course to be added must sign. The Head Graduate Adviser approves the petition by signing it. The petition is filed by the student with the program office for processing via the On-Line Add/Drop System (OLADS). The Graduate Division does not review petitions filed any time through the last day of instruction.

A Petition to Change Class Schedule to the Graduate Division, endorsed by the Head Graduate Adviser, must be submitted to the Degrees Office of the Graduate Division. A letter of explanation must accompany the petition.

October 22, 1998: Late Changes in Study List for Graduate Students

D1.3 Registration Fees

In absentia registration is available to eligible academic and professional graduate students. Students registered in absentia are assessed full health insurance fees, and 15 percent of the combined University Tuition and Student Services Fees. If applicable, students are also assessed the full non-resident tuition and/or professional school fees. Students in self-supporting programs or exchange programs are not eligible for in absentia registration. For more information contact the Degrees Office. Law students should contact the School of Law.

Summer Sessions Fees

By University policy, summer course unit fees are based on the fees to be charged in the subsequent academic year. Besides fees per unit, other fees may apply and are subject to change.

In Absentia Registration

Eligibility

Students must enroll full-time (that is, at least 12 units). To be eligible, students must be undertaking research or coursework approved by their program that takes them outside of the Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, and Solano (aka “local designated region”).

January 18, 2022 – Memo: In Absentia Registration

Research or Coursework Definitions:

Must be directly related to the student’s degree program as evidenced by faculty approval.
Must involve only indirect supervision from UC faculty, limited to that appropriate to evaluating the student’s academic progress and performance during the in absentia period.
Must involve no significant studying or in-person collaboration with UC faculty, or use of campus resources, during the in absentia period.
Must be for at least one full academic term.

Doctoral students:

May only use in absentia registration for a maximum of four semesters.
Must normally be advanced to candidacy by the time in absentia begins.

Master’s and graduate professional (e.g., O.D., J.S.D., JD) students:

May only use in absentia for a maximum of two semesters.
Must have completed at least one year of coursework by the time in absentia begins.

Students may hold University fellowships and GSR appointments while registered in absentia , but may not hold GSI, Reader, or Tutor appointments.

International Students Planning on Registering In Absentia

Those students in F and J status who plan to be outside California but still within the U.S. or to go in and out of the U.S., if otherwise qualified, may register in absentia but also must inform the Berkeley International Office (BIO) of their plans.

Reduced Nonresident Tuition

Students who have not qualified as residents by the time they advance to candidacy for the doctorate receive a full (100%) reduction in the annual nonresident tuition for a maximum of three calendar years (calculated from the semester after which they advanced). This time period applies whether the student is registered or not during these six semesters . A nonresident student who enrolls after the three-year calendar period will be charged the full nonresident tuition rate in effect at that time.

To qualify for reduced non-resident tuition, the application for doctoral advancement must be received in the Degrees Office by the first day of instruction of the semester for which the reduced tuition will be assessed. For the reduced fee to be reflected on their first billing statement (viewable in the “My Finances” section of CalCentral), students should apply for advancement at least 6-8 weeks before the beginning of the semester for which the reduced tuition will be assessed. A student who files the application later than this will have to pay at least 20 percent of their assessed fees by the first fee payment deadline.

D1.4 Establishing California Residency for Tuition Purposes

Students are classified as residents or nonresidents after completing the Statement of Legal Residence after being admitted to the University. Many graduate students (US Citizens, permanent residents, and some eligible non-immigrants) who enter UC Berkeley as nonresidents may be classified as residents for tuition purposes after maintaining required residency for one year. These students then receive the benefit of paying fees at the lower resident rate. International students with F-1 or J-1 visas are not eligible to establish residency.

The campus residency policy, which fully explains residency classification, how to establish or maintain residency, and what deadlines pertain, can be found at the Residence Affairs webpage on the Registrar’s website.

D1.5 Registration and Health Coverage

All registered students may use University Health Services (UHS) at the Tang Center for comprehensive outpatient primary care as well as counseling services. Registration fees support much of the care provided at UHS. Moderate fees may be charged for certain services at UHS.

All students are required, as a condition of registration, to have major medical health insurance to cover hospitalization and other care outside UHS. Students are automatically enrolled in the Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP), administered by UHS, and assessed fees for SHIP in CalCentral. SHIP coverage is year-round and worldwide and includes coverage for medical, dental, vision, and mental health services. SHIP also covers most UHS fees. SHIP coverage periods are August 15-January 14 for the fall semester and January 15-August 14 for the spring semester.

If entering students begin programs in the summer or are hired as Graduate Student Researchers in July, they will not be covered by health insurance through SHIP until August 15 when they become registered for the fall semester. Programs for students taking place before August 15 should ensure that students have other medical coverage.

Students may waive enrollment in SHIP if they have comparable major medical insurance. Deadlines for submission of waiver forms must be met in order to receive credit for the health insurance fee.

Continuing students covered by SHIP during the spring term may use UHS services during the summer. Students not registered spring term but registered in Summer Sessions are not eligible for SHIP coverage, but may use UHS services. Students who are without SHIP and not enrolled in a Summer Session course will be charged fees for all UHS services.

D1.6 Reinstatement as a Registered Student

If a student’s registration fees have not been paid in full by the end of the semester, the student may be dropped from the rolls or considered as lapsed, meaning the student’s grades for the semester will not be posted to their transcript and a block will be placed on the student’s future registration. Although they may have otherwise completed all requirements for award of a degree, students who are dropped from the rolls will also be removed from that semester’s degree list.

Once registration fees and any applicable late fees are fully paid, the student will be automatically reinstated, grades will be posted to the transcript, and the block will be removed. Students dropped from a degree list will be placed on the degree list for the next term. A reinstatement fee will be charged automatically to the student’s CalCentral account.

D1.7 Cancellation of Registration

The Registrar’s Office will cancel a student’s registration by the end of the eighth week of classes if there are no course enrollments regardless of whether fees have been paid, either by the student or by some form of financial assistance.

Students who have paid fees and then cancel their registration before the first day of classes may be reimbursed for all fees paid, except for a processing fee.

Students can cancel their registration via CalCentral, notify the Registrar’s Office in writing, or contact their program.

International students in F or J status who plan to cancel their registration must first discuss their plans with an adviser at the Berkeley International Office (BIO). Not doing so could result in invalidation of the student’s immigration status that may result in deportation and ineligibility to re-enter the United States.

D1.8 Withdrawal

If instruction has already begun and a student wishes to discontinue study, a withdrawal must be formally requested and processed by the student’s program. Withdrawing results in dropping enrollment in all classes and the student will no longer be able to attend for that semester or any future semester until readmitted. A program is not obligated to readmit any student who has withdrawn. Students should be advised that readmission is not guaranteed. The only exceptions are for students who withdraw for parenting leave (see here for specific requirements and restrictions) or to complete a professional internship that has been approved by their program, as long as they have met the conditions outlined below (“Withdrawal to Pursue a Professional Internship”) prior to their withdrawal.

Conditions of Withdrawal Status

Graduate students who withdraw may not use any University facilities except those available to the general public, nor may they make demands on faculty time.

To register for subsequent semesters, students who have withdrawn must obtain the approval of the Head Graduate Adviser in their program and apply for readmission. A student who chooses to withdraw is not guaranteed readmission.

International Students (F and J status)

International students are expected to remain registered at all times. Continuing students may be able to withdraw for extremely limited reasons and still remain in compliance with the federal Students and Exchange Visitors Information System (SEVIS) requirements. Before applying for withdrawal through their program, international students must meet with an adviser at the Berkeley International Office (BIO). If an international student fails to register or withdraw without consulting with BIO, the student’s visa will be in jeopardy, which could result in deportation and denial of re-entry to the United States.

Procedure to Withdraw From the University:

Students initiate withdrawal requests through CalCentral through the fifth week of the semester and through their GSAO until the last week of the semester. Students may withdraw up to and including the last day of a given semester. The withdrawal covers the entire semester. Students who withdraw may still be responsible for some or all of their registration fees, prorated according to the effective date of the withdrawal.

Procedure for Retroactive Withdrawal:

Students who want to withdraw after the semester has ended must complete a “Notice of Withdrawal” form available from the Registrar. The form must be signed by the Head Graduate Adviser. It must be accompanied by a memo of explanation and support from the Head Graduate Adviser addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees. The student submits the form and memo to the Degrees Office. If the request is approved, the withdrawal form will be forwarded to the Registrar’s Office for processing.

Withdrawal to Pursue a Professional Internship:

Students are guaranteed readmission upon completion of a professional internship, subject to the following conditions being met prior to withdrawal.

The student submits to their department a brief plan that includes a description of the professional development opportunity and a justification of its value to educational goals. Included in the plan is the schedule for return to campus.
The student’s major professor and Head Graduate Advisor approve the plan.
The student agrees that time spent on professional internships on withdrawal status counts toward time-to-degree and normative time calculation.
The student confirms that time spent on the professional internship will not exceed a year.
January 23, 2018 - Memo: Withdrawal Policy to Accommodate Professional Internships

D1.9 Readmission and Re-enrollment

Former or current students seeking a different degree and/or an additional degree, whether the initial degree is completed or not, must apply for admission to that additional or new degree and be evaluated within the applicant pool for that admission cycle. This will ensure a fair and thorough application review, independent from an applicant’s current or former enrollment at Berkeley.

Re-Enrollment

Students who were previously registered at Berkeley in a graduate program, withdrew for a period of time, and wish to return within five years to the same degree program (i.e. “stopped out”), will re-enroll, rather than re-apply. Re-enrollment (sometimes known as readmission) is recommended at the judgment of the program, which assesses the strength of the student’s academic record in weighing its approval. A program is not obliged to re-enroll a student who has withdrawn for any reason, including an official medical withdrawal with the exception of students on official parental leave or internship leave status. Some programs weigh petitions for re-enrollment against their pool of new applicants for admission, who may be stronger candidates, even if the student withdrew having made satisfactory academic progress. Students who were in good academic standing when they withdrew and are denied re-enrollment have a right to appeal under the Graduate Appeal Procedure.

Students who choose to take a leave of absence due to pregnancy, childbirth, and/or to care for and bond with their newborn child or a child placed with the student for adoption or foster care shall be granted a Parenting Leave for up to one academic year (two semesters). See the Policy on Parenting Leave with Re-enrollment section here for specific requirements and restrictions.

(Students registered in absentia have maintained registration and do not need to apply for re-enrollment.)

Students Requesting Re-enrollment After More Than Five Years

Students who have been away from the University for more than five years must submit all the documentation required from applicants for initial admission to the program. At the department’s discretion, students may be required to apply via the Online Application for Admission .

Students Requesting Admission to a Different Degree Program and/or Degree Goal

Students must apply for admission for graduate study in a different program or for a different degree goal. This requires the same documentation required from applicants for initial admission to the program.

Re-enrollment on Probationary Status

A program may request that a student be re-enrolled on probationary status if there is a question about the student’s ability to make good academic progress.

Re-enrollment of Students in Lapsed Candidacy

A program may request reinstatement of the degree candidacy of a student who has exceeded Normative Time in Candidacy when requesting re-enrollment.

NOTE: Many procedures formerly managed with paper forms are transitioning to electronic form processing in the new Student Information System (SIS). During this period of implementation, please contact your department’s Graduate Student Affairs Officer (GSAO) for advisement on current procedure.

To apply for re-enrollment, students must request that their Graduate Student Affairs Officer submit a Re-enrollment eform on their behalf. This eform will be reviewed by the Graduate Division and the Office of the Registrar, before approval, depending on the circumstances. If a program denies a student’s request for re-enrollment and that student was in good academic standing when they withdrew, then the program is expected to inform the student of their right to appeal the decision.

Students who are seeking readmission after more than five years, or who are seeking readmission to a different program or degree goal, must also submit all the documentation required of new applicants: letters of recommendation, a statement of purpose, copies of academic recommendations, transcripts of work completed in the interim, and any other documents required by the program requirements, by the deadline set for new applicants to the program.

The program advisor submits the “Application for Re-Enrollment” (eForm) in Campus Solutions. The Head Graduate Adviser should include a memo of explanation if readmission on probation is recommended. If a student being recommended for readmission had exceeded Normative Time in Candidacy, the Head Graduate Adviser must include a letter addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees requesting that candidacy be reinstated, affirming that previously completed requirements are still valid, and including a specific plan for completion of degree requirements with a projected date of completion.

In the case of a change of major, if a program decides to deny a student’s application for readmission, rather than forward the denied application to the Graduate Division for processing, the program may send the student a letter, with a copy to the Degrees Office, informing the student of its decision to deny readmission.

Final decisions on all recommendations for readmission rest with the Dean of the Graduate Division. The Degrees Office will notify the student of the program’s decision and the Graduate Division’s concurrence to readmit or deny readmission.

April 14, 2016: Parenting Leave for Graduate Students with Re-Enrollment

D2. Filing Fee

The Filing Fee is a reduced fee, one-half of the Student Services Fee (formerly the University Registration fee), for doctoral students who have completed all requirements for the degree except for filing the dissertation (Plans A and B) and presenting the Final Defense (Plan A). It is also available to master’s students with no requirements remaining except for filing the thesis (Plan I) or taking the final comprehensive examination (Plan II). Filing Fee is available for the fall and spring semesters only.

The Filing Fee is not a form of registration. If students wish to use University services that are supported by registration fees, they must pay those fees. Students on Filing Fee status are not eligible to receive university funding or hold academic appointments because they are not registered. The Filing Fee may be used only once during a student’s career.

If a student does not complete the final degree requirements (filing the dissertation or thesis, or passing the final comprehensive exam) during the semester for which the Filing Fee is approved, the student must apply for readmission and pay regular registration fees during a subsequent semester to complete the requirements.

Filing Fee status is only available for students registered in the immediately previous term: fall semester to be on Filing Fee in spring; spring semester or Summer Session (registered for at least one unit) to be on Filing Fee in fall. Filing Fee status is not available for Summer Sessions. (Students are permitted to file a thesis or dissertation in the summer session if they would otherwise be eligible for Filing Fee.)

Duration of the Filing Fee

The Filing Fee applies for the length of the semester for which Filing Fee status has been approved, up to the last working day of the term, which is the deadline for filing a thesis or dissertation.

Filing Fee status and International Students

In most cases, Filing Fee status can satisfy the SEVIS registration requirement for F-1/J-1 international students. To avoid visa problems with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, international students must contact the Berkeley International Office well before the beginning of the semester during which they plan to use the Filing Fee. This is particularly true for students intending to file during the summer.

Health Insurance for Students on Filing Fee

Students may purchase Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) coverage for the semester they are on approved filing fee status if they have not already purchased SHIP during a period of withdrawal.

Students must apply for the Filing Fee by the first day of the semester. Students do so by completing the Special Enrollment Petition (SEP) eForm available through CalCentral.. Students are billed the Filing Fee on their CalCentral “My Finances” statement.

April 5, 2002: Revised Filing Fee Regulations

D3. Exchange Programs

Graduate students in good standing may participate in campus exchange programs which enable them to take advantage of research facilities, courses, and faculty expertise that might not be available at Berkeley. To avoid jeopardizing their immigration status, international students with F or J visas intending to participate in any exchange program must consult with an international student adviser at the Berkeley International Office (BIO).

Transfer of Non-UC Credit

Students may transfer no more than 4 semester or 6 quarter units toward the master’s degree. Course work taken at another institution does not count toward academic residency for the doctoral degree. Berkeley students will not automatically receive credit for courses taken at schools outside of the University of California system.

University of California Intercampus Exchange Program for Graduate Students

This program allows students to study at any of the other UC campuses. The Berkeley registration fee entitles students to library, health service, and other privileges at the host campus. Students who participate in the intercampus exchange program can receive credit for courses they take at the host campus.

Students in self-supporting programs at Berkeley cannot enroll in state-supported courses at another UC.

To be eligible for the Intercampus Exchange Program, a student must be registered at Berkeley by the Berkeley semester deadline and have the approval of the Head Graduate Adviser, the Chair of the host program, and the Deans of the Graduate Divisions at both Berkeley and the host campus. Students must apply for this program at least three weeks before the beginning of the term of enrollment at the host campus (all other UC campuses except Merced are on the quarter system). Students should make personal arrangements with faculty members on both campuses to ensure that courses, seminars, and facilities will be available to them.

Stanford-California Exchange Program

Students may participate in this program if they want to take courses that are not offered at Berkeley. Their participation must be approved by the Graduate Division, their programs, and Stanford University. Usually, students are not allowed to participate in the Stanford program until they have completed a year of graduate study at Berkeley. Participants register and pay the applicable fees at Berkeley and are exempt from tuition and fees at Stanford. Students who want to apply for this program must enroll in at least one course at Berkeley.

Exchange Scholar Program

This program permits doctoral students from Berkeley, Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale to study at one of the other participating universities. Berkeley registration entitles students to student privileges at the host campus for up to a year. Usually, students are not eligible for this program until they have completed one year in a Berkeley graduate degree program. Students who wish to enter this program should familiarize themselves with its “Terms and Conditions” statement, which provides information on additional fees for which the student is responsible. For example, the host institution is responsible for assuring that hospitalization and health services are locally available. However, the host institution may charge the student additional fees for local health services. Students are eligible for in absentia registration while in the Exchange Scholar Program.

Cross-registration Programs with Local Institutions

With the approval of the Graduate Division and the programs involved, students may attend any of the campuses of the California State University or the Community Colleges systems, as well as Dominican, Holy Names, Mills, and St. Mary’s Colleges, and John F. Kennedy University. Students may enroll for only one course per semester, and they must register and pay applicable fees at Berkeley.

Graduate Theological Union (GTU) Reciprocity Program

Students registered at either UC Berkeley or GTU may take courses at the other institution, subject to appropriate academic approvals.

Study Abroad

Graduate students may be granted permission to study abroad. To be eligible, they must have completed at least one year in residence at Berkeley before departing for study abroad, and they must demonstrate appropriate language proficiency when required. Graduate students may be eligible to apply to most of the study centers under the University-wide Education Abroad Program. Graduate students who study abroad must have the approval of their programs and the Graduate Division. Students in an EAP program are eligible for in absentia registration.

Coursework, Grading, Probation, Dismissal, and Academic Misconduct

E. coursework, grading, probation, dismissal, and academic misconduct.

In general, matters concerning graduate student coursework are monitored by the Degrees office of the Graduate Division. Authority to place students on probation or dismiss them is reserved for the Dean of the Graduate Division.

E1. Coursework

Students enroll in units to account for coursework, research, and teaching development. With the exception of selected degree programs specifically approved by the Graduate Council for part-time study, all students must be fully enrolled. Courses in the 100, 200, 300, or 400 series can be taken by students prior to advancement to candidacy. Units in the 600 series may be substituted for 200-level units when appropriate. Lower division units taken to prepare for specific program requirements (e.g., requirements in languages, mathematics, or statistics) may be substituted for 100-level units.

E1.1 Full-time Status

The minimum enrollment requirement is 12 units per semester for all graduate students prior to advancement to candidacy, unless they are subject to a specific categorical or individual exception.

A full program of study for International students on F-1 or J-1 visas is normally 12 units. The student’s academic program may advise fewer units in exceptional circumstances. International students with exceptional circumstances should consult with the Berkeley International Office (BIO) to ensure compliance with the regulations of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).

Course Loads of More Than 12 Units

If the Graduate Adviser agrees, students may take more than 12 units. Graduate Advisers should feel free to deny, on behalf of the Dean of the Graduate Division, student requests for excessively heavy programs that would not be in the best interests of the student.

E1.2 Minimum Course Loads: Other Considerations

Modified schedule.

A modified schedule incorporating a lower course load may be arranged for women anticipating childbirth, as part of the university’s family friendly policies.

Students Receiving Veterans’ Benefits

Students who receive veterans’ benefits are required to be enrolled in a minimum of 8 units to receive educational benefits. This requirement is met by compliance with the 12-unit enrollment requirement per semester.

Financial Aid

Students who receive financial assistance from the Financial Aid Office must be enrolled for a minimum of 6 units. This requirement is met by compliance with the general 12-unit minimum enrollment requirement per semester. If, due to exceptional circumstances, a student receiving financial aid will be enrolled in less than 6 units, they must notify the Financial Aid Office.

As required by the U.S. Department of Education, students who wish to defer repayment of Federal Direct Loans (formerly Stafford Loans) must register for at least a half-time program (6 units) to qualify for deferred repayment.

E1.3 Grades

Minimum grade requirements.

In order for students to be in good standing, they must maintain an overall grade-point average of at least 3.0 on the basis of all upper division and graduate courses (100- and 200-level) taken in graduate standing. Some programs may have higher performance standards than the minimum 3.0 average required by the Graduate Division. Grades earned in Berkeley courses numbered below 100 or 300 and above are not included in determining a student’s grade-point average for good standing or earning a degree. No more than one-third of a student’s total units may be graded S/U.

The Basis of Grade-Point Averages

Students’ grade-point averages are computed on letter-graded courses completed at UC Berkeley, not including courses taken through University Extension. The basic scale is as follows: A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=zero. (Plus and minus grade designations provide three-tenths more or less than the base grade, except for A+, which carries 4.0 grade points only.) Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, Incomplete, and In Progress grades carry no grade-points and are excluded from all grade-point computations.

Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory Grades (S/U)

A Satisfactory grade implies work of B minus quality or better. Courses graded S/U are not included in the grade-point average. Units from a course graded U may not be counted toward fulfillment of students’ degree programs. For these reasons, the Graduate Division encourages enrollment in courses for letter grades. Graduate students in good standing may take courses on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) basis only with the consent of their faculty Graduate Adviser (before advancement to candidacy, the departmental faculty Graduate Adviser; after advancement to candidacy, the doctoral chair and committee).

Limits on S/U Course Work

Academic Senate regulations limit credit for courses taken on an S/U basis to one-third of a student’s total units (excluding courses numbered 299 and those in the 300, 400, or 600 series). Units completed in an Education Abroad Program, a UC intercampus exchange program, or course work undertaken at the institutional partner of a Berkeley joint doctoral program are included in this one-third calculation.

For master’s degrees, two-thirds of all course work (unless otherwise excluded) must be letter-graded. Courses in the 100 and 200 series graded Satisfactory may be accepted for academic residence as long as two-thirds of all course work is letter-graded. This includes all courses undertaken, not just the required core courses included on the master’s advancement to candidacy form.

In Progress Grades

Courses that extend over more than one semester are graded at the end of each intervening term with the provisional grade of In Progress (“IP”). At the end of the final term, the instructor reports a letter grade for both semesters to the Office of the Registrar. The IP grade is not included in the grade-point average. Students who do not complete a course sequence may petition to drop the course retroactively without academic penalty.

Incomplete Grades

Instructors can give an Incomplete grade (“I”) when a student’s work is of passing quality but is incomplete because of circumstances beyond the student’s control, such as sudden illness. The Registrar will automatically change an IP grade to an Incomplete grade if the student has a break in a course sequence.

There is no Graduate Council mandated time limit for graduate students to make up Incompletes. Programs may set their own more restrictive policies requiring completion of Incomplete grades within a set time limit.

While there is no Graduate Council time limit for completing Incompletes, the following academic penalties apply to graduate students with Incompletes:

students who have three or more Incompletes are academically ineligible to hold a student academic appointment (e.g. GSI, GSR)
master’s students must remove all Incompletes (and In Progress grades) in required courses in order to receive their degrees; a student can have no more than one Incomplete in a non-required course per year of the degree program (e.g., for a two-year Master’s program, two Incompletes in courses not required are allowed) for award of the Master’s degree to be approved
doctoral students are not eligible to apply for the Qualifying Examination or advancement to candidacy if they have more than two Incompletes
programs may implement regulations stating that a student with more than two Incompletes is not considered in good academic standing and may face probation and dismissal

Repetition of Courses

Graduate students may repeat courses in which they received a D+, D, D-, F, or U for up to a total of 12 units. They must repeat courses for which they received a grade below C- if a passing grade in the course is required as part of the degree program.

If a student repeats a course in which they received a grade of D+, D, D-, or F, the units are counted only once, and only the most recently earned grade and grade points are counted for the total of 12 units of repeated work.

Students may substitute a different course for one in which they received a D+, D, D-, F, or U if the following conditions exist:

circumstances beyond their control prevent them from retaking the course before the date they expect their degree to be conferred (e.g., the course was not offered or was renumbered, or scheduling conflicts existed between the original course and other courses required for the degree).
the Head Graduate Adviser certifies that the content of the course to be substituted is equivalent to that covered in the original course.

Any substitution of courses in a student’s master’s degree program requires the approval of the Head Graduate Adviser and the Graduate Division.

Students who elect to repeat a course, or wish to substitute another course for one in which they received a letter grade of D+ or lower must get written approval from the Head Graduate Adviser and endorsement by the Graduate Division, to prevent the Registrar from counting the units and grades more than once.

Credit by Examination

Students may petition for a limited amount of course credit toward their degrees by passing examinations on material covered in certain courses in lieu of taking those courses. To have a Petition for Credit by Examination approved by the Registrar’s Office and the Graduate Division, the following conditions must be met:

the student must be registered for at least 12 units of upper division or graduate work when the examination is taken.
the student’s grade-point average must be at least 3.0.
the courses must be ones that can be tested by examination. Graduate seminars and research courses cannot be taken for credit by examination.
the course must be listed in the General Catalog and be offered during the semester in which the exam is to be taken.

The instructor of the course, Associate Dean of the Graduate Division, and Registrar must all approve the proposal. According to Academic Senate regulations governing the assignment of grades, the final result of an exam taken for credit can be reported to the Registrar only as Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.

Changes in Grading Option

Students may petition to change from a letter grade option to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory or from S/U to a letter grade with the approval of the Head Graduate Adviser. Changes made after the last day of instruction must be approved by the Graduate Division. The Graduate Division will not approve a retroactive petition to change grading option simply because the student anticipates a low grade or wants to convert a letter grade to S/U if the student did not earn at least a B minus in the course.

Procedure to Change Grade Option: Students change from a letter grade option to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory or from S/U to a letter grade before the deadline either by making the change themselves in CalCentral or contacting their GSAO to make the change on their behalf. In the case of a retroactive petition, the GSAO can submit an exception request in the Graduate Division’s eForm system. A memo of justification and support from the Head Graduate Advisor must be included. An additional memo of support from the instructor of record for the course is also required.

COVID-19 Special Consideration : A special accommodation was approved by the Graduate Council for enrollments during the Fall 2020 semester ( link to memo ). A separate exception category on the Graduate Exceptions eForm can be used specially for requests under this policy .

Procedure to Replace Incomplete Grades: Instructors are expected to grade the work a student submits in a timely fashion and to replace the Incomplete grade. To replace an Incomplete grade on their records, students file a Petition to Remove an Incomplete Grade, available in program offices and through the Registar’s Office website. After the program records the grade replacing the Incomplete, the petition is submitted to the Registrar’s Office. When the earned grade is recorded by the Registrar, the student receives full unit credit and the grade points are added to the student’s grade-point average.

Procedure for Documenting Course Grades for Master’s Students to Receive the Degree: Final grades for required courses for master’s degrees must be submitted by faculty and recorded by the Registrar before the Graduate Division submits the degree list to the Academic Senate for approval (about two months after final examinations).

Graduate Services Degrees Office staff check the records of master’s students programs indicate will be receiving the degree each term. Courses listed on the advancement to candidacy form are assumed to be required for the degree. If any course is listed as as Incomplete (I) or In Progress (IP) the Head Graduate Adviser must submit a memo stating which outstanding I or IP grades are not required for the degree. If an explanation was submitted for the same courses when the student applied for advancement to candidacy, the Head Graduate Adviser does not need to resubmit the information.

Procedure to Petition for Credit by Examination: The Petition for Credit by Examination is available through the Registrar’s Office website. The student should have the petition approved by the instructor of the course, and then submit it to the Graduate Division Degrees office for approval by the Associate Dean for Degrees. Once the Graduate Division has endorsed the petition, the student submits the petition to the Registrar’s Office for approval and pays a processing fee. The Registrar’s Office will either forward the petition to the instructor for the exam to proceed, or notify the student that the petition has been denied. The instructor records the grade of Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory on the petition and returns it to the Office of the Registrar.

Updates to Graduate Council Policies for the 2020-21 Academic Year

E1.4 600-Level Courses

Individual study courses 601 and 602.

Individual study courses give students credit for preparing for master’s comprehensive and language exams (601) and for doctoral qualifying and language exams (602). Both 601 and 602 courses must be taken on a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) basis. Units of 601 or 602 do not count toward academic residence requirements for a graduate degree or the unit requirements for a master’s degree.

With some limitations, these courses count toward a full course load. Students may earn 1–8 units of 601 or 602 per semester or 1–4 units per summer session.

Students may not enroll in 601 or 602 courses once they have passed the master’s comprehensive (for 601) or the doctoral Qualifying Examination (for 602).

E1.5 Academic Standing

Graduate students are either a) in good academic standing, b) on probation, or c) subject to dismissal.

Students are normally in good academic standing if they:

are making adequate progress toward the completion of degree requirements;
have a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.0 (or higher if the program has a higher minimum GPA requirement);
do not have more than 2 Incomplete grades on their records; and
have not received warning letters from the program or been placed on formal probation for academic or, in certain professional programs, clinical deficiencies.
November 1982: Academic Progress Evaluation, Academic Standing, and Appeals Procedures for Graduate Students

E1.6 Program Review of Student Progress

Programs are responsible for monitoring their students’ overall progress toward graduate degrees. Programs should let students know—by published program descriptions, by written evaluations, or both—what the faculty considers to be satisfactory progress.

Programs should evaluate graduate students at the middle and end of their first year of graduate study and annually thereafter. The yearly evaluation gives faculty an opportunity to review the performance of each student and, more importantly, to provide students with timely information about the faculty’s evaluation of their progress and performance. The Graduate Division advises that the results of all evaluations be sent to students in writing. A negative evaluation may be considered a letter of warning if it includes the information required by the Graduate Council (see “Warning Letters,” below). A copy should be sent to the Graduate Division Degrees Office.

The Graduate Council requires that all students advanced to candidacy meet a minimum of once a year with their dissertation committee members and complete the Doctoral Candidacy Review (DCR) annually. Graduate Council policy states that at least two members of the committee, including the chair, must meet with the student. The Graduate Division provides the DCR for committees to fulfill this Graduate Council requirement, through CalCentral. The DCR is initiated by the student in CalCentral. The committee chair (in the case of co-chairs, the chair inside the department) completes the DCR based on consultation with at least one other member of the dissertation committee and discussion with the student. The DCR is accessible to Graduate Division and via the GSAO to the program Faculty Graduate Advisors.

Criteria for Evaluating Student Progress

Because different programs assess progress in different ways, the definition of adequate progress is intentionally flexible. With the approval of the Graduate Council, programs may establish progress requirements beyond those set by uniform policy. Examples include:

a specified grade-point average above a 3.0;
no Incompletes or a fixed number of Incompletes;
specific courses completed in a timely fashion and at a given level of performance;
a master’s degree completed en route to a doctorate;
program preliminary exams passed before admission to the Qualifying Exam;
an acceptable thesis or dissertation prospectus submitted before advancement to candidacy;
formation of an appropriate QE committee by a specified time;
acceptance by a regular faculty member who agrees to supervise the student’s research and to serve as chair of the dissertation committee; and
completion within a program specified period of general Graduate Council requirements, such as passing the Qualifying Exam or fulfilling the language requirement.

Placement of a student on formal probation is required before the student can be dismissed from the program, except in instances when a student fails a comprehensive, preliminary, or Qualifying Examination.

If a program assesses a student’s performance as below program expectations, it should inform the Graduate Division and proceed either to a warning letter or request that the student be placed on probation.

The Graduate Council requires that the program supply the following information in writing for the student’s information:

the nature of the problem or deficiency;
the steps to be taken to correct the deficiency;
a reasonable period in which to correct the problem or to show acceptable improvement; and
an approximate date on which the student’s record will next be reviewed.

Such warning letters should be copied to the Graduate Division Degrees Office.

September 27, 2013: Online Academic Progress Report

E1.7 Academic Probation

Probation is intended to provide a student whose performance is less than satisfactory with a period in which to correct identified deficiencies and to raise the student’s performance to a level consistent with the minimum standards set by the Graduate Division in consultation with the program. Students on probationary status may register and enroll, but they may not hold academic appointments, receive graduate fellowships, or be awarded advanced degrees.

Students may be placed on probation by the Graduate Division for failing to meet uniform requirements. Programs may recommend probation and dismissal on the basis of a written evaluation of the student’s progress, including program specific requirements. Programs may choose to issue warning letters to apprise students that they are not making satisfactory progress rather than request formal probation. Only the Dean of the Graduate Division has the authority to place a student on probation, to remove probationary status, and, if necessary, to dismiss a student from graduate standing .

Probation for GPA Below Graduate Division Requirements

At the end of each semester, the Graduate Division reviews the records of all registered graduate students. Following this review, students whose grade-point average is below 3.0 will receive a letter from the Graduate Division informing them that they have been placed on probation and are subject to dismissal if their GPA at the end of the following semester remains below the minimum 3.0 requirement, or below the program’s requirement, which may be higher. A copy of the letter will be sent to the program.

In most instances, if a student begins a program in a new field of study, or is readmitted to a new major, only the grades in the current program will be included in the computation of GPA by the Graduate Division. However, courses taken in an “old” major that are directly relevant to the new major (e.g., English courses for a graduate student in Comparative Literature) will be included in the overall grade-point average.

Probation for Incompletes

If a program wishes to put a student on probation for not complying with its own Incompletes policy, it can recommend to the Dean of the Graduate Division that the student be placed on probation until the deficiencies are rectified.

The Graduate Division does not place students on probation for having more than two Incompletes, but such students will not be approved to hold a GSI or GSR appointments.

Probationary Period

The probationary period is normally for one semester, during which the student is expected to remove academic deficiencies. Probation may be extended based on departmental recommendation. Students may not remain on probation indefinitely. Graduate Advisers should inform students that, while on probation, they cannot take courses on an S/U basis unless the course is required for the degree and is offered only on an S/U basis.

Students may be placed on, or removed from, probation only by the Dean of the Graduate Division. They are removed from probationary status imposed for failing to maintain the minimum grade-point average when the Graduate Division determines they have raised their grade-point averages to at least 3.0 (or higher if required by the program). If a student was placed on probation because the program and the Graduate Division determined that the student was not making adequate progress, the Head Graduate Adviser must inform the Associate Dean for Degrees in writing that the student has met the conditions for removing probation, requesting that probation be cleared.

If at the end of the probationary period the student has failed to correct identified deficiencies, the Graduate Division will contact the program to request a recommendation from the Head Graduate Adviser on whether an extension of the academic probationary period is warranted. If the probationary period is not extended, the program should formally request that the Dean of the Graduate Division dismiss the student. A registration block would then be placed on the student’s future registration.

E1.8 Dismissal

There are generally two reasons a graduate student may be dismissed: for disciplinary reasons due to violations of the Code of Student Conduct, or for academic deficiencies. Violations of the Code of Student Conduct are determined by the Vice Chancellor, Division of Student Affairs at the recommendation of the Office of Student Conduct and with the concurrence of the Dean of the Graduate Division.

Dismissal for academic reasons is the purview of the Deanof the Graduate Division, under the auspices of the Graduate Council.

Academic Dismissal

A student is subject to academic dismissal if:

the student’s academic deficiencies as determined by the program and the Graduate Division were not corrected after a reasonable, established period of probation; or
the student failed the comprehensive, preliminary, or qualifying exam (except as noted below); or
a program assesses that a student’s academic progress, although sufficient for the award of a master’s degree, was insufficient to merit the student’s proceeding to the doctoral level; or
the student failed to meet the necessary clinical standards in a professional program (e.g., Optometry).

Dismissal for Failed Examinations (Comprehensive, Preliminary, and Qualifying Examinations)

The Graduate Council requires that students who fail a program-required examination on the first attempt be given an opportunity for reexamination following a reasonable delay for additional preparation. A student permitted to undertake a second examination is not placed on probation while preparing to retake the exam.

In the case of a comprehensive or preliminary examination, the examining committee, with the concurrence of the Head Graduate Adviser, can recommend that no second examination be given and that the student’s status in that program be terminated. Programs must appropriately inform students before the examination that the program’s policy includes the possibility to not recommend a second examination, and that a student may be subject to dismissal if the committee does not recommend a second attempt.

How A Student is Dismissed

After the student’s record and the program’s recommendations, if applicable, are reviewed by the Graduate Division, the Dean of the Graduate Division sends a letter of dismissal to the student and so informs the program, and the Office of the Registrar. The Graduate Degrees Office requests the Registrar’s Office to block the student from further registration and the Registrar’s Office notates the student’s transcript with the following: “Further registration subject to the approval of the Dean of the Graduate Division.”

A student dismissed for academic deficiencies is ineligible to apply for re-enrollment to the program from which they have been academically dismissed. However, the student is not excluded from applying to another graduate program. In this case the alternative program has the right to review the student’s academic records in their earlier program to inform its decision on whether or not to admit the student.

When a student is dismissed for reasons of misconduct, they are not allowed to apply for any program in the UC system, unless with the express permission of the Chancellor of the UC campus to which the former student wishes to apply.

The decision to dismiss a student is reserved to the Dean of the Graduate Division. The Graduate Division reviews the records of all students on probation to determine if they should be dismissed.

If the Head Graduate Adviser of a program provides no justification for extending probation of a student who has been placed on probation at the request of the program, the Associate Dean for Degrees may recommend to the Dean of the Graduate Division that the student be formally dismissed.

Programs can recommend dismissal only after a student has been informed in writing of their deficiencies and given adequate time to correct them and to meet acceptable criteria (unless consultation with the Graduate Division identifies exceptional circumstances). If the Head Graduate Adviser believes that it is unlikely that a student on probation can improve their record, or that the student is unable to meet requirements for the degree, the Head Graduate Adviser should write a memo concerning the specific student, addressed to the Graduate Dean, in care of the Degrees Office, to recommend dismissal.

If an examination committee does not recommend a reexamination after a failed exam, a written explanation from the committee chair, addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, must be sent to the Degrees Office, along with the Report on the Qualifying Examination. The examination committee’s opinion should be that the student’s performance on the exam was so poor that it is unlikely the student will pass in a second attempt taken within an acceptable period of time.

E1.9 Graduate Student Appeal Procedure

The Graduate Student Appeal procedure is to be used by continuing and returning graduate students in the Graduate Division on the Berkeley campus. It may not be used by applicants for admission, Juris Doctor students in the School of Law who are appealing disqualification or the terms of probation, or students registered in graduate courses through the University Extension, the Graduate Theological Union, or other cross-registration agreements, for complaints about dismissal from graduate standing, placement on probationary status, denial of re-enrollment, and other administrative or academic decisions that terminate or otherwise impede progress toward academic or professional degree goals. For graduate students, this procedure may also be used to resolve disputes over joint authorship of research in accordance with joint authorship policies of campus programs or units. A student may bring a complaint individually or may file a complaint jointly with other students when each claims injury as a result of the same alleged action(s).

Through the Graduate Appeal Procedure, graduate students have the right to appeal academic or administrative decisions that have resulted in termination or have interfered with their progress toward a degree if the decision is alleged to have been based on the following criteria:

Procedural error or violation of official policy by academic or administrative personnel.
Judgments improperly based upon nonacademic criteria including, but not limited to, discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including sexual harassment), gender identity, pregnancy/childbirth and medical conditions related thereto, disability, age, medical condition (cancer related), ancestry, marital status, citizenship, sexual orientation, or status as a Vietnam-era veteran or special disabled veteran.
Special mitigating circumstances beyond the student’s control not properly taken into account in a decision affecting the student’s academic progress.

Please note that the Graduate Appeal Procedure is distinct from the Berkeley Campus Student Grievance Procedure. The Grievance Procedure also addresses discrimination complaints but not in relation to alleged interference with a student’s academic progress. For information concerning the Berkeley Campus Student Grievance Procedure, please see Division of Student Affairs webpage.

To pursue an appeal, students must follow the Graduate Appeal Procedure (PDF), which is available from the Graduate Degrees Office and on the Graduate Division website.

Overview of the Appeal Process

Students must initiate an appeal at the unit level (e.g., school, department, graduate group) at which the disputed action took place within 30 calendar days from the time at which the student knew or could reasonably be expected to have known of the action being appealed. (Summer and inter-semester recesses are not included with these appeal timeframes.) The Graduate Council requires each academic unit to maintain copies of its current internal appeal procedure for information and use by its graduate students. After the student has submitted a unit-level appeal, the unit must make all reasonable efforts at informal and formal resolution, as stated in the Graduate Appeal Procedure, before the student may take the matter to the next level, which is the Graduate Division. Students seeking unit-level resolution are also strongly encouraged to seek the advice of the Ombuds for Students and may also consult with the Assistant Dean for Student Services.

How Students Request the Intervention Of the Graduate Division

If the student’s unit-level appeal has been denied, then, within 15 calendar days of receiving that notification, the student must submit a Graduate Appeal Form accompanied by all supporting documentation the student wishes to be considered in substantiation of the student’s appeal. The Graduate Division is not obliged to accept any documentation submitted after the 15-day deadline. The Graduate Appeal Procedure Form (PDF) is available on the Graduate Division website. Send the completed form and accompanying documents to [email protected] .

If the action being appealed originated with the Graduate Division or the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council, the written appeal must be received in the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division within 30 days from the time the student knew or could reasonably be expected to have known of the action being appealed, or within 15 days of the notification of the result of the informal resolution process if the student attempted informal resolution through the Graduate Division.

The Graduate Division will notify the student regarding which individual or committee will be in charge of processing the Formal Appeal within 15 days of the receipt of the written statement initiating the Formal Appeal. For details on the procedures involved, including how they relate to other appeal procedures on the campus, students are referred to the full Graduate Appeal Procedure (PDF) posted on the Graduate Division website. The Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs can answer questions about the policy and process.

E1.10 Graduate Student Academic Misconduct Policy

Note: The Graduate Academic Misconduct Policy is effective as of Fall 2023.

Allegations of academic misconduct against graduate students are governed by the campus’s Graduate Academic Misconduct Policy. Individual academic units decide whether they want to adapt the policy to their specific pedagogical and disciplinary standards and adjudicate them at the unit level or have the Graduate Division adjudicate them.

The Center for Student Conduct will continue to investigate allegations of behavioral misconduct by graduate students according to the Code of Student Conduct .

Key points in the timeline

“Days” refer to calendar days and excludes University-designated holidays and curtailment. Deadlines can be extended by the unit in charge based upon good cause.
Number of days to refer a matter to the academic unit/Graduate Division: A faculty member may refer such matters to the (academic unit) within sixty (60) days of the date the faculty member knew or should have reasonably known of the alleged violation unless law or an external agency requires that information be withheld.
Number of days that a graduate student has to challenge in writing the membership of the hearing committee: A graduate student has five (5) days to challenge, in writing, the membership of any member of the committee, based on bias or conflict of interest, to the Dean of the Graduate Division.
Number of days that a graduate student has to respond to allegations in Alleged Violation Letter: The graduate student may, but is not required to, respond to the allegations via email within seven (7) days of receipt of the Alleged Violation Letter.
Number of days that a graduate student has to review and respond to evidence gathered by the hearing committee during formal investigation: The charged graduate student shall have ten (10) days to review a written summary of all evidence considered by the committee and to respond to such evidence in writing before the committee publishes its final record of decision.
Number of days that a graduate student has to appeal the decision of the hearing committee that conducted a formal investigation: The appeal must be made in writing within ten (10) days after the emailing of the written notification of the decision(s) being appealed.
Number of days that the chair/dean/Graduate Division has to respond to appeal: The (chair or dean) will respond in writing within a reasonable time period, not to exceed 20 days .

Graduate Academic Integrity overview, procedures, reporting a case

(Academic unit) follows the policies of the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate Division concerning probation, dismissal, and appeal of dismissal. These policies are described in the Guide to Graduate Policy . Its graduate degree program(s) have a mission to educate future academics for participation in peer-reviewed research, and/or to prepare students for their chosen profession. Thus, the (academic unit) has the obligation to graduate only those students who complete their academic work and demonstrate academic and professional integrity.

The (academic unit) has authority delegated by the Chancellor to impose discipline for the commission or attempted commission (including aiding or abetting in the commission or attempted commission) of academic misconduct by graduate students enrolled in its programs (as specified by University Policy 100.00 ). [1]

“Academic Misconduct” within the meaning of this policy refers to all forms of academic misconduct including but not limited to cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, or facilitating academic dishonesty. For clarification purposes, it includes but is not limited to the following specific conduct:

Cheating: Cheating includes fraud, deceit, or dishonesty in an academic assignment, or using or attempting to use materials, or assisting others in using materials that are prohibited or inappropriate in the context of the academic assignment in question, engaging in prohibited collaboration, or misrepresenting one’s work completed for a prior course or assignment as new work.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism includes use of intellectual material produced by another person without acknowledging its source.

False Information and Representation and Fabrication or Alteration of Information: Furnishing false information, failing to identify oneself honestly, fabricating or altering information and presenting it as legitimate, or providing false or misleading information to an instructor, faculty member, or any other University official in an academic context.

Theft or Damage of Intellectual Property: Sabotaging or stealing another person’s work, improper access to, or electronically interfering with the property of, another person or the University, or obtaining a copy of an examination or assignment prior to its approved release.

Alteration of University Documents: Forgery of an instructor’s signature, submitting an altered transcript of grades to or from another institution or employer, putting one’s name on another individual’s work, or falsely altering a previously graded exam or assignment.

Disturbances in the Classroom or Lab: Disturbances in a classroom or lab that serve to create an unfair academic advantage for oneself or disadvantage for another member of the academic community. The (academic unit) may bring charges against a former student, for alleged academic misconduct committed while a student.

For all allegations made under this policy, (academic unit) will consult with the Graduate Division to determine appropriate jurisdiction. When an allegation made under this policy has connections to federal funding, it will be addressed by the Berkeley Research Misconduct Policies and Procedures to avoid any violation of federal regulations.

Inappropriate behavior that is not subject to this policy may be addressed separately by the Berkeley Campus Code of Student Conduct or other relevant policy.

[1] F or concurrent, joint, or dual degree programs, the participating academic units are expected to share information and collaborate to resolve allegations of graduate academic misconduct.

DEFINITIONS

is enrolled in or registered with an academic program of the University;
has completed the immediately preceding term and is eligible for re-enrollment, including the recess periods between academic terms; or
is on an approved educational leave or other approved leave status, or is on filing-fee status.
applicants who become students, for offenses committed as part of the application process;
applicants who become students, for offenses committed on campus and/or while participating in University-related events or activities that take place following student’s submittal of the application through the student’s official enrollment; or
former students for offenses committed while a student.

The term “days” referenced throughout this policy is defined as calendar days. It excludes University-designated holidays and curtailment. Days elapse during this period, but deadlines can be extended by the (academic unit) based upon good cause, including without limitation the reasonable availability of the graduate student or others necessary to resolve a matter.

Presumption of Non-responsibility

It is presumed that a graduate student alleged to have engaged in academic misconduct is not responsible for such violations unless the student admits responsibility or it is determined, through the process and procedures set forth in this policy, by a preponderance of evidence to have engaged in academic misconduct . The (academic unit) may not take any punitive action against the student pending resolution of the allegation, and must consult with the Graduate Division before implementing any measures that might impact the student’s academic experience.

Choosing Not to Participate

Graduate students may choose not to participate in the resolution of their charges. When a student chooses not to participate, the (academic unit) will resolve the charge in accordance with this policy without the student’s participation. Students may also choose to remain silent during any portion of this conduct process. No inference will be drawn from the decision of the student to remain silent.

Graduate students may be accompanied by one advisor at any stage of the process, at the student’s own expense. The advisor may be an attorney or a person who is not an attorney that the student chooses to provide the student with emotional support and/or assistance. An advisor’s role in the student conduct process is to provide students with assistance in preparing for and participating in meetings and hearings. Graduate students are expected to participate for themselves/on their own behalf. Students may choose to have an advisor present. Advisors are not permitted to represent the student, speak on the student’s behalf, ask or answer questions for the student.

Faculty Reporting of, or Resolution of, Suspected Academic Misconduct

Faculty members may either attempt to resolve suspected incidents of academic misconduct themselves or refer such suspected incidents to the (academic unit) for resolution. Suspected academic misconduct by a graduate student is an extremely serious matter, and the (academic unit) therefore generally encourages faculty members to refer such matters to the (academic unit) for resolution rather than attempting to resolve the matter themselves. A faculty member may refer such matters to the (academic unit) within sixty (60) days of the date the faculty member knew or should have reasonably known of the alleged violation unless law or an external agency requires that information be withheld.

Faculty members wishing to attempt to resolve suspected academic misconduct themselves must first discuss the allegations with their (Chair or Dean) and with the Graduate Division to confirm that the student has not previously been found responsible for academic misconduct and to determine appropriate jurisdiction. If the student has a prior record of academic misconduct, then the faculty member must refer the matter to the (academic unit)’s conduct process. If there is no prior misconduct, then the faculty member may proceed to discuss the suspected academic misconduct with the graduate student directly and, if appropriate, others involved in the suspected academic misconduct. If the graduate student maintains that there was no academic misconduct and the faculty member determines that none occurred, then the faculty member may decline to pursue the matter further. If, upon discussion with the faculty member the graduate student admits that the suspected misconduct occurred, then the faculty member may impose, with the consent of the student and the (Chair of Dean), an appropriate sanction. If the student does not admit to the academic misconduct, or if the student does not consent to the sanction proposed by the faculty member, or if the (Chair or Dean) does not approve the proposed sanction, then the faculty member may either decline to pursue the matter further or may refer the matter to the (academic unit)’s conduct process. Sanctions imposed by faculty members without referral to the (academic unit) for resolution include, but are not limited to, requiring the student to resubmit assignments and/or retake exams. Faculty members cannot require students to withdraw from the university.

Grades are an assessment of a graduate student’s academic performance and should be determined based upon a faculty member’s assessment of academic performance. Faculty may take into account whether a student completed work through their own effort when completing an assignment or taking an exam. Grades may therefore be lowered based upon compromised academic performance associated with academic misconduct. Grades should not, however, be lowered as a punishment for academic misconduct. [2]

For example, a faculty member could believe that the appropriate grade on an exam is “pass” based upon the student’s knowledge, but that the student should be failed as punishment for suspected cheating with regard to a portion of the exam. “Fail” could ultimately be assigned to the student as a punishment through the (academic unit)’s conduct process; but if the student denies cheating and the faculty member decides not to refer the matter to the (academic units)’s conduct process, then the faculty member should assign the earned grade of “pass,” notwithstanding the suspicion of cheating.

Another example: If the instructions for an assignment specifically prohibited collaboration, and the graduate student nonetheless collaborated, a faculty member could assign a grade of “fail” not as a punishment but because the student failed to follow the instructions for the assignment. Alternatively, the faculty member could decide that part of the assignment completed appropriately (i.e., independently) warrants grading the entire assignment, and grades the assignment as if it were partially completed with a grade other than “fail.”

A faculty member may decide to postpone grading pending a conduct determination related to academic misconduct and a determination through the conduct process concerning whether or not the student completed an assignment or exam through the student’s own effort. When a faculty member reports alleged academic misconduct to the (academic unit) for resolution, a temporary notation of “RD” (Review Deferred) may be noted on the grade roster pending resolution of the allegation.

[2] Grades are subject to the appropriate published grade appeal process, which is not a conduct process. There is one process for appealing a grade, and a separate process for addressing academic misconduct. Ensuring that grades only reflect academic performance helps maintain the distinction between the two processes.

Notice of Conduct Charges

If an incident is referred to the (academic unit) and the (academic unit) determines that the allegations, if proven to be true by a preponderance of the evidence, would constitute academic misconduct, then the (academic unit) will notify the student of the charge(s) by delivery of an Alleged Violation Letter to the student. The Alleged Violation Letter will include:

A detailed description of the alleged facts supporting the charge(s) and nature of the alleged Policy violation, including the provision(s) of this policy that have been allegedly violated;
The Committee (standing or ad hoc) will be appointed by the (Chair or Dean). It shall have (an odd number of three or more) members, at least one of whom is not affiliated with the (academic unit). A member of the Graduate Division will assist the Committee as a procedural advisor.
The graduate student has five (5) days to challenge, in writing, the membership of any member of the committee, based on bias or conflict of interest, to the Dean of the Graduate Division. The Dean of the Graduate Division will determine whether to replace the challenged member(s) with a qualified substitute;
A specific statement of the sanction(s) that may be applied;
The (Chair or Dean) may extend the timeline for good cause upon notice to all parties involved in the process;
A copy of this policy.

Response to Charges

The graduate student may, but is not required to, respond to the allegations via email within seven (7) days of receipt of the Alleged Violation Letter. If the graduate student admits that the alleged academic misconduct occurred, then the subsequent hearing process will resolve the issue of what sanction is appropriate for the academic misconduct.

Resolution of Charged Cases

If the graduate student does not accept responsibility for the charged misconduct or does not respond to the charges, then the charges will be resolved by a hearing.

Investigation and Formal Hearing Processes

It is generally the responsibility of the Committee to collect testimony, documents, and other information regarding the alleged academic misconduct from faculty members, other students, and other relevant witnesses. The Committee is not required to conduct the hearing at a single date and time, and the hearing may instead be conducted in the manner that is typical for the preparation of academic committee reports in the (academic unit). The hearing may therefore consist of a series of personal interviews and the collection of relevant documents from the student and other interested parties. Except in exceptional circumstances, the Committee is expected to personally interview the charged graduate student regarding the allegations, if the graduate student consents to be interviewed. The Committee shall not make any inference regarding responsibility for the charges or lack thereof from the charged graduate student declining to be interviewed.

The charged graduate student may present any information that the student believes should be considered. The Committee may require that the student’s presentation of information be provided in writing, rather than in the form of an interview or oral account. The Committee should generally interview witnesses whom the charged graduate student makes available to be interviewed, except that the Committee may decline to interview witnesses offered to speak only to the general character of the graduate student or who have no percipient knowledge of the facts being investigated. If the Committee chooses not to consider any information or not to interview any witness offered by the charged graduate student, the Committee shall explain in its final record of decision why it chose not to consider such evidence.

The charged graduate student shall have ten (10) days to review a written summary of all evidence considered by the Committee and to respond to all such evidence in writing before the committee publishes its final record of decision.

The Committee’s decision will be based only upon information developed through its investigation.

The hearing will generally be conducted in the form of an investigation and/or entirely by exchange of writings; except that when resolution of the allegations depends upon the credibility of a witness or witnesses, and the appropriate sanction for the academic misconduct could include suspension or dismissal, the hearing shall include live testimony by that witness or those witnesses and the graduate student shall be entitled to pose questions to that witness or those witnesses. The witness(s) and the charged graduate student shall have the option to participate in the live hearing in person or virtually.

Standard of Proof

The (academic unit) bears the burden of proving the charges. The standard of proof for all hearings is a preponderance of evidence. A preponderance of evidence is defined as “more likely to be true than not.” In order to make a finding that a graduate student engaged in academic misconduct and impose a sanction, the Committee must determine by a majority vote that the misconduct occurred and the sanction is appropriate.

Consideration of Information

The Committee may consider any information that is the sort of information upon which responsible persons are accustomed to rely in the conduct of serious affairs. The Committee is not restricted to considering only evidence admissible under the strict rules of evidence of a court of law. Specifically, the Committee may consider hearsay. [3] The Committee will not consider information that it determines has been obtained by fundamentally unfair means.

[3] While statements made outside of the hearing process that are reported during the hearing may be considered by the Committee, rumors, gossip, and irrelevant information will not be considered.

Prior Conduct Record

The Committee will take into account the graduate student’s prior academic misconduct record maintained by the (academic unit) or another campus office, if any, for the purpose of determining an appropriate sanction. Prior misconduct generally may not be considered as evidence that a graduate student engaged in a different incident of suspected misconduct, but prior misconduct may be considered in determining the presence of further misconduct when the allegations of misconduct are highly similar or otherwise logically related. Prior academic misconduct may also be considered in determining an appropriate sanction.

Record of the Live Hearing

The Committee will make an official audio recording of any live hearing, a copy of which shall be made available to the charged graduate student for review but not retention, upon request. The student may, at the student’s own expense, use the services of a professional stenographer during the hearing. In some instances, the recording may have to be transcribed before it can be released (see Berkeley Campus Policy Governing Disclosure of Information from Student Records).

Hearings Committee Proceedings Generally Closed to the Public

In order to protect the privacy of the charged graduate student, any in-person or virtual Committee proceedings are closed to the public. If any live hearing is held, then the graduate student may request an open hearing by submitting a written request to the Committee within a reasonable time in advance of the scheduled hearing date for any hearing that is held to be public. The request must include a waiver of confidentiality to the hearing body. If the request for an open hearing is denied, then the Committee will provide a rationale for the denial in writing.

Committee Decision

The Committee shall determine, based on the evidence presented during the hearing, whether it is more likely than not that the charged graduate student violated this policy with respect to each charged violation. If the hearing body determines that it is more likely than not that the student violated this policy, then the Committee shall also determine the appropriate sanction. A non-exhaustive description of permissible sanctions is set forth in the attached Appendix I. The Committee’s decision will be documented in a report that includes a summary of the student’s actions and a determination of whether the student has been found responsible or not with regard to each alleged act of academic misconduct.

Recommendation to Revoke Degree Previously Conferred

If the Committee determines that a graduate student has committed an act of academic misconduct or fraud affecting the acquisition of the student’s degree, the (academic unit) may forward a recommendation that the degree be revoked to the Dean of the Graduate Division. The Dean of the Graduate Division will comment upon the request and forward it to the Committee on Courses of Instruction of the Academic Senate. A Notice of Intent to Recommend Revocation of Degree will be sent via email to the charged student with the written statement of decision. The Committee on Courses of Instruction makes the final decision as to revocation of the degree. This determination is not appealable.

Other than revoked degrees, the graduate student may appeal the decision of the Committee to the (Chair or Dean) of the (academic unit) on the grounds set forth below. Determinations to dismiss based upon violations of this policy, if upheld by the (Chair or Dean) of the (academic unit), may further be appealed to the Dean of the Graduate Division. The appeal must be made in writing within ten (10) days after the emailing of the written notification of the decision(s) being appealed. The (Chair or Dean) will respond in writing within a reasonable time period, not to exceed 20 days.

Suspension of Sanctions Before and During the Appeal

The filing of a timely appeal suspends the imposition of sanctions until the appeal is decided, but interim action may be taken as determined by the Dean of the academic unit in consultation with the Graduate Division. Grades or degrees may be withheld pending conclusion of the appeal.

Basis for Appeal

An appeal must be based on newly discovered evidence that was not available at the time of the hearing that could have affected the outcome or significant procedural error that affected the outcome.

Final Determination of Appeal

The Dean of the Graduate Division will make the final determination of all cases appealed under this policy other than degree revocations. Except in cases where the appeal is based upon newly discovered evidence, the Dean will review the report of the Committee and will not consider information that was not part of that record. The Dean may approve, reject, or modify the decision and/or sanction appealed, or require that the Committee reconvene and consider amending its decision with regard to any specific finding or conclusion as directed by the Dean. Where the appeal is based upon new information, the case may be referred back to the Committee for further consideration. The action taken will be communicated to the graduate student in writing.

Academic misconduct determinations, including but not limited to sanctions, are not subject to any other process or procedure of the (academic unit), including without limitation policies pertaining to suspension or dismissal.

[Optional] Clinical Standards and Suspension of Clinical Privileges

Graduate students who are judged to be unqualified to provide patient care are subject to having their clinical privileges suspended. Suspension may be recommended on the basis of a failure to achieve the academic, clinical and/or professional standards required to be considered making adequate progress in patient care. The recommendation to suspend a student’s clinical privileges may be made by the (Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs). Such a recommendation will result in the student’s immediate removal from clinical patient care while the (Head Graduate Advisor) reviews the basis for the suspension. (The Head Graduate Advisor) may decide to restore the student’s clinical privileges or to continue their suspension while the student completes a plan designed to lead to their restoration. Students may appeal the (Head Graduate Advisor’s) decision to the Dean of the academic unit, who has final authority regarding clinical privileges.

[ Optional] Professional Standards

Acting in an unprofessional manner will subject the graduate student to suspension of clinical privileges, probation and/or dismissal. Professional conduct will be evaluated by the instructor-in-charge, in consultation with other instructors in the course or Clinic, and the (Head Graduate Advisor). Unprofessional conduct is defined as any action that may adversely affect ________, the reputation of the School, the University of California, or the profession of ____________. Unprofessional conduct includes, but is not limited to:

Failure to follow relevant professional codes of ethics.
Rudeness or disrespect for patients/clients, faculty, staff, or fellow students.
Poor hygiene.
Failure to identify self as a student in clinical or other appropriate contexts.
Disregard for patient or client welfare.
Unauthorized entrance to clinic.
Unauthorized use of patient or client parking spaces.

APPENDIX I: SANCTIONS

When a graduate student is found in violation of University policies or campus regulations, any of the following sanctions or combination thereof may be imposed. Any sanction imposed should be appropriate to the violation, taking into consideration the context, previous violations, and seriousness of the violation.

Warning/Censure

Written notice or reprimand to the student that a violation of specified University policies or campus regulations has occurred and that continued or repeated violations of University policies or campus regulations may be cause for further disciplinary action. A warning may be issued in instances of deliberate and serious violations as well as for repeat, non-egregious violations.

Non-Reportable Warning

A warning could be in the form of a non-reportable warning, which is notice that subsequent violations will result in more serious sanctions. A non-reportable warning may be issued when the student’s action formally constitutes a violation, but the circumstances and degree of severity of the action do not warrant the creation of a conduct record. Once issued, records of non-reportable warnings are maintained only for in-house reference in case of subsequent violations.

Reportable Warning

A warning could be in the form of a reportable warning, which is notice that subsequent violations will result in more serious sanctions, maintained as part of the student’s conduct record.

Disciplinary Probation

A status imposed for a specified period of time during which a student must demonstrate conduct that conforms to University standards of conduct. Conditions restricting the student’s privileges or eligibility for activities may be imposed. Misconduct during the probationary period or violation of any conditions of the probation may result in further disciplinary action, normally in the form of Suspension or Dismissal. Disciplinary probation will typically be issued in response to more egregious violations and recurring serious violations to communicate to the student that further violations will most likely lead to temporary or permanent removal from campus.

Suspension

Termination of student status at the campus for a specified period of time with reinstatement thereafter certain, provided that the student has complied with all conditions imposed as part of the suspension and provided that the student is otherwise qualified for reinstatement. Suspensions will typically be issued in cases of extraordinarily serious first-time violations and for subsequent violations of a serious degree after a warning or disciplinary probation has been administered. Violation of the conditions of Suspension or of University policies or campus regulations during the period of Suspension may be cause for further disciplinary action, normally in the form of Dismissal.

Termination of student status for an indefinite period. Readmission to the University requires the specific approval of the Chancellor of the campus to which a dismissed student has applied. Dismissal will typically be used in cases that cannot be appropriately addressed with a suspension because the recurring nature of multiple violations or the extraordinary caliber of a single violation demonstrates that the student does not deserve an opportunity to return to campus. Readmission after dismissal may be granted only under exceptional circumstances.

Revocation of Awarding of Degree

Subject to the concurrence of the Committee on Courses of Instruction of the Academic Senate, revocation of a degree obtained by fraud or other academic dishonesty. Such revocation is subject to review on appeal by the Chancellor.

Other disciplinary actions, such as monetary fines, community service, or holds on requests for transcripts, diplomas, or other student records to be sent to third parties, as set forth in campus regulations.

Records Hold

A hold may be placed on transcripts and/or diploma(s) or other records as a sanction and/or until a student satisfies the terms and conditions of any sanction imposed.

Deferral or Withholding of Degree

An academic degree may be deferred when disciplinary proceedings are pending or when a student’s full compliance with disciplinary sanctions is pending, or withheld when academic dishonesty or fraud affected the acquisition of the student’s degree (see Recommendation to Revoke Degree Previously Conferred, section II.D.2.f of the Berkeley Campus Code of Student Conduct, for further information regarding this procedure).

Stay of Sanction

The imposition of any sanction may be held in abeyance pending future conduct.

Other Actions

Other appropriate action, including, but not limited to, additional academic assignments.

Degrees Policy

All policies and procedures dealing with graduate student progress are monitored by the Degrees office of the Graduate Division. Graduate students at Berkeley may be pursuing a Master’s degree or a Doctoral degree. In addition, doctoral students may add a Designated Emphasis, a form of interdisciplinary concentration in addition to the doctoral degree. Specific policies that govern the Master’s and Doctoral degree programs are discussed first, followed by policies that apply to both. Most matters should be referred to the Degrees Office. Some requests for exceptions are addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, submitted via the Degrees office.

F1. Master’s Degrees

Academic benchmarks.

The Master’s degree recognizes mastery of the fundamentals of a field demonstrated through coursework culminating in a final examination, capstone project, or thesis. To be eligible to receive the Master’s degree, the student must complete at least two semesters in residency and undertake the total coursework units defined for the program, earning a GPA of at least 3.0 based on letter grades of C- or better on two-thirds of all course work. Master’s students pursue Plan I (thesis) or Plan II (comprehensive exam or capstone project), depending on their program.

Degree Requirements

Programs set their own subject requirements for degrees. When programs propose to change requirements, they must inform the Graduate Division for approval before implementation. If the proposed changes are substantive, the Graduate Division will submit them to the Graduate Council for its approval. All students must be informed in writing of any requirement changes. Programs must permit students who entered under one set of requirements to elect to follow either the new or old rules.

F1.1 Degree Plans

requires a minimum of 20 semester units of upper division and graduate courses, and completion of a thesis. For the 20 unit minimum, the Academic Senate has established that a minimum of 8 units be in 200 series courses in the student’s major subject. Majors may require more than the minimum of 20 units. If the degree requires more than the 20-unit minimum, 40% of the unit total must be 200-level course work.

requires a minimum of 24 semester units of upper division and graduate courses, followed by a comprehensive final examination or, if approved by the Graduate Council, a capstone project administered by the program. Of the 24 units, Academic Senate regulations state that a minimum of 12 units must be in 200-level courses in the student’s major subject. Majors may require more than the 24-unit minimum. If the degree requires more than 24 units, half of the unit total must be 200-level course work.

Group Projects and the Plan I (thesis) and Plan II (capstone project) Master’s degree

The Graduate Council has stated that joint or group work is not acceptable as the basis for awarding graduate degrees. Students may collaborate on research projects under the supervision of a faculty guidance committee. However, each student must write a thesis or capstone project report that represents a cohesive presentation of the research conducted and is capable of standing independently from the project. Each student’s work must be evaluated individually.

F1.2 Academic Residence Requirement for a Master’s Degree

Academic residence is defined as payment of registration fees, and enrollment in at least 4 units in 100 or 200 series courses each semester of academic residence. A Master’s degree requires a minimum of two semesters of academic residence, with variations as follows:

Master’s degree — two semesters of academic residence.
Master’s, two separate degrees — a two-semester minimum of academic residency is required for each degree, for a total of four semesters minimum.
Master’s, concurrent degrees — a minimum of two semesters of academic residence.
Master’s and doctoral degrees — a minimum of six semesters of academic residence is required to complete both a master’s and a doctoral degree

Academic Residency and Summer Sessions

For a master’s degree, residence during Summer Sessions may be counted under the following conditions:

Enrollment in two six-week Summer Sessions counts as one term of residence provided the candidate is enrolled in each session for the equivalent of at least two units of upper division and/or graduate work as given in a regular term (four units total)
Enrollment in an eight-week Summer Session counts as one term of residence provided the candidate is enrolled for the equivalent of at least four units of upper division and/or graduate work as given in a regular term.

See Section D1.1 for the minimum enrollment requirement for graduate students who are not yet advanced to candidacy.

F1.3 Concurrent Master’s Degree Programs

Established concurrent degree programs combine two separate master’s degree programs. Students are permitted to count a limited number of courses towards fulfillment of both degrees. Since “double counting” is otherwise not allowed, an official concurrent degree program generally decreases the time required to earn both degrees. Although requirements for one degree may be completed during an earlier term, the two degrees of the concurrent program are awarded the same semester the second one is completed.

F1.4 Unit Credit for the Master’s Degree

Courses in the 300 series or higher do not count toward the unit requirements for either Plan I or Plan II Master’s degrees. For either the 20-unit Plan I or 24-unit Plan II, a maximum of 6 units of 299 course work may be used toward fulfilling degree unit requirements. For degree programs requiring more than 24 units, up to 25% of the unit total may be units in 299 courses.

The same course work cannot be used toward two different master’s degrees unless that course work has been permitted as part of a concurrent master’s program officially approved by the campus.

Unit Credit from Non-UC Institutions

A master’s student may transfer up to 4 semester units or 6 quarter units of course work completed as a graduate student at another institution. The student must have received at least a B in the course(s) and have a grade-point average of at least 3.3 at both Berkeley and the other institution. Students cannot use units from another institution to satisfy the minimum unit requirement in 200 series courses or the minimum academic residence requirement. In addition, they may not present course work previously used to satisfy requirements for another degree program at Berkeley or at another in another institution.

Unit Credit from Another UC Campus

Academic Senate Regulation 726 allows for the possibility for graduate students to receive credit for more than 4 semester or 6 quarter units of 200-level courses completed on another UC campus, by exception. The Graduate Division will consider such petitions on a case-by-case basis.

Unit Credit from Summer Session Course Work at UC Berkeley and Other Institutions

Transfer of summer session course work completed at another institution is generally not permitted. An entering student admitted for fall semester may petition to receive unit/course credit toward the degree for UC Berkeley Summer Session courses taken in the immediately preceding summer, if the Admissions Office of the Graduate Division issued the offer of admission before the end of that Summer Session.

Unit credit from Backdated Graduate Standing

Berkeley undergraduates who take graduate course work during their last undergraduate semester may petition to backdate graduate standing in order to receive graduate credit for that course work. Graduate standing may be backdated for only one semester, and students may petition for credit only for course work that was not required for the undergraduate degree. In addition, if the last undergraduate semester was used to satisfy students’ senior residency requirement, then the petition must note this.

Unit credit from Concurrent Enrollment with University Extension

Berkeley Division Regulation A208 allows UC Berkeley Extension courses carrying the “XB” designation on University Extension transcripts to be accepted for unit requirement and grade-point credit on the Berkeley campus. Without these designations, extension courses generally cannot be applied to a Berkeley degree. Exceptions are made only when there is clear evidence that the student took the courses while a graduate student at another institution, and intended to apply those units toward a graduate degree at that institution.

Unit Credit for Different Degrees (PhD vs. master’s)

Matriculated Berkeley PhD students may enroll in a master’s program in a different academic unit subject to the following conditions.

The student applies to the master’s program via the admissions process (SLATE), adhering to program deadlines;
the units counted toward the master’s degree in the second program are not counted toward any master’s degree that the student may have earned in their PhD program;
the student obtains a memo from their advisor and/or Head Graduate Advisor supporting earning a master’s degree in another program (required signatures should be determined by each program); and,
the student completes the required capstone element for the master’s degree (i.e., thesis, comprehensive exam, or project).

Students in joint degree programs are also required to have Berkeley designated as their home campus during the semesters in which they are working toward the master’s degree.

For programs that do not offer a stand-alone master’s degree, PhD students may earn a master’s degree on the following additional conditions.

The department’s faculty agree that the department will offer a terminal master’s degree to matriculated Berkeley PhD students; and
the department establishes a transparent admissions process by which students will be admitted to a terminal master’s degree program with a capstone element.

Any program wishing to admit matriculated Berkeley PhD students may waive the requirement of letters of recommendation and of GRE scores. Additionally, matriculated PhD students will not count against a program’s admissions allotment.

Exception requests must come from the Head Graduate Adviser, in a memo addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, submitted in care of the Graduate Degrees Office. The memo must specify the units and courses to be credited. It can be submitted either before or when a student applies for advancement to candidacy.

In a request for backdating graduate standing, the memo must be accompanied by a written statement from the student’s undergraduate college confirming that the course work was not undertaken in fulfillment of an undergraduate degree requirement. If the last semester was used to satisfy the senior residency requirement, then the memo must note this, as well.

For transfer of summer session course work completed at another institution, the memo must be accompanied by (a) an official transcript from the other school showing that the student was in graduate standing at the other institution and (b) a statement from the other institution that the courses are acceptable toward a master’s degree but were not used at that university.

F1.5 Advancement to Candidacy for a Master’s Degree

By Academic Senate regulation, students must formally advance to candidacy before the master’s degree can be conferred. Plan I students must be advanced to candidacy before filing their theses. Plan II students must be advanced prior to taking the comprehensive examination or submitting the capstone project.

Students advancing under Plan I submit individual applications for candidacy that list the proposed thesis committee. Students advancing to candidacy under Plan II are included on a list submitted by their program to the Graduate Degrees office.

Required Signatures

Every candidacy form must be signed by the Head Graduate Adviser. For students under Plan I, the Chair of the Thesis Committee must also sign the form.

Foreign Language Requirement

Students must pass any required program language examinations before they are advanced to candidacy.

Grading of Course Work

Two-thirds of all course work (not only those courses required for the master’s program) must be letter-graded, and only courses graded C- or better, or Satisfactory, may be counted toward degree requirements.

Grade-Point Average

For the degree to be awarded, the student’s overall grade-point average must be at least 3.0, computed on the basis of all upper division and graduate courses taken in graduate standing up through the student’s final semester (not only those required for the master’s program). If the grade-point average is above 2.85 at the time of application for advancement to candidacy (but below 3.0), the student may apply for advancement if it is numerically feasible to achieve the required 3.0 through completion of current course work.

Course Deficiencies

A student may be advanced to candidacy with the following course deficiencies, but these must be rectified for award of the master’s degree:

Incomplete or In Progress grades for required courses.
Completion of courses to remove academic deficiencies, required by the program as a condition of the student’s admission to the degree program. In some cases, course work completed in University Extension may be used to correct deficiencies, but it cannot be counted toward fulfilling unit requirements for the degree.

Thesis Committee (Plan I)

Students must have a properly constituted thesis committee of three members, who must belong to the Academic Senate unless an exception has been granted. It is optional for students following Plan I to have an Academic Senate Representative on the thesis committee. If a proposed committee member does not belong to the Academic Senate, then a request for an exception must accompany the application for advancement to candidacy. For more information on faculty committees and requesting exceptional appointments, see “Faculty Committees for Higher Degrees” in the section below on “Policies Affecting Both Master’s and Doctoral Students.”

Advancement and Human Subjects Certificate Requirement

Students who are using human subjects in their research must complete the “Course in the Protection of Human Subjects” (referred to as the CITI course) available online and print out the certificate of completion. This certificate must be submitted with the advancement form.

Students advancing under Plan I submit individual applications for candidacy that list the proposed thesis committee. GSAOs notify the Graduate Degrees office that students advancing to candidacy under Plan II have completed their milestone (i.e., comprehensive final exam or project) in Campus Solutions. The Graduate Division reviews each student’s application against their record to determine eligibility for advancement to candidacy. If the student is eligible, a formal notice of advancement to candidacy will be sent to the student, to the program, and for Plan I students, to the thesis committee members. If a student is not eligible, the program and the student will be notified that advancement has been deferred. The application will be held for future review once the student has notified the Graduate Degrees Office that the deficiency has been cleared and can be verified.

For an academic master’s degree, students must show that they will complete the minimum program for their plan (20 units required for Plan I or 24 units required for Plan II, in the 100 or 200 series). A minimum of 8 units for Plan I or 12 units for Plan II must be completed in the 200 series in the major subject. No more than 6 units of a 20-unit Plan I or a 24-unit Plan II program may be research units. If the program requires more than 24 units, up to 25% of the unit total may be research units.

A change in committee is requested by submitting a completed Change in Higher Degree Committee form. The Head Graduate Adviser has the final authority to approve changes. The Head Graduate Adviser must state the reason for the change and sign the form. The Head Graduate Adviser should consult with faculty members to assure that they are aware of membership changes.

If a proposed committee member does not belong to the Academic Senate, a request for an exception from the Head Graduate Advisor justifying the inclusion must accompany the application for advancement to candidacy. The curriculum vitae of the proposed committee member must be included.

December 15, 2005: CITI Requirement for Advancement to Candidacy

F1.6 Master’s Thesis (Plan I)

The Master’s Thesis is required for Plan I programs. “Policies Affecting Both Master’s and Doctoral Students” (below) covers preparing the thesis, required registration status, and use of human or animal subjects.

Library Permission Form

A completed “Master’s Thesis Release Form” stating whether or not the student is willing to allow the University Library to supply copies of the thesis to any interested persons immediately, or if permission to do so should be withheld (for two years), must accompany the submitted Master’s Thesis.

F1.7 Comprehensive Final Examination or Capstone Project (Plan II)

For master’s students under Plan II, each program decides the content and format of the capstone element (either a comprehensive final examination or a capstone project), which should cover the knowledge and skills reasonably expected of a master’s degree recipient in the field. For comprehensive final exams, a committee of at least two (and preferably three) Academic Senate faculty members should conduct the exam. The exam may be written, oral, or a combination of the two.

For capstone projects, a committee of at least two members needs to evaluate the capstone project. At least one of them needs to be an Academic Senate member, at least one of them should have no direct vested interest in the student’s success (e.g., the student is not the reviewer’s GSR or collaborator), and both of them must be affiliated with UC Berkeley.

Registration Requirement

Students must be registered or on approved Filing Fee status to be eligible to file for a degree in either the spring or fall term. Students registered in spring, who have not previously used their filing fee, may file during summer for a summer degree. Academic Senate regulations state that in order to receive a degree in any given term, all work for the degree must be completed by the last day of the term. See “Policies Affecting Both Master’s and Doctoral Students” (below) for information on the Filing Fee.

At the end of the fall and spring semesters, the Graduate Division sends to programs a list of all Plan II master’s candidates who are advanced to candidacy. The Head Graduate Adviser should indicate whether or not each student has passed or failed the exam, the date of the exam, the date the student filed the capstone project if applicable, and whether any of the student’s Incompletes, No Reports, or In Progress grades are required for the degree.

F1.8 Completion of Courses for the Degree

Master’s students must finish all courses required for the degree by the last day of the semester in which they expect the degree to be conferred. For award of the Master’s degree, a student can have no more than one Incomplete per year of the degree program in a non-required course, up to a maximum of two incompletes. If the program is longer than two years, no more than two Incompletes total can be included to remain in good standing .

After completion of requirements for the degree for which they were admitted, students may not register and enroll for a subsequent semester unless they have been previously approved for a new degree goal or a new major.

At the end of the fall and spring semesters, the Graduate Division sends to programs a list of all Plan II master’s candidates who are advanced to candidacy. If students have Incompletes, No Reports, or In Progress grades, the program must indicate on the list of Plan II master’s candidates whether the courses would be required for the degree.

F1.9 Master’s Time in Candidacy

Master’s students have six semesters after advancement to candidacy in which to complete requirements for their degrees. If they do not finish in that period, their candidacy will lapse unless the Head Graduate Adviser requests an extension of time and it is granted by the Associate Dean for Degrees.

Reinstated students must be registered or qualify for Filing Fee status during the semester in which they complete the final requirements for their degree. The student’s thesis committee must have approved a final draft of the thesis, or the student must indicate readiness to take the comprehensive final examination or submit a capstone project, to be eligible for reinstatement.

Programs may request that the Graduate Division terminate the candidacy of a master’s student if, after a period on lapsed status, the student does not show ability to complete the degree.

To reinstate candidacy, the Head Graduate Adviser must certify that the student’s previously completed course work is still valid. For all fields, there is a time limit of four years on use of previously completed coursework for the Masters degree.

The Head Graduate Adviser should submit a separate memo for each student recommended for termination, addressed to the Graduate Degrees Office.

F2. Doctoral Degrees: Policies Prior to Advancement to Candidacy

In the first stage of doctoral programs, students are guided by faculty in their programs, operating under the policies of the Academic Senate Graduate Council, intended to ensure their progress through advancement to candidacy.

Administered by departments, Schools, or Graduate Groups, the doctorate is awarded in recognition of a student’s knowledge of a broad field of learning and for distinguished accomplishment in that field through an original contribution of significant knowledge and ideas. To be eligible to receive the doctorate, the student must complete at least two years (four semesters) of academic residence, pass a Qualifying Examination administered by a committee approved by the Graduate Division on behalf of the Graduate Council, and submit an approved dissertation completed under the guidance of Berkeley Academic Senate faculty members. The dissertation must reveal high critical ability and powers of imagination and synthesis. There are two dissertation plans:

1) Plan A, which requires a five-member committee (three members charged with approving the dissertation who are joined by two additional members for the student’s required final oral defense of the dissertation)

2) Plan B, which is followed by most doctoral programs, requires a three-member committee with a final defense at the discretion of the committee.

Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program

The Graduate Division has established a procedure by which students may propose to pursue an interdisciplinary major of their own design, with the support of a committee of five sponsoring faculty members. Fulfillment of academic residency, passage of the Qualifying Examination, and completion of a dissertation are all required of interdisciplinary doctoral students. Only students who have completed at least two semesters of a doctoral program at Berkeley with a superior academic record may be considered for an individual interdisciplinary doctoral program. The Interdisciplinary PhD follows Plan A requirements.

Unit Requirements

The doctorate is based on a course of study tailored to fit the needs of individual students, and to fulfill the curriculum approved for each program. Each program defines specific coursework required, which must be completed before admission to candidacy. Departments, Schools, and Graduate Groups may informally recognize that students have completed relevant courses at other institutions, if they wish, but no units will be officially transferred for the doctoral degree, unlike the master’s degree, as there are no university unit requirements. Thus, with the exception of the units required to fulfill residency requirements (see below), and the policy requiring students to be continuously enrolled for at least 12 units (absent an exception), doctoral students do not have specific unit requirements.

Normative Time

All doctoral programs of the University of California system have an established length of time for completion of a doctoral program, which is called Normative Time. Each doctoral program submitted its Normative Time for review and approval by the local Graduate Council and the University-wide Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs.

There are two components of Normative Time: NTA – normative time to advancement to doctoral candidacy; and NTIC – normative time in candidacy, which begins after advancement and ends when the degree is awarded. The Graduate Division monitors a student’s Normative Time progress since it affects, among other things, the allocation of new admissions slots for academic programs, and is one measure of a program’s ability to successfully conduct its students through the degree program.

F2.1 Doctoral Degrees with a Designated Emphasis

A “Designated Emphasis” is defined as an area of study constituting a new method of inquiry or an important field of application relevant to two or more existing doctoral degree programs. It is not a free-standing degree program, but must be added as an additional major along with an existing doctoral degree program. Students electing to add a Designated Emphasis are required to complete the academic work in the Designated Emphasis in addition to all the requirements of the doctoral program. There are no adjustments made to the normative time of the student’s major when a student undertakes a Designated Emphasis.

To qualify for the Designated Emphasis, students must have on the Qualifying Examination committee a representative of the DE and must be examined in that area of study. Students are consequently required to be admitted to the DE before taking the Qualifying Examination. When students also enrolled in a DE are advanced to candidacy, the advancement application must include the signature of the Head Graduate Adviser for the DE to signify that the dissertation committee had an appropriate representative of the DE in its membership and that the student was examined on the area of the Designated Emphasis.

Prior to filing for the degree, a Final Report for the Designated Emphasis, verifying that all of the requirements for the DE have been met, must be submitted. Students approved for a DE must include the name of the DE on the title page of the dissertation, following the major name.

List of Designated Emphases

The following Designated Emphases have been approved by the Graduate Council:

Cognitive Science
Computational and Data Science and Engineering
Computational and Genomic Biology
Computational Precision Health
Critical Theory
Development Engineering
Dutch Studies
Energy Science and Technology
European Studies
Film Studies
Global Metropolitan Studies
Indigenous Language Revitalization
Jewish Studies
Political Economy
Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
Science and Technology Studies
Sociology of Organizations and Markets
Study of Religion
Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Students apply for admission by the Designated Emphasis, following procedures described by the Graduate Group sponsoring the DE. Once approved, staff in the student’s home department must use the Acad Plan eForm in CalCentral to add the DE to the student’s record.

F2.2 Academic Residence Requirement for a Doctoral Degree

Doctoral students must register at Berkeley and complete a minimum of four semesters of academic residence, which is defined as payment of registration fees and enrollment in at least 4 units in the 100 or 200 series per required semester of academic residence. A minimum of six semesters of academic residence are required to complete both a master’s and a doctoral degree. A student in a joint doctoral program must pay fees and fulfill enrollment requirements for at least one year at each campus to complete academic residence requirements.

Summer Sessions and Academic Residency

For a doctoral degree, residence during Summer Sessions may be counted under the following conditions: (1) enrollment in two consecutive six-week Summer Sessions counts as one term of residence provided the candidate is enrolled in each session for the equivalent of at least two units of upper division and/or graduate work as given in a regular term (four units total); or (2) enrollment in an eight-week Summer Session counts as one term of residence provided the candidate is enrolled for the equivalent of at least four units of upper division and/or graduate work as given in a regular term. No degrees are awarded for work completed during Summer Session only.

See Section D1.1 for the minimum enrollment requirement for graduate students who are not yet advanced to candidacy.

F2.3 Program Review Requirement for First-Year Students

The Graduate Council suggests that programs should evaluate graduate students at the middle and end of their first year of graduate study. Many programs require that all first-year doctoral students be formally reviewed at the end of their first year of study. Programs should inform newly-admitted students if they will be reviewed.

The Graduate Division advises that the results of all evaluations be sent to students in writing. A negative evaluation may be considered a letter of warning if it includes the information required by the Graduate Council. A copy should be sent to the Graduate Division Degrees Office.

F2.4 Foreign Language Requirement

Doctoral students must satisfy a foreign language requirement, unless a blanket exemption has been approved by the Graduate Council at the request of the doctoral program. Students should satisfy the requirement as early as possible in their graduate careers. The requirement must be satisfied before students will be eligible to take the Qualifying Examination.

Acceptable Languages

The Graduate Division will accept any natural language with a system of writing (with the exception of English and any pidgin or Creole of which English is the base), if the department or group certifies that

1) the language has scholarly value in the field;

2) the language is integral to the training of a particular student or group of students in the field; and

3) a person qualified to administer the examination is available.

Computer languages are not acceptable for use in satisfying foreign language requirements.

Each student selects the language(s) used to satisfy this requirement from a set of languages certified by the Graduate Council for that department or group. Students may substitute an uncertified language if the Head Graduate Adviser makes such a request based on academic relevance for the student’s research and it is approved by the Associate Dean for Degrees.

Program Changes in the Foreign Language Requirement

Academic Senate regulations allow programs to change or drop their foreign language requirements following review and approval by the Graduate Council. In 1985, the Graduate Council decided that “a program wishing to change its current foreign language requirement will be expected to notify the Dean of the Graduate Division in accordance with regulation 2001B of the Regulations of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate; a program wishing to reduce its foreign language requirement will be expected to present a detailed justification for the proposed reduction” for review and approval by the Graduate Council.

Options for Completing the Foreign Language Requirement

Programs that have a foreign language requirement may select from the following options for students to complete the requirement. A program may establish more stringent requirements than those required by the Graduate Council.

This option requires a reading knowledge of two languages. Students may pass both by examination, or one by examination and the second by completing a four-semester (or six-quarter) course sequence with an average grade of C or better.

The Graduate Council directs that for a language requirement to be fulfilled by examination, a passage of at least 300 words be translated into English within a time limit of 90 minutes, with or without a dictionary at the option of the program faculty. Examinations may be conducted by departments, Graduate Groups, or any outside testing agency that has been approved by the Graduate Division, such as the Educational Testing Service.

For one language to be fulfilled through course work, the student must have completed coursework within four years of admission to Berkeley. Completion of an upper division foreign language course at Berkeley that requires a four-semester (or six-quarter) course sequence as a prerequisite can satisfy the requirement for one language. Course sequences of four semesters (six quarters) in a certified language completed at any UC campus automatically fulfill the requirement for one of the languages. If students wish to use courses at other institutions to fulfill the requirement for one of the languages, the Graduate Division must validate the courses.

If a student completed an appropriate course sequence as an undergraduate, or if the student’s high school or undergraduate institution conducted courses in an approved language, the program can petition the Graduate Division at the time the student is admitted to graduate standing at Berkeley to recognize that the student has fulfilled the language requirement

The student is expected to demonstrate an exceptionally thorough reading knowledge of one language, as well as an adequate knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language. Knowledge is tested by a written examination consisting of a translation of a passage of about 1,000 words on a subject appropriate to the student’s major field of interest. The examination is limited to three hours and the translation is to be made without the aid of a dictionary. The translation must show an accurate comprehension of the meaning of the exam text, and since the exam text is in the student’s discipline, the translation should use the correct English technical terms.

As with Option 1, students may pass by examination or by course work, but the program requires competence in only one foreign language. The examination requires the translation of a passage of at least 300 words into English within a time limit of 90 minutes, with or without a dictionary at the choice of the program faculty. As in the case of Option 1, examinations may be conducted by a department, a graduate group, or an approved outside agency. To fulfill the requirement through course work, a course sequence of four semesters (or six quarters), whether taken at UC or elsewhere, must have been completed within four years of admission to Berkeley or during enrollment as a student at Berkeley.

Native Speakers Of a Language Other Than English

A native speaker of a language other than English may petition the department to use that language to fulfill the program requirement if the language is appropriate to advanced research in that particular discipline, as shown by important journals and research that has been carried out in that language.

As soon as a student completes all or part of the language requirement, the Head Graduate Adviser notifies the Graduate Division by sending a memo.

If a student satisfied the requirement for Option 3, or for one of the two languages for Option 1, by completing a four-semester (or six-quarter) course sequence, the Head Graduate Adviser should certify in the memo that the course sequence was acceptable to the program.

The program must retain the graded program exam, if applicable, in the student’s file. The program must provide a copy of any completed language examination to the Graduate Division when petitioning for the student to advance to doctoral candidacy.

The Head Graduate Adviser can petition the Graduate Division to recognize that a student has fulfilled the requirement for a language at the time the student is admitted to graduate standing at Berkeley, if the student completed an appropriate course sequence as an undergraduate, or if the student’s high school or undergraduate institution conducted courses in an approved language.

A program may petition for a native speaker of a language other than English to use that language to fulfill the language requirement by submitting a memo to the Graduate Division specifying the language and certifying native ability, as well as explaining the language’s relevance to the student’s research. Evidence of native ability in a language may be demonstrated through secondary school or university transcripts.

The Head Graduate Advisor of the program should consult with the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs about the timing and content of a proposal to change or drop foreign language requirements, for review by an Associate Dean of the Graduate Division and approval by the Graduate Council.

F2.5 Preliminary Examinations

Some doctoral programs require a preliminary examination before the student may apply to take the Qualifying Examination. This may entail the completion of a paper, a series of papers, a written examination, or some other requirement defined by the program.

The Graduate Council requires that students who fail a program’s preliminary examination on the first attempt be given an opportunity for reexamination following a reasonable delay for additional preparation.

If the performance on the exam was so poor that it is unlikely the student will pass it again within an acceptable period of time, the Graduate Council policy allows programs to petition for the student’s registration to be terminated, without allowing a second chance to pass the preliminary exam. With this exception, preliminary examination results need not be reported to the Graduate Division.

If the examining committee, with the concurrence of the Head Graduate Adviser, recommends that no second examination be given and that the student’s status as a degree candidate in that program be terminated, the chair of the committee must write a memo explaining this outcome, addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees in care of the Graduate Degrees Office.

F2.6 Qualifying Examination

The Qualifying Examination is administered by the Graduate Division on behalf of the Graduate Council. Committee membership and the conduct of the examination are accordingly subject to the Graduate Division’s review and approval.

The exam is normally held on one day and lasts approximately two to three hours. The Qualifying Examination is an oral exam. The Qualifying Examination must be conducted in English; all members of the committee must be present either in person or through approved media.

A program may require written examinations or papers as preliminaries to the Qualifying Examination, but they are not a component of the Qualifying Examination required by the Graduate Council. Administration of the oral Qualifying Examination implies that the student has satisfactorily completed any written preliminaries.

The Purpose of the Qualifying Examination

The Graduate Council’s statement on the purpose and meaning of the Qualifying Examination should guide the conduct of the examination.

The intent of the Qualifying Examination is to ascertain the breadth of the student’s comprehension in at least three subject areas related to the major field of study, and to determine whether the student has the ability to think incisively and critically about the theoretical and the practical aspects of these areas. The examination may consider a number of academic points of view and the criteria by which they may be evaluated.

Some degree granting programs (departments, Schools, Graduate Groups) expect students to present a topic for the dissertation as part of the preliminaries for the Qualifying Examination, but the examination must not be narrowly limited to the dissertation topic.

The examiners should satisfy themselves, by unanimous vote, that the student demonstrated sufficient command of the three subject areas.

Qualifying Examination Committee

Please refer to Sections F4.7 and F4.8 for the configuration of the Qualifying Examination Committee and the role of the committee members, respectively.

Eligibility to Take the Qualifying Examination

To be eligible to take the exam, a student must:

be registered and enrolled for the semester in which the exam is taken or, if it is taken during the winter or summer intersessions, be registered in either the preceding or the following semester (the exam may be taken up to the last day before the beginning of the next term);
have completed at least one semester of academic residence;
have at least a B average in all work undertaken in graduate standing;
have no more than two courses graded Incomplete;
have satisfactorily completed the program’s preliminary exam requirements, if applicable; and
have completed the foreign language requirement.

Period of Eligibility to Take the Qualifying Examination

Once an application for admission to the Qualifying Examination is approved by the Graduate Division, the program has 18 months to administer the examination. Eligibility continues if the student fails on the first attempt but is recommended for reexamination. If the student does not take the examination during the 18-month period, a new application must be filed.

Scheduling the Examination

Students should be encouraged to take the Qualifying Examination and be advanced to candidacy as soon as they are prepared, and unless exceptional circumstances exist, within the Normative Time to Advancement of the program.

The student should confer with the chair of the Qualifying Exam Committee when they are prepared to set the date of the examination. The student should begin this consultation well in advance of the planned exam date to ensure the availability of the examination committee and approval of the examination application by the Graduate Division. Students requiring accommodation for a disability must make this known before the exam so the chair can arrange appropriate accommodation. If, before the date of the approved examination, a change in the student’s health or personal situation makes it too difficult to take the examination as scheduled, the student must make this known to the examination chair so the chair can arrange for a postponement.

Conducting a Qualifying Examination

The Chair of the Qualifying Examination Committee is responsible for making sure that the committee administers the exam fairly and follows the procedures outlined in the next section. The committee’s Academic Senate Representative serves as the representative of the Dean of the Graduate Division to observe that the chair fulfills this responsibility and should report any infractions to the Graduate Division. An exam that is not conducted according to Graduate Division guidelines may be invalidated.

Remote Participation by Committee Members or Hybrid Format

If the student requests and/or agrees, a qualifying exam may be held entirely remotely or in a hybrid format (i.e., some members are physically present and some are remote). Remote participants will interact via Zoom or other technology that allows them to communicate and share visuals from different locations. Student consent to the format must be obtained before the exam is conducted. All students and examiners are urged to review “Best Practices for Zoom Qualifying Exams” prior to the exam to ensure that there are no technical issues or other impediments to the conduct of the exam.

If the exam is hybrid and the student is physically present, then the chair of the committee also needs to be physically present. This requirement has a dual rationale. First, the chair is responsible for ensuring that the exam is conducted properly, but a chair who is not present in person could be unaware of some of what goes on in the exam. Second, if the hybrid nature of the exam negatively affects the student’s ability to answer questions, then the exam chair’s presence can help them make an assessment and determine how best to proceed. Any exceptions to this requirement need the approval of the academic unit’s Head Graduate Advisor before the exam.

In all instances, the exam must be held with the entire committee present for the length of the exam. A student may not be examined separately by committee members.

If any committee member cannot attend either in-person or remotely, the exam should be rescheduled or the committee reconstituted. The Graduate Division can expedite reconstitution of committees under these circumstances.

Programs may require in-person only exams for all students, but the faculty must vote to approve this option and programs must state this requirement clearly in all written documentation about the exam requirement for students.

This policy applies to all graduate degree milestone exams (e.g., preliminary, comprehensive as defined in this guide).

Related Temporary Policy Exceptions

October 28, 2019: Temporary Blanket Exception to Qualifying Exam Policy, and Extension to Fall 2019 Filing Deadline

April 15, 2020: Temporary Blanket Exception to Qualifying Exam Policy, Related to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Concerns

Voting Procedures:

All members of the Qualifying Examination committee must be present to vote on the exam, and each member is expected to vote either “pass,” “fail,” or “partial fail” on the student’s performance during the entire examination. Committees should make every attempt to reach a unanimous decision.

The committee’s final decision should reflect the student’s performance on the exam. A vote to pass the student is only warranted if the student’s academic performance was satisfactory and for no other reason.

It is not appropriate to add conditions to the examination verdict related to the dissertation topic, how the research should be conducted, who should be the dissertation chair, or how the student will be supported during the research phase. Conditions, such as subsequent service as a GSI in a particular course or presentation of a paper at a seminar, cannot be used to substitute for a student’s failure of any part of the examination and will not be accepted by the Graduate Division.

If allowed a retake, the student who has partially failed an examination must be orally examined before the full committee on all portions failed in the first Qualifying Examination.

Adjournment

If a student suffers from illness or psychological stress that prevents them from answering questions effectively during the exam, or if there are other problems that prevent the exam from proceeding properly, the chair should recess the examination immediately . The committee should meet without the student to decide whether or not to continue the exam.

If the committee decides that the exam cannot continue under the circumstances, the chair will adjourn the exam without a vote and immediately report the adjournment to the Graduate Degrees Office.

The committee should adjourn the exam only as a last step and only when other attempts to remedy the difficulty have been exhausted (such as a short recess to put the student at ease). Exams should not be adjourned simply because the student’s performance was not of passing quality, unless circumstances beyond the student’s control contributed to the failure. Committees should never recommend adjournment because a student’s English skills are not adequate for the exam.

An exam that lasts for more than one-and-a-half hours will be considered a complete examination by the Graduate Council and should not be reported as an adjournment but as a total or partial failure. If an adjourned exam is not resumed within 21 days, the reason must be reported and the exam may be judged to be a total or partial failure.

Nonappearance By the Student

If a student is not present at the time of the scheduled Qualifying Examination, the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council will review the case, based on reports from the committee and the student involved. Only the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council can rule on whether the student’s non-appearance at the scheduled time constitutes a failed examination. The Administrative Committee may find instead that the program, the examination committee, or both acted improperly, and act to monitor a rescheduled examination to ensure proper conduct of the exam.

Students must apply to take the Qualifying Examination no later than three weeks before the examination date, to allow the Graduate Division time to review and approve the application. Students must list on their applications at least three subject areas to be covered during the examination.

The application form must be endorsed by the Head Graduate Adviser. The Head Graduate Adviser must be certain that students who are non-native speakers possess the language skills necessary for participating in an oral exam in English.

The application form should be accompanied by the student’s foreign language examination (both text and translation) or certification of native fluency, unless the program has already submitted these materials.

Approval of the proposed committee by the Graduate Division is absolutely required before the exam may take place. An examination held before the student and the committee members have been notified by the Graduate Division of admission to the Qualifying Examination will not be accepted, and the committee will need to wait for approval and administer an approved examination.

If the committee decides that an exam cannot continue, the chair will adjourn the exam without a vote and immediately report the adjournment to the Graduate Degrees Office. The chair must explain why this step was taken and give the committee’s recommendation for further action. The committee can recommend that the exam be continued, but no later than 21 days from the date of the adjourned exam. The student may be informed of the recommended action by the chair but must also be told that the recommendation must be reviewed by the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council for approval.

If a student is not present at the time of the scheduled Qualifying Examination, both the committee chair and the student must submit written reports explaining the circumstances to the Associate Dean for Degrees, via the Graduate Division Degrees Office, within six working days following the date of the exam. The Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council will review the case, and rule on whether the student’s non-appearance constitutes a failed examination or a rescheduled examination should take place.

If an illness, accident, or other emergency occurs just before the scheduled exam, the committee chair should call the Graduate Degrees Office, explain the problem, and request permission from the cognizant Associate Dean, via the Degrees Office, to conduct the exam under special circumstances.

If an emergency situation compels a committee member to depart before the exam is concluded, a memo must be written to the cognizant Associate Dean, in care of the Graduate Degrees Office, explaining the reason for the absence and presenting an opinion of the student’s performance on topics covered during the time the committee member attended the exam. This information and a memo from the chair of the examining committee will be considered in determining the final results of the examination.

March 2016: Revisions to Graduate Council Policies for Qualifying Exams and Dissertation Committees

F2.7 Qualifying Examination Results

The Qualifying Examination Committee ideally will reach unanimous consensus on whether the exam was a pass, failure, or partial failure. If there is no unanimity, the result is a “split vote.” These categories are described below.

The Qualifying Examination committee unanimously votes that the student passed the examination with scholarship that is at least acceptable.

A total failure occurs if the Qualifying Examination committee votes unanimously that the student failed the entire examination. The committee either:

recommends that the student take a second and final examination on all examination topics; or
does not recommend reexamination, the consequence of which will be the student’s dismissal from the program.

If a second and final examination is recommended, committee membership for the student’s retake should be the same as for the first exam, unless an original member of the committee is unavailable because of sabbatical leave, medical leave, or similar circumstances. A memo from the Head Graduate Advisor explaining the need for a committee member to be replaced should accompany the Reconstitution of Higher Degree Committee form. The student may not retake the exam until 3 months after the first exam unless an exception is approved by the Associate Dean for Degrees. A third examination is not permitted. If the committee wishes to suggest preparation for the second examination through additional course work or special tutoring, this must be communicated to the student in writing with a copy to the Graduate Division Degrees Office.

If the committee does not recommend a reexamination, a written explanation by the committee chair must accompany the completed “Report to the Graduate Division on the Qualifying Examination”. If the Graduate Division concurs with the chair’s explanation, the student will be sent a letter of dismissal from the program by the Dean of the Graduate Division, with a copy to the program.

A Partial Failure

A partial failure occurs if the Qualifying Examination committee votes unanimously that the student passed some topics but failed others. In this instance, a second and final examination is required. The chair of the committee must write a letter to the student, with a copy to the Graduate Division, conveying information about performance (pass, partial fail, or fail) on each of the three subject areas covered during the examination. The committee may choose to examine the student on all topics or only on those failed during the first exam, but must communicate its decision in the letter regarding the student’s performance. The retake must be scheduled no earlier than three months after the first examination unless an exception is approved by the Associate Dean for Degrees. A third attempt to pass the Qualifying Examination is not permitted.

A Split Vote

If the Qualifying Examination Committee cannot reach a unanimous decision concerning a pass, total failure, or partial failure, the chair should determine the areas of disagreement. The committee chair must request, and each committee member must write, a detailed assessment of the student’s performance for submission to the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council. Such letters may be released to the student under provisions of the 1972 Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), current Department of Health and Human Services regulations, and California public records legislation.

If the exam results in a split vote, the committee should only inform the student that the matter was sent to the Administrative Committee for a final decision. The student has neither passed nor failed the exam until the Administrative Committee decides the results.

Procedure to Report the Results of a Qualifying Examination:

No later than two weeks after the Qualifying Examination, the committee must send the formal Report to the Graduate Division on the Qualifying Examination, signed by all committee members, to the Graduate Degrees Office.

If a re-examination is recommended, the committee may suggest preparation for the second examination through additional course work or special tutoring, communicated to the student in writing, with a copy to the Graduate Division.

The chair of the committee of a student who partially fails an examination must write a letter to the student, with a copy to the Graduate Division, conveying information about performance (pass, partial fail, or fail) on each of the three subject areas covered during the examination. The committee may choose to examine the student on all topics or only on those failed during the first exam, but must communicate its decision in the letter regarding the student’s performance.

If the committee does not recommend a reexamination, a written explanation by the committee chair of why no re-examination is recommended must accompany the Report.

In the event of a split vote, each committee member must write a detailed assessment of the student’s performance for submission to the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council by the Assistant Dean for Degrees, submitted to the Graduate Degrees Office. The chair’s letter should outline the progress of the examination itself, the efforts made by the committee to reach a unanimous agreement, the remaining areas of disagreement, and the chair’s own assessment of the student’s performance.

F2.8 Advancement to Candidacy for a Doctoral Degree

Eligibility for advancement to candidacy.

To be advanced to candidacy, doctoral students must:

have satisfied the foreign language requirement, if applicable;
have passed the Qualifying Examination;
have a minimum 3.0 grade-point-average in all upper division and graduate work taken while in graduate standing;
have no more than one-third of the total units undertaken for the degree be graded on an S/U basis,
have fulfilled any additional program requirements, and
have secured an appropriately configured dissertation committee.

Doctoral Dissertations Involving Human Subjects or Animal Research

Approval of a human subjects protocol must be procured from the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects before any dissertation research is conducted. Completion of required CITI modules must take place before research is conducted.

Information for New Doctoral Candidates

When doctoral students are advanced to candidacy, the Graduate Division posts a certificate of candidacy on GLOW that includes information regarding the length of candidacy and dissertation completion guidelines as well as information about meeting requirements if research will include animal or human subjects.

The student submits the “Application for Candidacy to the Doctoral Degree” (Plan A or B) to the Graduate Degrees Office. The advancement form should be filed no later than the end of the semester after the semester in which the student passed the Qualifying Examination. A $90 Advancement to Candidacy Fee is required; revenue from this fee is used to support graduate student professional development.

The Head Graduate Adviser of the student’s major, the Chair of the Dissertation Committee, and, if applicable, the Head Graduate Adviser of the Designated Emphasis, must sign this form.

The student must indicate on the form whether human subjects or animal research will be involved in the dissertation research.

F2.9 Normative Time and Calculation of Normative Time in Candidacy

The term “normative time” refers to the elapsed time (calculated to the nearest semester) that students would need to complete all requirements for the doctorate. Normative times for doctoral programs have been recommended by program faculty and approved by the Graduate Council. The usual total normative time for doctoral programs is 12 semesters.

Calculation of Normative Time

The Graduate Division computes a student’s normative time from the time a student first enrolled as a graduate student at Berkeley.Policies That Modify Calculation of Normative Time

Students in certain circumstances may request and be granted modifications in the calculation of normative time. These circumstances include:

Students who are parents: The Graduate Council Student Parent Policies allow certain modifications to Normative Time calculations for parents. These are discussed in subsequent sections regarding specific circumstances that are covered by this policy.

Students with disabilities: Modifications in normative time are provided to students who have received appropriate letters of accommodation from the Disabled Students Program (DSP).

Students previously enrolled in master’s programs at Berkeley: the normative time clock may be “reset” for a student in the following circumstances:

A student who was enrolled at Berkeley for a master’s degree and later pursues a doctoral degree in a distinctly different field.
A student who had completed a master’s degree at Berkeley, did not pursue further study immediately thereafter, and returns to Berkeley for doctoral study at least one year later.

The student’s head graduate adviser should submit a memo of request to the Graduate Degrees Office, by way of the Graduate Exceptions eForm, citing the specific circumstances that justify the change (break in enrollment between graduate degree programs, or pursuit of a new graduate degree in a distinctly different field).

F3. Doctoral Degrees: Policies Governing Doctoral Candidates

Once students advance to candidacy, they come under the jurisdiction of the Graduate Council, rather than that of the individual departments, Schools, or Graduate Groups, and are governed by a variety of policies intended to ensure their completion of the doctoral degree. The Graduate Council states that “the department must monitor the progress of students, but the completion of the dissertation is the responsibility of the student working with the dissertation committee, which is appointed on behalf of the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council”.

F3.1 Doctoral Completion Fellowship (DCF)

The Doctoral Completion Fellowship (DCF) provides an incentive for students in certain graduate programs to complete their degree within a reasonable time. The DCF applies only to students admitted in Fall 2010 or later, in specific programs eligible for the fellowship.

The fellowship pays in-state tuition and a stipend for two semesters. Recipients of the DCF are limited to working, on average, no more than 25% time across the two semesters of DCF funding (e.g., 50% during one of the two semesters or 25% during both). No other positions or appointments may be held.

Eligible majors were selected after analysis of net stipends received by doctoral students in the program, recourse to loans by students in the program, and challenges with respect to time to degree and completion rate. Eligible majors were required to submit plans for improved advising and professional development of students; these plans were reviewed and approved by the Dean of the Graduate Division. Program eligibility is subject to review and could be discontinued.

Eligibility for the DCF

Students must be advanced to candidacy, no later than in the previous semester
Students must be in good academic standing with a minimum GPA of 3.0
Students must have completed a satisfactory online Doctoral Candidacy Review for the most recently completed academic year
Students must have participated in PhD completion activities or in other requirements, as directed by their program
Students must apply for at least one external fellowship in order to be eligible for the DCF. [1] DCF eligibility is not contingent upon winning an external fellowship, nor would the receipt of external funding in any way affect a student’s eligibility for a DCF. This requirement is intended to enhance students’ intellectual and professional development by making them aware of funding opportunities and working with their advisors to prepare application materials. International students are exempt from this condition, however, because there typically are very few external fellowships for which international students are eligible.

[1] External fellowships are those awarded and funded by a non-campus organization, agency, or foundation and not open only to Berkeley students. Students must apply to the awarding organization and, if selected by that organization, funds are generally disbursed directly to the fellow.

Timetable for Using the DCF

Eligible students may use the fellowship at any time after advancement to candidacy, through the end of the year Normative Time to Degree (NTD) plus one year. Programs may establish more specific guidelines regarding the advisable timing for their students to use the DCF, which will normally be a dissertation writing year, not a research year.

Doctoral Candidacy Review

A student wishing to activate the DCF must have initiated the online Doctoral Candidacy Review (DCR) in the previous year (ending the day before the start of fall semester) and their dissertation committee chair must attest that the student’s academic progress is satisfactory. For students who choose to use their DCF within the first semester of candidacy, the Application for Candidacy Form serves as the first Academic Progress Report. Students must file DCRs annually after the first year of candidacy.

Removal of Consequences of Using the DCF

Prior to Spring 2021, no university fellowship funding [1] could be awarded to a student who had activated the DCF beyond one year past Normative Time to Degree (Normative Time plus one year grace period). Effective spring 2021, students who have activated the DCF (including those who have activated the fellowship prior to Spring 2021) are no longer subject to university fellowship funding restrictions one year past normative time to degree. Thus, students who have activated DCF and continue beyond one year past normative time to degree remain eligible for university fellowship programs and block grant funding.

[1] University fellowship funding is defined as funding awarded or controlled by the Graduate Division or UC Berkeley. This includes departmental block grants, Graduate Division Conference Travel Grants and Summer Grants, Berkeley Connect, and Hellman Graduate Awards, etc. Exceptions include awards from departmentally restricted funds, reimbursement for travel and conferences from non-fellowship funds, tuition support for external fellowship awards, student parent grants, FLAS stipends used to pay non-Berkeley fees, and awards for meritorious service (e.g., Teaching Effectiveness Awards for GSIs, Outstanding GSI Awards). For more information, contact [email protected] .

Normative Time Calculation

The DCF requires students to maintain progress based on Normative Time for their degree program. Every semester enrolled or withdrawn, formally or informally, counts in the calculation of elapsed semesters of Normative Time, with limited exceptions for approved medical withdrawal or parenting accommodation (see below). Any withdrawal for research or other academic purposes will count in accrued time, as will semesters included in retroactive withdrawals (except approved retroactive medical withdrawals).

Medical Withdrawal

A maximum of two semesters of withdrawal for medical purposes, documented by a formal medical withdrawal, will not count in calculating a student’s eligibility for the DCF.

Parenting Accommodation

An adjustment to Normative Time calculation for the purposes of eligibility for the DCF will be granted to students in accord with Section F6.

January 22, 2021: Revisions to Doctoral Completion Fellowship Eligibility and Stipend Cap Policy
May 17, 2016: Graduate Council Revision to DCF Policy
September 17, 2013 Advising Students Eligible for the Doctoral Completion Fellowship

F3.2 Dissertation Plans A and B

Students are advanced to candidacy according to the dissertation plan followed by their programs.

Plan A requires a five-member committee and a final oral defense (also known as the Final Examination) is mandatory. Three members of a Plan A committee, including the Chair and the Academic Senate Representative must approve the dissertation and sign the signature page. The other two committee members may also sign off on the dissertation, but that is optional. Under the direction of the committee chair, the five members administer the student’s final oral defense of the dissertation.

Most doctoral programs follow Plan B, which requires a three-member committee to evaluate the dissertation. A final defense may be required at the discretion of the committee.

For Plan A dissertations, a written memo reporting the results of the Final Examination must be sent to the Graduate Degrees Office before the degree can be awarded.

F3.3 Final Report

A Final Report, which verifies that students have completed all requirements except for the dissertation, will be sent to programs for each doctoral student at the time the student is advanced to candidacy. Programs at that time must verify completion of requirements by returning to the Graduate Division an endorsed Final Report that all course work and other individual requirements have been completed.

If a student’s file does not have a Final Report, the student cannot be placed on the degrees list for award of thedegree even though the dissertation has been filed.

March 5, 1990: New Procedures for Final Report

F3.4 Candidate in Philosophy Degree

Programs which are approved to offer the Candidate in Philosophy (C.Phil.) degree may recommend students for the C.Phil. each semester. Nominated students must

1) already be advanced to candidacy;

2) be candidates in good standing;

3) be eligible for the Ph.D. upon completion of an acceptable doctoral dissertation;

4) possess the intellectual capacity to complete the requirements for the doctorate, according to Academic Senate regulations; and

5) be planning to file for the doctorate during a subsequent semester.

If faculty have any doubts about whether or not a student can complete the requirements, they should not recommend the student for the Candidate in Philosophy degree.

The list of students recommended for the C.Phil. should be sent to the Graduate Degrees Office no later than the end of the fifth week of instruction for the semester in which the degree is to be conferred. The form must include the student’s name, SID, and major, and be signed by the Head Graduate Adviser of the program.

F3.5 Annual Review of Doctoral Candidates

The Graduate Council requires that all doctoral students who have been advanced to candidacy meet annually with at least two members of the Dissertation Committee. The annual review is part of the Graduate Council’s efforts to improve the doctoral completion rate and to shorten the time it takes students to obtain a doctorate.

As of Fall 2013, this review includes the completion of an online Doctoral Candidacy Review. The Doctoral Candidacy Review is an eForm and can be submitted by students through a link in CalCentral.

The doctoral candidate initiates the review by beginning completion of the online form. The student is asked to state what progress has been made toward the degree in the previous year, and to outline expected steps toward completion in the coming year.

Once the student has submitted their part of the review form, the dissertation chair should be notified and then review the student’s submitted responses. The chair should then convene a conversation with the student and at least one other member of the dissertation committee. The members of the Dissertation Committee should comment on the student’s progress and objectives for the coming year. The agreed upon assessment is entered in the report by the dissertation chair, and submitted for the student to review.

Submission of the completed Doctoral Candidacy Review makes it available to the Graduate Division, the GSAO, and the dissertation chair, as well as the student.

September 27, 2013: Online Academic Progress Report; 2021 Memo Update: The Doctoral Candidacy Review is an eForm and can be submitted by students through a link in CalCentral.

F3.6 Reduction in Nonresident Tuition

The nonresident supplemental tuition (NRST) for nonresident graduate students who have been advanced to candidacy for the doctorate is reduced to zero for a maximum calendar period of three years calculated from the semester subsequent to the students’ advancement, whether registered or not. Any student who continues to be enrolled or who re-enrolls after the three-year period will be charged the full nonresident tuition rate that is in effect at the time.

F3.7 Lapsing, Reinstatement, and Termination of Candidacy

Lapsing of candidacy.

Candidacy for the doctorate is of limited duration.

When a student exceeds their major’s total normative time, they enter a four semester period during which candidacy is still valid, but which is beyond the norm for their discipline.

Four semesters after the end of normative time for the particular program, candidacy ends, or “lapses”. Lapsed candidacy indicates that the student has exceeded the time that their doctoral program has indicated the Qualifying Examination should be considered valid. If otherwise in good academic standing, the student may continue to register, but to file the dissertation, the program must affirm that the student still possesses the currency of knowledge originally demonstrated in the Qualifying Examination. The program or the Dean of the Graduate Division may require a new Qualifying Examination or other evidence of currency of knowledge before recommending the award of the degree.

Candidacy can be extended when circumstances beyond the control of the student have delayed progress to the degree, using the procedure outlined below. Extension of time in candidacy should be requested at the time that the student experiences the circumstances leading to the delay , and in no case any later than the last semester in candidacy.

The dissertation may be filed any time during the period of candidacy, either within the normative time or the four semesters that follow. Unless extended, candidacy must be reinstated in the semester when the student will file the degree . Once candidacy has ended, it is not possible to request an extension of candidacy; instead, the program should request reinstatement of candidacy, following the procedure outlined below.

Extension of Candidacy

If a student in candidacy experiences a delay in progress that can be attributed to factors largely beyond the student’s control (for example, unavoidable problems with the scheduling of experimental facilities or disruption of data collection) or for which extensions of candidacy are part of policy (as a parental or medical accommodation), the Head Graduate Advisor may request an extension of the student’s candidacy.

When deciding whether to extend a student’s candidacy, the Dean of the Graduate Division will defer to the department’s Head Graduate Advisor and a student’s dissertation chair, provided a current Doctoral Candidacy Review (DCR) is submitted with the request. Extensions are granted on a one-year basis. Each subsequent request for extension will require an updated DCR.

Reinstatement of Candidacy

Once Normative Time in Candidacy ends, filing of the dissertation will require reinstatement of candidacy. The student must submit a dissertation draft to the dissertation committee in a form complete enough that the committee determines that its approval and submission to the Graduate Division will take place by the next filing date.

Because the Graduate Council has established that the Qualifying Examination and submission of the dissertation are not separate “hurdles”, but together form an integrated educational experience for doctoral candidates, the program must determine that knowledge tested by the Qualifying Examination is still current.

The Graduate Division usually will not accept a Qualifying Examination more than five years old as representing current knowledge unless the student gives other evidence of continuing scholarly activity besides research for the dissertation.

Termination of Candidacy

The Graduate Division may terminate a doctoral student’s candidacy two years after the student’s candidacy lapses. Termination may be based on any of the following circumstances: 1) the student no longer holds the qualifications appropriate for the award of the degree, because knowledge tested by the Qualifying Examination is no longer current; 2) continued lack of progress indicates that the student will not be able to complete the remaining requirements; or 3) the student fails to correct major deficiencies in a dissertation previously submitted for committee review within the period determined by the Graduate Division and the program.

The Head Graduate Adviser may request an extension of the student’s candidacy by memo addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, in care of the Degrees Office. This memo must be accompanied by a current Doctoral Candidacy Review (DCR). Extensions are granted on a one-year basis. Each subsequent request for extension will require an updated DCR. To promote timely progress to degree, Graduate Division will require additional information regarding a student’s progress after repeated extension requests.

Reinstatement of candidacy should be requested in the term during which the student plans to file the dissertation. The Head Graduate Adviser must send a memo addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, in care of the Degrees Office, verifying: 1) that the student is still competent in any required foreign languages; 2) that the student has submitted a dissertation draft to the dissertation committee that the committee determines will be approved and submitted by the next filing date; and 3) that the results of the student’s Qualifying Examination are still valid and represent current mastery of relevant fields. If the Qualifying Examination is more than five years old the student should give other evidence of continuing scholarly activity besides research for the dissertation.

A program that intends to re-enroll a student who has exceeded Normative Time in Candidacy may request reinstatement of candidacy at the same time as re-enrollment, providing the assurances of competency in required foreign languages and currency of the Qualifying Examination, and indicating when the student is expected to file the dissertation.

A recommendation for reinstatement may be subject to review and approval by the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council.

F3.8 Planning for the Dissertation

Each doctoral candidate is responsible for filing with the Graduate Division a dissertation representing their own contribution to original scholarship that has been approved as such by an appropriately constituted dissertation committee.

The Graduate Council has stated that joint or group work is not acceptable as the basis for awarding graduate degrees. Students may collaborate on research projects under the traditional supervision of a faculty guidance committee. However, each student must write a dissertation that represents a cohesive presentation of the research conducted and is capable of standing independently from the group project.

F3.9 Faculty and Student Interaction During the Dissertation Process

Selection of dissertation committee members.

Both faculty and students alike should be aware of the requirements governing selection of the Dissertation Committee members described below in the section “Faculty Committees for Higher Degrees”.

Choosing the Dissertation Chair

A student’s choice of a Dissertation Chair is critical for completion of the doctorate. Dissertation Chairs also play an important role in assisting students in finding satisfying and appropriate career positions. If possible, students should apprise themselves of the history of a potential chair’s working relationships with former students. Head Graduate Advisers should make sure that students are aware that they may change their Dissertation Chair.

In order to eliminate potential conflicts of interest, the Graduate Division will not approve the appointment of a professor as Chair of the Dissertation Committee for a student who also works for the professor in an outside company. The alternative could be to appoint a co-chair.

Selecting a Dissertation Topic and Developing a Proposal

The Dissertation Chair should discuss at length with the student the implications of the selected topic in terms of the development of the field and the topic’s significance. After the student chooses a topic, the Dissertation Chair and other members of the Dissertation Committee (and proposal committee, if applicable) should evaluate the dissertation proposal and clearly communicate their evaluation to the student.

Research Involving Human or Animal Subjects

Faculty should advise students that if proposed research activities involve human or animal subjects, the students must obtain permission from the Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects or the Animal Care and Use Committee.

Writing the Dissertation

During the period following approval of the dissertation proposal, the student will undertake independent or guided research and will write drafts of the dissertation, including papers presented for conferences or submitted for publication. The Dissertation Chair should set up a regular schedule of communication with the doctoral candidate throughout this period. If the student is away from Berkeley doing research, the communication might be less frequent, and in writing. An ideal schedule will vary; faculty working closely with students in their own labs often meet weekly with students, while those in more self-directed humanities and social science disciplines may find a monthly meeting most useful. In no case should a student go for more than a semester without communication.

The required annual progress meeting should be considered the minimum level of consultation with other members of the doctoral committee; the dissertation chair may wish to consult no less frequently than each semester with other committee members, and communicate the committee’s guidance to the dissertation writer.

Career Advising

Before the doctoral candidate completes the dissertation, the Dissertation Chair should discuss the student’s career plans and prospects. Dissertation chairs should be aware that up to 40% of Berkeley doctoral students pursue careers outside tenure track academic employment, and should initiate conversations with their advisees about multiple career paths in their discipline. The chair should encourage students to undertake activities that will benefit them in their eventual job search, such as presenting research at professional meetings and publishing, if these are customary for the field. The Dissertation Chair should encourage and help the student acquire teaching experience, if the student is planning for a teaching career. The Dissertation Chair should be prepared to write letters of recommendation for the student and should do so promptly.

Submitting Sections of the Dissertation for Faculty Review

It is very helpful for the student and the Dissertation Chair to agree in advance on how written material is to be submitted for review. Usually, both the student and faculty assume that the student is making good progress if the student meets mutually determined deadlines. If a student does not meet these deadlines, or if the quality of the work is unsatisfactory, it is the responsibility of the Dissertation Chair (possibly with another member of the Dissertation Committee) to discuss this with the student when these problems arise. Under no circumstances should a student be permitted to complete a dissertation that the Dissertation Chair finds mediocre and that consequently prevents the chair from writing a strong letter of support for subsequent career positions. Regular review of the student’s work, beginning with the proposal and ending with the final evaluation of the dissertation, can prevent this from happening. Faculty should make clear to the student what needs to be done to correct any problems, and both the dissertation adviser and the student should agree on a plan to make any necessary changes. When the student submits sections of the dissertation for review, the Dissertation Chair should return the sections and commentary in a timely manner.

During the semester in which the student plans to file the dissertation, the student should submit the dissertation to the Dissertation Committee at least two months before the Graduate Division filing deadline. If the entire manuscript of the dissertation is submitted to a reader, it should be returned within one month.

Responsibility of Faculty Signing Dissertations

It is Graduate Council policy that the signature of a faculty member on a dissertation signature approval page is binding and cannot be withdrawn once it has been given . The faculty member should not sign a dissertation until they are convinced that the student’s work has been completed to the faculty member’s satisfaction. Disagreements among committee members should be resolved following the policies defined below for disagreements regarding theses and dissertations.

F4. Policies Affecting Both Master’s and Doctoral Students

Preparing and submitting the dissertation or thesis manuscript.

All doctoral dissertations and master’s theses are to be submitted electronically. All of the requirements for preparing the manuscript for submission are provided in the dissertation filing guidelines, published separately on the Graduate Division website. Master’s theses filing guidelines are also provided separately.

Disagreement Regarding Acceptability of a Student’s Dissertation or Thesis

All members of the Dissertation Committee or the Thesis Committee must approve the student’s work and sign the approval page. Once committed, a signature cannot be rescinded. If any member doubts the acceptability of the student’s work, the chair must convene the committee to discuss the issues. If the committee reaches agreement on its acceptability, the approval page is signed and filed.

If the committee continues to disagree, the student’s work is sent to the Dean of the Graduate Division, together with a statement of opinion submitted by each committee member. If all members of the committee reject the student’s work, it is sent to the Dean of the Graduate Division with a statement to that effect from the committee chair. In all cases of rejection or split vote, the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council makes the final decision.

Withholding a Dissertation or Thesis

By default, dissertations are withheld from the UC Berkeley Library & ProQuest/UMI for 2 years. Occasionally, there are unusual circumstances in which students prefer that their thesis or dissertation not be published for a longer period of time. Such circumstances may include the disclosure of patentable rights in the work before a patent can be granted, similar disclosures detrimental to the rights of the author, or disclosures of facts about persons or institutions before professional ethics would permit. The Dean of the Graduate Division may permit the dissertation to be held for longer than 2 years, under substantiated circumstances of the kind indicated and with the endorsement and explanation from the chair of the dissertation or thesis committee.

The University does not provide a copyright service. Students may copyright their work independently through the Library of Congress. Dissertation students may elect to pay ProQuest Dissertations Publishing service to copyright their manuscripts (see Instructions for Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation ).

Registration Requirement for Filing

Students must be registered or on approved Filing Fee status to be eligible to file for a degree in either the spring or fall term. Students registered in spring, who have not previously used their filing fee, may file during summer sessions for a summer degree. Academic Senate regulations state that in order to receive a degree in any given term, all work for the degree must be completed by the last day of the term.

Eligibility Requirements for the Filing Fee

To use the Filing Fee in a fall semester, the student must have been registered in the previous spring or summer. Summer Sessions enrollment must be for a minimum of one unit. To use the Filing Fee in spring, the student must have been registered in the previous fall.

If a student has fees that have not been paid by the end of a semester, the student may be “dropped from the rolls” and removed from the degree list for that semester. If this happens, the student will need to be reinstated as a registered student prior to the degree being awarded.

Degree Award Dates

Degrees are awarded three times each year, at the end of the fall semester in December, at the end of the spring semester in May, and at the end of Summer Session in August. While students may file any time during a semester or the Summer Session, the degree award date remains the same.

Use of Human Subjects

If the research for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation involves the use of human subjects, the student is required to complete the online “Course in the Protection of Human Subjects” (referred to as the CITI [Collaborative Institutional Review Board Training Initiative] course).

Students who plan research or development activities that involve human subjects must also have their work reviewed and approved by the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) before they begin their research. The research must be carried out according to the Berkeley campus policy.

The Graduate Division will not accept dissertations or theses that include materials obtained or produced without authorization from the CPHS.

Use of Animal Subjects

The Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) meets monthly to review written animal use protocols for compliance with federal and campus standards. Only individuals with Principal Investigator (PI) status on the Berkeley campus may submit protocols to the ACUC. Thus, any proposed use of animals by a student must be described in an approved animal use protocol for a Berkeley PI. In addition, the ACUC must be notified of any proposed plans to obtain custom antibodies from commercial sources or other laboratories.

The Graduate Division will not accept dissertations or theses that include material obtained or produced without authorization from the ACUC.

Students must print out the certificate of completion of the relevant CITI course for submission with the advancement to candidacy form. Protocols involving human subjects or animals must be filed with the Graduate Services Degrees Office within six months of advancement to candidacy. When they file the thesis or dissertation, students must submit copies of the relevant PI’s annual approval letter from the ACUC for each of the years in which the student conducted animal research.

November 22, 1989: Dissertation Signature Final
May 1, 2007: Filing for Graduate Degrees in Summer Session

F4.1 Time Limits on the Use of Courses for Degrees

Students returning to the University after an absence sometimes request to re-enter a graduate program and use units that they completed in the past. The following time limits have been established for use of such units:

F4.2 Change or Add a Major or Degree Goal

A student who pursues a master’s degree in the same major as the doctoral program for which they were admitted does not need Graduate Division approval if the master’s degree is earned along the way to the doctorate but the master’s degree plan must be formally added to the student’s record. A student admitted to a doctoral program who does not intend to pursue the doctorate but decides to finish their graduate career with the master’s degree must formally change the degree goal from the Ph.D. to the master’s degree.

Graduate students may petition to add a designated emphasis (see F2.1). Students who wish to change degree plans or programs must apply for admission per that program’s procedures and deadlines.

F4.3 Duplication of Graduate Degrees

Students may enroll for a second academic or professional master’s degree if the second degree is in an unrelated field. An applicant who is admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite will automatically be permitted to receive a second master’s degree, even if the applicant has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study.

Enrollment In a Second Doctoral Program

It is the policy of both the Graduate Council and the Graduate Division not to approve requests to enroll in a second doctoral program. Requests for exceptions to this policy will be reviewed only if they meet the following guidelines:

The second degree program must be in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field of the first doctorate. For example, a student with a doctorate in physics could be admitted to a doctoral degree in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a doctorate in statistics. The Graduate Council views graduate degrees as evidence of broad research training, not as vocational training certificates; therefore, applicants with academic graduate degrees should be able to take up new subject matter on a serious level without taking the time to establish new credentials.
Applicants who hold a doctoral degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

F4.4 Submitting the Thesis or the Dissertation in a Foreign Language

Special approval from the Graduate Division is required to submit the dissertation or the thesis in a foreign language. If approval is given, an abstract in English must be included with the dissertation or thesis. Requests should be submitted before the student begins to write the dissertation.

A memo signed by the Head Graduate Adviser justifying the use of a foreign language for the writing of the dissertation should be addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, and submitted in care of the Graduate Degrees Office.

F4.5 Faculty Committees for Higher Degrees

All faculty committees for higher degrees (master’s thesis, Qualifying Examination, and doctoral dissertation) are ad hoc committees acting on behalf of the Graduate Council, which delegates authority for appointing the committees to the Dean of the Graduate Division.

The role of the Head Graduate Adviser

The Head Graduate Adviser, usually with input from the research supervisor, helps students to identify appropriate faculty members for the thesis committee, Qualifying Examination committee, dissertation committee, and other graduate degree committees, and then recommends the appointment of appropriate faculty members to the Graduate Division. Each academic program is expected to develop a protocol by which the Head Graduate Adviser approves the composition of all higher degree committees on behalf of the program to ensure academic rigor, consistency within the unit, and adherence to policy.

The Head Graduate Adviser recommends five members for Plan A doctoral dissertation committees. For dissertation committees and thesis committees, the Head Graduate Adviser recommends three members. Four or five members are recommended for the Qualifying Examination committee, depending on the program. Final approval for committee appointments rests with the Dean of the Graduate Division.

Head Graduate Advisers, prospective committee chairs, and graduate students can help avoid problems with committee appointments by:

engaging only those faculty who are members of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate and thus eligible to serve on higher degree committees, or facilitating timely approval of non-Senate members in cases where there is a compelling reason;
making sure that the faculty members are available and willing to serve on the committees; and
being aware of configuration requirements for higher degree committees and the role of the faculty member within a committee (see Sections F4.7 and F4.8).

Occasionally, committee members, particularly those from other institutions (see Section F4.9), incur travel expenses to participate in a qualifying examination. Should the student’s academic unit choose to cover these expenses, consistent with the University of California travel policy, the Head Graduate Adviser would approve these expenses. The Graduate Division is unable to cover such expenses. To avoid any conflict of interest, students are never allowed to pay travel costs and expenses for their committee members.

F4.6 Academic Senate Status

Members of the berkeley division of the academic senate include individuals with the following titles (*preferred title for committee appointment):.

Professor* Professor of Clinical Optometry Associate Professor* Associate Professor of Clinical Optometry Assistant Professor* Assistant Professor of Clinical Optometry Professor Emeritus Professor in Residence Professor of the Graduate School (POG) Acting Professor Acting Associate Professor University Professor Senior Lecturer with security of employment Lecturer with security of employment Senior Lecturers with Potential for Security of Employment Lecturers with Potential for Security of Employment

Non-Senate Members include these titles:

Acting Assistant Professor Adjunct Professor Senior Lecturer/Lecturer without security of employment Clinical Professor Staff Scientist Visiting Professor Morrey Professor Professor from outside UC Berkeley

F4.7 Configuration Requirements for Higher Degree Committees

As of December 18, 2019 , the Graduate Division has published new minimum requirements for the composition of higher degree committees. Please check with your department’s Graduate Student Affairs Officer and/or Head Graduate Advisor to see if your degree program has adopted these new minimum requirements, detailed below, or has requirements above the minimum.

Head Graduate Advisors of degree granting programs are responsible for reviewing committee membership before submission to the Graduate Division. For the purposes of this policy, academic unit membership is defined as follows: 1) for departments and schools, faculty must have voting rights in the academic unit offering the degree (in the case of emeriti, they must have had voting rights before retirement), and 2) for graduate groups, faculty must be core members in that group (and on file as such in the Graduate Division).

The requirements described below for the academic program affiliation of committee members are minimum requirements. Programs may establish higher requirements but the programs must then 1) inform Graduate Division of the requirements, 2) apply those requirements to all students uniformly, and 3) publish those requirements in a student handbook and/or on a departmental website. The Head Graduate Advisor for programs that establish higher requirements may approve exceptions. Programs must retain documentation of such approvals, but do not need to inform Graduate Division.

A single faculty member cannot serve simultaneously as the chair and Academic Senate representative. If the Head Graduate Adviser is to serve either role on any committee, the Chair or Dean of the department, graduate group, or school should approve the committee.

In all instances, committee members must be members of the Academic Senate unless an exception has been granted (see Section F4.6 for a list of titles conferring Senate membership and Section F4.9 for possible exceptions). Note that Professors Emeriti or Professors of the Graduate School are members of the Academic Senate and, as such, may serve on committees as long as they had voting rights in the department or school before retirement or are a core member of the graduate group (see beginning of Section F4.7) in their home degree granting program or joint or affiliated degree granting program, as appropriate to each status.

Master’s Thesis Committee:

Chair or Co-Chairs Additional members Academic Senate Representative (optional)

A Master’s Thesis Committee requires a minimum of three members.
Two Co-Chairs may replace one Chair.
The Chair or Co-Chair must be a member of the student’s degree-granting program as defined above.
An Academic Senate Representative is optional, for a Master’s Thesis Committee. This role may be replaced by another Additional Member.

Qualifying Examination Committee:

Chair Academic Senate Representative At least two Additional Members

Degree granting programs can require either a four- or five-member Qualifying Examination Committee. Whichever option is chosen, it must apply to all students in the degree program, be on record in the Graduate Division, and be published in a student handbook and/or on a departmental website.
One Additional Member beyond the number required by the degree granting program may be added.
The Qualifying Examination Chair cannot serve as the Dissertation Chair for the same student.
The Chair must be a member of the student’s degree-granting program as defined above.
There cannot be two Co-Chairs for the Qualifying Examination.
It is the collective responsibility of the Qualifying Examination Committee to ensure that the student’s mastery of the subject matter is broad and comprehensive.
If a student is reexamined, the committee for the second examination must be the same as for the first examination.

Dissertation Committee:

Chair or Co-Chairs Academic Senate Representative Additional member(s)

A Dissertation Committee requires a minimum of three members (Plan B dissertation committee) or five members (Plan A dissertation committee).
Two Co-Chairs may replace one chair.
The Dissertation Chair cannot be the same person who served as the student’s Qualifying Examination Chair. The Qualifying Examination Chair may serve as a student’s Dissertation Co-Chair.
The Dissertation Chair or Co-Chair must be a member of the student’s degree-granting program as defined above.

Reconstitution of Committee Membership

If a committee must be changed, the Request for Change in Higher Degree Committee petition should be submitted to the Graduate Division as soon as possible. The Head Graduate Adviser should consult with all parties involved concerning the change before approving the petition and submitting it to the Graduate Division. A committee member who disagrees with being removed from the committee cannot block this action if it is approved by the Head Graduate Adviser.

Committees conforming to the normal size and composition are proposed using the applicable form available on the Graduate Division website: the Application for Admission to the Qualifying Exam for the Qualifying Examination committee; or the Application for Candidacy for the relevant degree and plan.

Two members beyond the required number for a Qualifying Examination may be requested by the Head Graduate Adviser in a memorandum addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees, in care of the Graduate Degrees Office. A memorandum is also required to request a Doctoral Dissertation committee membership of 5 or more faculty.

The student submits a Request for Change in Higher Degree Committee petition signed by the Head Graduate Adviser.

August 2019: Revisions to Policies Governing Composition of Higher Degree Committees

F4.8 Role of Committee Members

The chair of any graduate degree committee must be a member of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate in the student’s degree granting program (see beginning of Section F4.7). A student’s Qualifying Examination chair cannot serve subsequently as the student’s Dissertation Chair, but may serve as a student’s Dissertation Co-Chair if the other Co-Chair is from the same degree granting program.

If an individual in another degree granting program seems more appropriate as committee Chair in a particular instance, appointment as Co-Chair can be approved. If there is a compelling academic reason why a member of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate from another degree granting program should be the sole Chair, then an exception can be requested.

There cannot be two Co-Chairs for the Qualifying Exam. There may be two Co-Chairs instead of one Chair for a Master’s Thesis Committee or a Dissertation Committee. One co-chair must be a member of the Berkeley Academic Senate in the student’s degree granting program (see beginning of Section F4.7). The second Co-Chair may be a Berkeley Academic Senate member in the student’s degree granting program, a Berkeley Academic Senate member outside the student’s degree granting program, or an approved non-Academic Senate member. See Section F4.9 for further information about exceptions allowing non-Senate committee members.

The Academic Senate Representative

The Academic Senate Representative on all Qualifying Examination Committees and Dissertation Committees (and preferably on Master’s Thesis Committees as well) must be a member of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate (see Section F4.6 for a list of titles). No exceptions will be made. The Academic Senate Representative’s role is to ensure that the committee is conducted in a fair and professional manner that abides by graduate policy.

Additional Members

Additional members may be Berkeley Academic Senate members in the student’s degree granting program or another degree granting program, or an approved non-Academic Senate member (see Section F4.9 for information about exceptions allowing non-Senate committee members).

F4.9 Exceptions to Policies on Committee Membership

Approvals for exceptions to policies on committee membership.

Two kinds of approval are granted to qualified persons: 1) particular approval for a single committee, and 2) permanent or “blanket” approval for higher degree committees at a given level.

Single Committee Exceptions

Exceptions to serve on a single committee are based on the provision of special and necessary expertise that would facilitate the student’s work and that cannot be duplicated among the regular faculty, for a person holding a doctorate or its equivalent in research experience. The service must be performed without stipend. To avoid any conflict of interest, students are not allowed to pay travel costs and expenses for faculty from other institutions to serve on their committees.

Categories for Single Committee Exceptions:

Non-senate members as additional members and co-chairs.

Under certain circumstances, a non-Senate member may be appointed to a committee if the Head Graduate Adviser determines that the individual in question offers expertise not otherwise available among the regular faculty and if the Associate Dean for Degrees concurs. There may be no more than one person in this category on a committee. A non-Senate member may be appointed to co-chair a Thesis Committee or a Dissertation Committee if this assignment is shared with an Academic Senate faculty member.

The following administrative policies apply:

Regular faculty members from other institutions who are teaching on this campus (i.e., those who hold titles equivalent to the titles in the Berkeley professorial series on their own campuses) may be appointed to committees upon submission of a brief statement by the Head Graduate Adviser regarding the visitor’s affiliation and title and with the assurance that the visitor holds the doctorate and will be present on this campus for a period of time that makes the appointment advantageous to the student.
Regular faculty members from other institutions who are not currently teaching on this campus may be appointed to committees upon submission of a brief statement from the Head Graduate Adviser on the prospective appointee’s affiliation and title and should also include the following: a) that they hold the doctorate; b) that they have published work in the last 3 years; c) that the prospective appointee has special and necessary expertise that cannot be duplicated on the Berkeley faculty; and d) that the appointee will serve without stipend.

Recommending Faculty Members from Other UC Campuses and Stanford

A committee for a higher degree may include one member of the regular faculty belonging to the Academic Senate of any UC campus as an Additional Member without special approval from the Dean of the Graduate Division as long as the UC Senate member is not replacing a UCB Senate member.

A regular faculty member from Stanford University does not need the approval of the Dean of the Graduate Division for appointment as an Additional Member as long as the Stanford faculty member is not replacing a UCB Senate member. The Stanford faculty member would need approval to serve as co-chair.

Lecturers with Security of Employment are members of the Academic Senate and are thus eligible to serve on student committees in any capacity.

Lecturers without Security of Employment (Unit 18 lecturers) are not eligible for “blanket” approval for committee service, but may serve under a one-time exception on a thesis or dissertation committee if they have 1) an active appointment, 2) the endorsement of the Head Graduate Adviser, and 3) approval from the program’s College or School Dean to reimburse the Lecturer in compliance with the Unit 18 contract, or agreement from the Lecturer to serve without compensation.

Adjunct Professors and Clinical Professors

Although adjunct and clinical professors are not members of the Academic Senate, they may be appointed as co-chairs and additional members, but not as sole chairs, of single dissertation committees by exception. Requests for permanent or “blanket” approval for higher degree committee service may also be made, either at the time of appointment or after.

Additional Exceptions

Persons who do not hold the doctorate, or are not members of the Berkeley Division, or are not members of faculty at another institution are occasionally permitted to be appointed to higher degrees committees on an exceptional basis after submission of appropriate documentation. Typically, such appointments are of persons who hold an “acting” professorial title, or that of Visiting Assistant Professor, or a title in the professional research series.

All requests for exceptions must be submitted by the Head Graduate Adviser to the Graduate Degrees Office. Requests for approval for a single committee are reviewed by the Associate Dean for Degrees after initial review by the Graduate Degrees Office. Requests must include a curriculum vitae (CV), which includes work published within the last 3 years, and a statement that the prospective appointee has a degree equivalent to that which is being examined or earned and has special and necessary expertise that cannot be duplicated among the regular faculty.

If a non-Academic Senate member has been approved for a single committee earlier but has no blanket approval, a new memorandum is required for each additional request for service on a single committee, but no CV need accompany subsequent requests if the one submitted earlier remains current.

In both cases, if the prospective appointee is not regularly affiliated with this campus, the request is to be accompanied by a statement that the service will be performed without stipend.

The Head Graduate Adviser should submit a memo detailing why the Lecturer’s expertise is relevant to the student’s field of study. This must be accompanied by submission of a CV that includes a publication list that illustrates relevance to the student’s thesis or dissertation. A statement that the program has received approval from the program’s College or School Dean to reimburse the Lecturer in compliance with the Unit 18 contract, or that the Lecturer has agreed to serve without compensation, is also required.

A Department Chair may request blanket approval for service as co-chair or additional member on higher degree committees from the Committee on Budget and Interdepartmental Relations during the regular review process for the appointment of a Clinical or Adjunct Professor. A copy of the document received by the Department indicating committee service approval by the Budget and Interdepartmental Relations Committee granted at the time of the person’s employment should be sent to the Graduate Degrees Office so that the individual’s committee eligibility may be appropriately noted.

After that point, a request for blanket approval for service as co-chair or additional member should be sent to the Graduate Degrees Office, addressed to the Associate Dean for Degrees. Requests are reviewed and forwarded with a recommendation to the Budget and Interdepartmental Relations Committee for final approval. The request should state what level of service the individual is to perform: master’s level only or master’s and doctoral level. The request must include a curriculum vitae, which includes published work within the last 3 years, and a statement that the prospective appointee has a degree equivalent to that which is being examined or earned and that qualifications are at least equal to those of regular faculty at Berkeley.

F5. Student Records

Student records are subject to the requirements of the 1974 Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), current Health and Human Services regulations, state legislation on applicant records (Stull Bill), and the elements of access rights under California public records legislation. In 1977, the Office of the President incorporated the provision of these laws and guidelines into a document entitled “University of California Policies Applying to the Disclosure of Information from Student Records.” This policy was revised in Fall 2002. Each campus was asked to develop its own policy and all campus offices that maintain records on students were asked to develop their own procedures to implement the policy. Each department, school, college, office, program, or entity that maintains student records is required to give public notice of the categories of information designated as directory information (which may be released without the student’s prior consent). Departments or units are not required to include all data elements considered directory information by the campus, but may not designate as directory information anything additional to those elements.

The full text of the campus policy can be found on the Office of the Registrar website. Questions regarding the disclosure of information from student records should be referred to the Office of the Registrar.

Information Maintained by the Graduate Division

The information concerning registered graduate students maintained by the Graduate Division falls into two general categories: (1) directory information (unrestricted) and (2) confidential (restricted). Directory information will be released unless the student has requested that the record be kept confidential. (See “Right of students to have information withheld” below).

Directory Information Is as Follows:

Name of student Academic Appointment (confirmation of a “yes” or “no” only) Address, e-mail Degrees/honors Major field of study Current registration status University fellowship or grant administered by the Graduate Division (confirmation of a yes” or “no” only)

Inquirers may be referred to the Office of the Registrar or the Financial Aid Office for information, as appropriate.

All other records, such as general correspondence, educational test scores, reports on examinations, etc., are confidential. Complete records of degree recipients are kept for five years after the degree is awarded and those of inactive students who have not finished their degrees are kept for 10 years after the last semester of registration.

Rights of Registered Students Regarding Their Records

Registered students are entitled by law and University policy to examine and challenge information maintained about them by campus offices. Specifically, they have the right to:

inspect and review records pertaining to themselves in their capacity as students, except as the right may be waived or qualified under federal and state laws and University policies;
inspect records maintained by the University of disclosures of personally identifiable information from their student records;
seek correction of their student records through a request to amend the records and subsequently, if requested by the student, through a hearing; and
file complaints with the Department of Education regarding alleged violations of the rights accorded them by the Federal Act.

Rights of Students to Have Information Withheld

A student may request the University not to release personally identifiable information by sending a written request to the Dean of the Graduate Division, c/o Graduate Degrees Office. Other offices on campus, such as the Registrar’s Office and the student’s program, also maintain student records. Each campus unit must be separately contacted should the student want information withheld.

F6. Student Parent Policies

As many as one in ten of Berkeley’s graduate students is a parent of a young child or children. Recognizing the special challenges involved in balancing advanced degree programs and family responsibilities, the University is committed to supporting policies, programs, and services to help graduate student parents meet their family care obligations while they pursue their academic goals.

Since 1998, the Graduate Council has approved policies regarding academic accommodation of student parents, designed to encourage academic departments and programs to be as generous as possible in accommodating student parents. These policies have served as models for legislation adopted by the State of California in 2014, applying to all institutions of higher education.

This statement summarizes the policies and programs in place to support graduate student parents.

A graduate student requesting parental accommodations must have substantial parenting responsibilities. Substantial parenting responsibilities are defined as pregnancy, childbirth, care of a newborn or newly adopted young child, the serious illness of a child, and other exceptional circumstances relating to a child. The child may be the student’s child or that of a spouse or domestic partner.

International Students

Student Parent Policies apply to students regardless of State residency or visa status, with the exception that the three-year post-candidacy Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition reduction (to $0) does not fall within the purview of this policy. Note also that withdrawals, leaves, and delayed progress toward completion of degree may have implications for visa status; international students are urged to consult with the Office of Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS) before modifying their degree progress.

Extension of Time for Academic Milestones for Doctoral Students

Research doctoral students who experience substantial parenting responsibilities must be granted additional time to meet established deadlines for passing preliminary and/or Qualifying Examinations and/or completing their dissertations, and for calculating Normative Time for purposes of qualification for certain fellowships.

In recognition of the physical demands of childbearing, a woman anticipating childbirth is entitled to receive an extension of up to one extra year for passing preliminary examinations and qualifying examinations, and an extension of up to one extra year toward Normative Time completion while in candidacy for the doctoral degree. Any graduate student experiencing other substantial parenting responsibilities is entitled to receive an extension of up to six extra months for passing preliminary examinations and qualifying examinations, and an extension of up to six extra months toward Normative Time completion while in candidacy.

An extension (for the preliminary exam, qualifying exam, or pre- or post-candidacy Normative Time clock) is granted, regardless of whether or for how long the student was on withdrawal status. The provision to stop the pre- or post-candidacy Normative Time clocks may be invoked even if a student with substantial parenting responsibilities does not take a formal leave (withdrawal) or have a modification of duties.

Total additional time granted by this policy cannot exceed two years, no matter how many children are involved. Academic units must acknowledge adjustments to their calculations of Normative Time for individual students both before and after advancement to candidacy.

To request an adjustment to the Normative Time calculation, the student must submit to the Graduate Degrees Office a written statement certifying having undergone childbirth and/or having substantial parenting responsibilities, along with a written endorsement by the Head Graduate Advisor.

Employment and Financial Accommodations due to Pregnancy and Childbirth

In addition to being eligible for extensions of time under the Graduate Council’s Parental Accommodations provision, research doctoral students who are women anticipating childbirth and are supported by Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) and/or Researcher (GSR) appointments may be excused from regular duties for a period of eight weeks without loss of financial support. (A longer period may be granted in the cases of exceptional medical circumstances experienced by the mother or child before or after birth.) Such students may choose to continue to work in some modified capacity during this eight-week period but may not be required to do so. (Per the UC-UAW Academic Student Employee Agreement, eligible non-doctoral GSIs may also be on paid childbearing leave from regular duties for a period of time specified by the contract then in force.) In addition, the GSI and/or GSR will be approved for an additional two weeks of unpaid leave for baby bonding, provided such unpaid leave does not extend beyond the date of the appointment.

The academic unit’s cost for a GSI or GSR replacement during the eight-week period will be charged to the campus’s Childbirth Accommodation Fund upon application and Graduate Division approval. (GSI replacement costs for eligible non-doctoral GSIs on childbearing leave are incurred by the department, not the Graduate Division.) Note that the replacement GSI or GSR does not qualify for fee remissions, because the appointment is limited to eight weeks. (Implications of a longer appointment due to medically-necessary circumstances will be reviewed on an exceptional basis.) Replacement appointees who hold F-1 or J-1 visas are not eligible for exception to work more than 50% time.

Women research doctoral students supported by university fellowships will experience no change in their funding arrangements during the eight-week childbearing leave. Those supported by fellowships external to UC must adhere to the rules of the granting agency in regard to leaves from work. If the granting agency defers to university policy regarding paid childbirth leave, the eight-week leave will be paid by the grant. If the granting agency requires suspension of payment during the eight-week period, the student will be eligible for substitute payment from the Childbirth Accommodation Fund. If continued funding is allowed by a grant supervised by a Principal Investigator (PI) but project deadlines require that a PI hire a temporary replacement, the replacement’s salary is eligible for reimbursement by the campus’s Childbirth Accommodation Fund for the eight-week period.

Students who do not already hold a fellowship or academic appointment will not receive financial support under this provision.

The student must complete the Petition for Childbirth Accommodation Funding and secure the applicable verifications and signatures. The student’s academic unit must submit all required information via email to the Graduate Degrees Office at [email protected] at least 30 days prior to the beginning of the proposed leave.

Policy on Parenting Leave with Re-enrollment

A student who chooses to take a leave of absence due to pregnancy, childbirth, and/or to care for and bond with their newborn child or a child placed with the student for adoption or foster care shall be granted a Parenting Leave for up to one academic year (two semesters). This leave must be taken no later than twelve months after the child’s birth or adoption/placement. If there is a medical reason for a longer absence, an extension of leave may be granted for a total of up to two academic years (four semesters).

A student must have registered for the semester during which the leave will be taken, or the semester immediately preceding the beginning of the period of leave requested. If a student commences a leave during a semester in which they are enrolled, that semester shall be counted as one of the semesters of leave granted under this policy.

An international student wanting to take Parenting Leave must first consult with the Berkeley International Office (BIO) regarding implications for visa requirements.

Restrictions: A student on Parenting Leave shall not be eligible to work academically with faculty and shall not be eligible for campus employment, fellowships, or financial aid. A student on Parenting Leave shall remain eligible for campus email services, library privileges, campus housing, and voluntary purchase of health insurance (subject to applicable conditions of the providers of such benefits).

Dissemination and Training: Notice of this policy and its provisions shall be disseminated to graduate students, faculty, and staff, by email or other technologically appropriate media designed to ensure wide dissemination, and the policy shall be posted on the relevant Graduate Division website that is accessible to the public. A copy of this policy shall be made available to faculty, staff, and employees during onboarding, orientation, and/or training. This policy shall also be made available to all graduate students attending required orientation sessions.

Grievance Process: This policy supplements the written policies of the University of California, Berkeley, for graduate students on pregnancy and parenting discrimination and accommodations. To report complaints of discriminations under Title IX or this policy, contact the Office for Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (“OPHD”) and the campus’ Title IX Office at [email protected] .

Parenting-Leave-for-Graduate-Students-with Re-Enrollment_MEMO-2016-April-14

Academic Accommodations due to Pregnancy and Childbirth

The University of California conforms to Section 66281.7 of the Education Code of the State of California, adopted in 2014:

(a) It is the policy of the State of California, pursuant to Section 66251, that all persons, regardless of their sex, should enjoy freedom from discrimination of any kind, including, but not limited to, pregnancy discrimination as described in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681, et seq.), in the postsecondary educational institutions of the state. (b) Each of the following requirements shall be applicable to postsecondary educational institutions in this state: (1) A postsecondary educational institution, including the faculty, staff, or other employees of the institution, shall not require a graduate student to take a leave of absence, withdraw from the graduate program, or limit graduate studies solely due to pregnancy or pregnancy-related issues. (2) A postsecondary educational institution, including the faculty, staff, or other employees of the institution, shall reasonably accommodate pregnant graduate students so they may complete their graduate courses of study and research. Reasonable accommodation within the meaning of this subdivision may include, but is not necessarily limited to, allowances for the pregnant student’s health and safety, such as allowing the student to maintain a safe distance from hazardous substances, allowing the student to make up tests and assignments that are missed for pregnancy-related reasons, or allowing a student to take a leave of absence. Reasonable accommodation shall include the excusing of absences that are medically necessary, as required under Title IX. (3) A graduate student who chooses to take a leave of absence because she is pregnant or has recently given birth shall be allowed a period consistent with the policies of the postsecondary educational institution, or a period of 12 additional months, whichever period is longer, to prepare for and take preliminary and qualifying examinations and an extension of at least 12 months toward normative time to degree while in candidacy for a graduate degree, unless a longer extension is medically necessary. (4) A graduate student who is not the birth parent and who chooses to take a leave of absence because of the birth of a child shall be allowed a period consistent with the policies of the postsecondary educational institution, or a period of one month, whichever period is longer, to prepare for and take preliminary and qualifying examinations, and an extension of at least one month toward normative time to degree while in candidacy for a graduate degree, unless a longer period or extension is medically necessary to care for their partner or their child. (5) An enrolled graduate student in good academic standing who chooses to take a leave of absence because she is pregnant or has recently given birth shall return to her program in good academic standing following a leave period consistent with the policies of the postsecondary educational institution or of up to one academic year, whichever period is longer, subject to the reasonable administrative requirements of the institution, unless there is a medical reason for a longer absence, in which case her standing in the graduate program shall be maintained during that period of absence. (6) An enrolled graduate student in good academic standing who is not the birth parent and who chooses to take a leave of absence because of the birth of a child shall return to their program in good academic standing following a leave period consistent with the policies of the postsecondary educational institution, or of up to one month, whichever period is longer, subject to the reasonable administrative requirements of the institution. (c) Each postsecondary educational institution shall have a written policy for graduate students on pregnancy discrimination and procedures for addressing pregnancy discrimination complaints under Title IX or this section. A copy of this policy shall be made available to faculty, staff, and employees in their required training. This policy shall be made available to all graduate students attending orientation sessions at a postsecondary educational institution.

Financial Assistance Policy

G. financial assistance.

The Appointments Unit of the Graduate Division monitors requirements for Graduate Student Researcher and teaching appointments. The Fellowships Office of the Graduate Division administers programs for entering and continuing students. The Associate Dean for Appointments and Fellowships has oversight in these areas. The Student Services Financial Aid Office administers loan and work study programs for graduate students.

G1. Financial Support and Recruitment

Programs are encouraged to plan multi-year “packages” of financial assistance, especially for newly admitted students. Graduate advisers and assistants should inform students that some available funding is based on need. To be eligible for awards, including block awards, students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Details on nominating students for fellowships are included in the Fellowships Handbook, sent to programs every January. Inquiries should be directed to the Graduate Fellowships Office.

G1.1 Types of Financial Assistance

University-sponsored financial assistance falls into three main categories:

Fellowships

Academic appointments.

There are fellowship programs available for new, continuing, and returning students (domestic and international). These are all described on the Graduate Division Fellowships web page.

Policies Governing Multi-Year Fellowships for Entering Students

University-sponsored multi-year fellowships are awarded through an annual campus-wide competition administered by the Graduate Fellowships office.

Per a Graduate Council revision of policy effective academic year 2014-2015, all doctoral applicants are eligible for nomination in the University multi-year fellowship competition, including those students who previously received a masters’ degree at the University of California, Berkeley.

Multi-year fellowships require departmental matching years, with an equivalent stipend that can be a combination of GSI or GSR appointment and direct grants.

Policies Governing University Fellowships and Grants for Continuing or Returning Students

Only registered students in good academic standing can be considered for Graduate Division or departmental funding. Additional conditions for each funding source are defined by the granting unit.

Several types of appointments as Academic Student Employee (ASE) are available to both doctoral and Master’s students:

Graduate Student Instructor (GSI)
Reader and Tutor
Graduate Student Researcher (GSR)

For information on academic appointments policies and procedures, please refer to the Appointments web page.

Student loans are an important resource, but they should be considered as a last resort due to the danger of borrowing too much and accumulating high indebtedness. More information on loans, and on Federal work-study, is available on the web site of the Office of Financial Aid.

International students are not eligible for the federal financial assistance programs available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including loans and work-study.

G1.2 Taxes on Financial Assistance

Virtually all financial assistance to graduate students, except loans, is taxable. The University does not withhold taxes from the stipend portions of fellowships. Students pursuing a degree generally can exclude from income that part of a fellowship or grant used for:

Tuition and fees required for enrollment or attendance, or
Fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for courses.

Students cannot exclude from income any part of the grant used for other purposes, such as room and board or travel.

As required by Federal regulations, the University reports awards made to international students to the IRS, and withholds a required proportion of fellowship stipends unless the student’s home country has a tax treaty with the United States that exempts its citizens from withholding.

For more information on how Federal tax regulations treat graduate student support, students should be advised to consult IRS Publication 970 Tax Benefits for Education . As tax law changes over time, students should be encouraged to consult the latest publication on the IRS website instead of relying on advice from other students, faculty, or staff.

G1.3 Fellowships

The Graduate Services Fellowships Office handles over 600 fellowship funds, each with unique criteria and terms for awarding.

General Terms and Conditions of Fellowships

Students who receive University fellowships are required to register full time and to devote their time to study and/or research in the field in which the award is made, make satisfactory academic progress, and maintain a 3.0 GPA.

To be considered registered, the student must be enrolled in at least one class, have had at least the first installment of fees paid, and have no registration blocks. For Fall and Spring semester, registration is normally 12 units per semester.

The Graduate Services Fellowships Office should be informed immediately, in writing, of any changes that may affect the fellow’s award, such as substandard performance, resignation, withdrawal, change of major, etc.

Combining University and External Fellowships

Entering students receiving a national award in addition to a University multi-year fellowship may request a “multi-year fellowship deferral” to combine the two sources of funding. If the total length of support exceeds four years, then one year of the University multi-year fellowship will be relinquished unless an exception is granted.

Combining Fellowships and Employment

Students who are receiving a fellowship administered by the University that will give them a defined minimum stipend level plus fees are subject to an employment restriction: they may work up to 25% time during the academic year (that is, 25% each term or 50% for one term only). There is no work restriction for the summer term.

Students receiving external fellowships must refer to the fellowship terms set by the corresponding agency which may restrict employment more than this.

Departmentally Restricted Endowment Fellowships

The Graduate Services Fellowships Office administers some Restricted Endowment Fellowships. Departmentally restricted funds cannot be used for students on filing fee or to pay professional degree supplemental tuition.

It is the responsibility of the Chair of each Department to ensure that recommendations for Restricted Endowment Fellowships meet the terms of the endowment or agency.

Annual Stipend Cap

During the 2020-21 academic year (Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Summer 2021), recipients of Graduate Division fellowship funding are subject to a stipend cap of $38,000 per year. Detailed rules and exclusions are contained in an applicable memo.

Effective 2021-22, Graduate Division-administered fellowships may be held concurrently, and with external fellowships (terms permitting), as long as the combined stipend funding does not exceed $40,000; requests to exceed this amount requires the approval of the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division. Departmentally-controlled funding (including block grant) is not subject to this stipend limit and may be used to supplement fellowships at the program’s discretion.

The Graduate Division does not have a policy on combining multiple external fellowships; students must consult the terms of their fellowship and the granting agency for further guidance. The Graduate Division defines “external fellowships” as those awarded and funded by a non-campus organization, agency, or foundation. Students must apply to the awarding organization, and following a competition, be selected by that organization; funds are generally disbursed directly to the fellow.

Every spring, the Graduate Services Fellowships Office sends programs certification forms for recipients of the University multi-year and of extramural multi-year fellowships administered by the Fellowships Office, such as the NSF Graduate Fellowship. The Head Graduate Adviser should consult with fellowship recipients about their plans for the coming year. The Head Graduate Adviser should certify whether or not each student is making satisfactory progress toward the doctoral degree and whether the student will continue on the fellowship for the following year or will be supported by other means, such as a teaching or research appointment.

Entering students receiving a national award in addition to a University multi-year fellowship may request a “multi-year fellowship deferral” by writing to the Associate Dean of Fellowships, indicating the name and award criteria of the outside fellowship. The exception request should be submitted to the Fellowships Office.

G1.4 Extramural Fellowships

The Graduate Services Fellowships Office maintains a list of extramural fellowships that are administered by Graduate Division on the Fellowships web site. If a student is selected solely by an awarding agency, and the program or Graduate Division has no responsibility for nominating or selecting the student, the fellowship funds for that student may be sent directly to the Financial Aid Office.

G1.5 Grant Proposal Advising

The Graduate Division Fellowships Office offers workshops and resources on applying for specific fellowships, such as the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. The Graduate Division Academic Services Office offers workshops and individual consultations on grant writing. Departments seeking to offer advising on grant proposal development can contact the Academic Services Office for assistance and information.

G1.6 Financial Aid

Graduate students apply for need-based loans, emergency loans and work-study through the Student Services Financial Aid Office. Graduate students seeking loans are subject to Federal standards for assessment of Satisfactory Academic Progress.

G1.7 Tuition Support for External Fellowships

Many external fellowships provide only partial tuition/fee coverage or no funding for tuition at all. For some of these fellowships, the Graduate Division assists departments by providing fee support centrally. Details regarding which fellowships are covered and processes for obtaining such support can be found in guidelines updated annually .

Appointments Policy

H. appointments.

The Graduate Division’s Appointments Office monitors and ensures compliance with campus and system-wide policies and procedures for all graduate students who hold academic or staff titles. The policies that govern graduate students as employees include those established by the Graduate Council of the Academic Senate, the Graduate Division, the Academic Personnel Office, and the Office of the President.

H1. Academic Appointments

As part of their financial support package, graduate students will often hold academic appointments or have other employment on campus. Academic appointments are governed by policies of the Academic Personnel Office. Staff appointments are governed by policies of the Berkeley HR Office.

Registered and enrolled students who are degree candidates may hold a GSI, AI-GS or GSR appointment through the end of the last month of the semester in which they receive their terminal degree. Thus, recipients of a spring terminal degree may work through May 31, and recipients of a fall terminal degree may work through December 31.

If qualified, individuals who have graduated may be appointed as a Reader or Tutor because those titles do not require registration and enrollment as a graduate student.

A student on filing fee status may not hold a graduate student academic appointment for which registration is required.

Students may not hold any graduate student academic title as volunteers. Academic appointees must be appropriately compensated through the Berkeley payroll system for their time and effort.

The stipend from a fellowship cannot be used as a substitute for salary for an academic appointment.

H1.1 Types of Employment

Academic titles.

On the Berkeley campus, graduate students may be appointed to the following academic titles without special exception, assuming eligibility requirements are met: Graduate Student Researcher (GSR), Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), Reader, and Tutor. Appointment as Acting Instructor-Graduate Student (AI-GS) is exceptional, and requires advance approval by both the Graduate Division and the Committee on Courses of Instruction (COCI) of the Academic Senate.

Academic Student Employees (ASE) with the titles GSI, AI-GS, Reader, and Tutor are covered by a collective bargaining agreement between the University and the United Auto Workers.

GSRs are not covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Minimum Requirements and Criteria for Appointment Eligibility:

Enrolled in at least one class (separate from minimum 12 unit requirement to hold an appointment)
Pay a minimum of 20% of assessed fees/tuition
Have no registration blocks
Students must be enrolled in a minimum of 12 units , by the end of the third week of classes and must maintain the minimum of 12 units for the entire semester.
New incoming students must fulfill the Violence Prevention Education Requirement or registration could be blocked. For more information & questions refer to the Gender Equity Resource Center , (a division of Equity & Inclusion).
Students on filing fee status are not eligible to hold Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) or Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) appointments. These students are eligible to be appointed as Readers and Tutors.
Students on “ In Absentia ” status, are not eligible to hold Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), Reader, or Tutor appointments but could hold a Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) appointment and could be eligible for the fee remission program with a qualifying GSR appointment.
Minimum GPA for holding an academic appointment is 3.00.
Academic appointees may have no more than 2 incomplete grades in upper division or graduate courses.
Students must be making satisfactory degree progress , which includes meeting program benchmarks, not being on academic probation or in lapsed candidacy, and meeting goals set by the faculty.
All first-time ASEs must attend the New ASE Orientation sponsored by the campus’ Labor Relations Office the semester of their appointment. If the ASE fails to attend, they are ineligible for future appointments until this requirement is satisfied.
GSIs who are required to complete the English oral proficiency test must take and pass the test before they can be appointed.
attend the Teaching Conference for First-Time GSIs ,
complete the GSI Professional Standards and Ethics Online Course. Please note, every first-time GSI must successfully complete the online course Professional Standards and Ethics for GSIs before they interact with students (in person or online) in their role as an instructor .*
and enroll in and complete a 300-level semester-long pedagogical seminar on teaching .

Staff Titles

Graduate students may be hired in staff titles in accordance with Staff Personnel regulations. They are limited to 50% time employment.

UC career employees who have become graduate students may maintain their career positions at up to 100% time. If a career employee accepts a student academic appointment or fellowship, they become subject to UCB’s restrictions governing appointments and fellowships, including limits on employment time.

UC career employees who become graduate students may also be eligible for the Reduced Fee Enrollment Program. Questions about this program should be directed to the Employee Relations Unit of Berkeley HR.

April 28, 2014: Two important changes in appointment and tuition remission processes for GSRs
October 10, 2013: Policy Change re Late Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) Appointments
December 1, 1999: New Testing Policy for the Oral English Competence of Graduate Student Instructors
May 29, 2003: Modification of the Oral English Competence Testing Policy

H1.2 New Students

New students entering in the fall semester may begin GSR appointments on July 1 if they have submitted a Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) on or before that date, and if they are enrolled as a non-degree student in Summer Sessions. All requirements for employment and all academic eligibility rules apply.

With the exception of International students, new students entering in the spring semester may begin on December 1 if they have submitted the SIR on or before that date and if they are enrolled in units for spring semester.

H1.3 Visiting Students

Graduate student academic appointments are normally reserved for UCB students. Certain non-UCB students may be hired if the department has been unsuccessful in recruiting a qualified Berkeley graduate student, or if the visiting student is unusually qualified for the appointment.

Only visiting students who are 1) registered and enrolled at another UC campus, 2) taking part in the UC Intercampus Exchange, or 3) participating in the Exchange Scholar Program are eligible for an appointment. Hastings College of the Law students may not be appointed as GSIs or GSRs .

To hold a fall semester appointment at UCB, a student must be registered and enrolled in the fall term on the other UC campus.

To hold a spring semester appointment at UCB, a student must register and enroll in both the winter and spring quarters or in the spring semester on the other UC campus.

UC Intercampus Exchange

A graduate student registered on any campus of the University of California may go to another campus of the University as an Intercampus Exchange Graduate Student with the approval of:

the student’s graduate adviser;
the chair of the department on the host campus; and
the deans of the Graduate Division on the home and the host campus.

This privilege is available to graduate students who would like to associate with scholars or fields of study not available on the home campus, or who seek the use of special facilities and collections.

Download and submit the UC Intercampus Exchange Program Application (PDF) or visit the Graduate Degrees Office .

The Exchange Scholar Program enables a graduate student enrolled in a doctoral program at one of the participating institutions to study at Berkeley for up to one year.

Current participating institutions are: Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale .

Exchange Scholar Program students may hold graduate student academic appointments on the Berkeley campus and may be eligible for Health Insurance remission with a qualifying appointment.

Download and submit the Exchange Scholar Application or visit the Graduate Degrees Office .

Education Abroad Program

EAP Reciprocal Exchange students attend a UC campus for up to one academic year on a no-fee-exchange, non-degree basis. EAP Reciprocal Exchange students are not eligible for GSI, AI-GS or GSR appointments.

They may, however, be appointed as Readers or Tutors.

Course-Work-Only Status

Students admitted to UCB on Course-Work-Only (CWO) status (including through the Education Abroad Program) may not be appointed as GSIs, GSRs or as AI-GS. Such students may be appointed as Readers and Tutors.

H1.4 Undergraduate Students

Undergraduate students cannot be appointed as GSRs. Undergraduate students may be appointed as Readers and Tutors.

Undergraduate students may be appointed as Undergraduate Student Instructors (UGSIs) by exception only. Exceptions may be approved if a department is not able to recruit any qualified graduate students (including graduate students in other departments) or hire a lecturer to fill an essential GSI position.

Undergraduates may be appointed as UGSIs by exception, if a department is unable to recruit a qualified graduate student to fill an essential GSI position. Authority for approving UGSI appointment requests lies with the relevant Dean of the student’s own College, even if the hiring unit differs from the college where the student is enrolled.

All undergraduates who are to be appointed as UGSIs must meet the following requirements:

be registered as a student in the semester in which they are teaching;
be fully enrolled (within College policy) during the semester in which they are teaching (depending on the policies of the student’s own college);
have upper division status when they begin teaching;
have taken the class for which they are being appointed, its equivalent, or a more advanced course, with a grade of A- or better (grade exceptions can be made by the instructor of the course);
be in good academic standing;
have an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher.

Like graduate student GSI appointees, undergraduate appointees who do not speak English as a native language must satisfy the English Language Proficiency requirement before they can teach. They must also pass the online course on Professional Standards and Ethics in their first semester of teaching.

Hiring units may impose additional or higher requirements for eligibility for consideration to serve as a GSI while an undergraduate (e.g. a limit on Incomplete grades, higher GPA or higher grade received in the course in which they will serve).

All departments have a responsibility to provide on-going mentoring and oversight for undergraduates who teach in their units. During the semester in which they are teaching, undergraduate GSIs must be enrolled in a 300-level course or the equivalent, for purposes of training. If the GSIship is their first appointment, students must also attend 1) the New ASE Orientation, 2) the Teaching Conference for first-time GSIs, and 3) complete the online course on Professional Standards and Ethics.

Hiring units must submit a petition to the cognizant College Dean, indicating the appointment percentage, that the student meets all eligibility requirements, has completed or will complete the Professional Standards and Ethics online training, will attend the ASE orientation and the Teaching Conference for first-time GSIs (if they have not already done so), has fulfilled the English language proficiency requirement (if applicable), and will be enrolled in a 300-level pedagogy course during the semester in which they are teaching (if they have not already successfully completed a pedagogy course that meets campus and departmental requirements).

Petitions should be submitted no later than one month before the start of classes, so that there is sufficient time for the Dean to review the request, for the undergraduate to be onboarded via CSS HR, and for the undergraduate to complete the necessary online training and register for the Teaching Conference and a pedagogy course.

The procedures for appointing a UGSI follow those established for all other ASE positions. Each student appointed as a GSI, AI-GS, Tutor, or Reader must receive from the hiring unit a written notice of appointment (which can be via email) and supplemental documentation as specified in Article Two of the contract between the University and the UAW. Departments must not issue Letters of Appointment until necessary exceptions and other approvals are obtained. Hiring is not final until 1) a formal written offer is made by authorized departmental staff and 2) the ASE accepts the offer in writing.

Departments are required to notify all ASEs of expectations and workload requirements at the beginning of the semester, and of any substantial changes that might occur during the semester in accordance with the UC–UAW agreement. Course assignments may be changed if enrollments are significantly higher or lower than expected. This notification may be by letter or electronic mail. Any such changes must be in accordance with Article Three of the UC-UAW Contract.For further information on ASE appointment procedures, see the Graduate Division’s handbook on Graduate Student Academic Appointments .

May 16, 2019: Memo of Revised Policy on UGSI Appointments
September 12, 2014: Memo of Understanding for Appointment of Undergraduate GSIs for EECS
May 28, 2002: Qualifications for the Appointment of Undergraduates as Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs)
March 10, 2008: Partial Fee Remission for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

H1.5 Fee Remissions

Fee remissions are a benefit derived from a graduate student’s eligible academic appointment to offset either a portion or all of a student’s assessed fees. Fee remissions are fee specific and may only be used to offset specific assessed fees in a student’s CalCentral account . In addition to fulfilling the academic requirements for each academic title, student appointments must meet established criteria to be eligible for fee remissions.

Fee Remission Payment Source

Fee remissions are a benefit of employment and like all other benefits of employment, fee remissions are paid by the same source that pays a student’s salary. The Payroll Office is responsible for the collection of fee remissions and uses the chart string provided by the hiring unit for payment of the student’s salary to pay the student’s fee remission.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Appointments

Students who have Graduate Student Research Assistant (GSRA) appointments at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) must remain at LBNL for the entire semester to be eligible for the fee and SHIP remission. If the appointment is terminated before the end of the semester, the remissions will be canceled and the student will be required to repay the entire LBNL remission which will be assessed in CalCentral. If the student then begins a GSR appointment on campus at any point after the first day of the semester, that appointment will not be for the entire semester and may not meet the criteria to qualify for the remissions.

Fee Remissions in Combination with Other Awards

Occasionally, students receive more than one type of award that is intended to pay fees or fees and tuition for a particular semester. Fee remissions for students with eligible appointments will generally take precedence over concurrent fellowship, departmental awards, and loans. If more than one type of award appears as a credit against fees or tuition in a student’s CalCentral account, a system-wide set of established rules governs which award is used to pay the assessments. The sequence in which CalCentral is programmed to accept award credits to offset fees and tuition is generally as follows. Please contact Billing and Payment Services for more information on the CalCentral priorities:

1. Outside agency awards (including third-party contract agreements) 2. LBNL remissions from GSRA appointments 3. Fee and tuition remissions from UCB campus appointments 4. Program awards made through Campus Solutions 5. Fellowship awards 6. Student Loans 7. Student payments

Loss of Fee Remission Eligibility

A student may lose eligibility during the course of the semester: for example, due to an early withdrawal, or because the appointment is cancelled or modified so that it no longer meets the criteria for remissions. In these cases, the student will be billed in CalCentral for the entire remission amount and must repay those fees.

Intercampus Transfers of Fee Remissions

Graduate students who are registered and enrolled at other UC campuses and hold eligible appointments at Berkeley are also eligible for remissions.

Appointments of eligible Berkeley students automatically generate the appropriate fee remissions as outlined above. However, there is no automatic system for creating fee remissions and transferring it to the appropriate UC campus. Berkeley hiring units must request an inter-campus transfer of remissions via a financial journal. Please contact the Appointments Office for more information.

April 2013: Graduate Student Tuition/Fee Remissions

H1.6 GSI Preparation for Teaching

The Graduate Council Policy on Appointments and Mentoring of GSIs describes the responsibilities of GSIs, faculty, and departments in ensuring that GSIs are prepared for teaching.

All first-time GSIs are required to attend the Teaching Conference for GSIs on the Friday before classes begin; complete the online course on Professional Standards and Ethics before the end of the third week of teaching; and enroll in a semester-long, 300-level course on teaching in the discipline either prior to or concurrent with the first teaching assignment.

Faculty members who teach with GSIs are required to meet with them at the outset of the semester to clarify responsibilities and expectations and to review the course syllabus. Faculty are also required to meet regularly with their GSIs throughout the semester to discuss course logistics and pedagogy and conduct classroom observations of first-time GSIs.

Programs are required to offer a 300-level course on teaching in the discipline. COCI reserves the course number 375 to designate these required introductory pedagogy courses. Guidelines to ensure the course fulfills the requirement are included in the Graduate Council Policy. Suggested procedures for conducting classroom observations, materials for faculty on guiding the work of GSIs, and resources for developing a 300-level course on teaching can be found on the GSI Teaching and Resource Center website. Programs may contact the GSI Teaching and Resource Center if they need assistance in developing their 300-level seminar on teaching.

Programs should review end-of-semester evaluations of GSIs by their students and, in those cases where improvement is needed, outline the steps a GSI should take to improve.

Programs should provide all GSIs and faculty who are teaching with GSIs a copy of the Graduate Council Policy or the document’s URL each semester.

March 18, 1997: Graduate Council Policy on Appointments and Mentoring of GSIs
March 9. 1998: Departmental Responsibilities Regarding Graduate Council Policy on GSI Appointments and Mentoring
May 2, 2016: Appointments and Mentoring of Graduate Student Instructors

H1.7 Summer and University Extension Teaching Appointments

Summer and University Extension teaching appointments are not included as semesters of teaching for the purposes of determining the step at which a student should be appointed in the GSI series, nor for computing maximum teaching limits for graduate students, as per systemwide policy: see APM 410-17 and the Appointments Handbook for details.

H1.8 Summer, Winter, and Spring Break Appointments

Graduate students may be appointed up to 100 percent time during the summer, winter, and spring breaks.

During the summer break, appointments at greater than 50 percent may begin on the day following the last day of the spring semester, but must end no later than the day prior to the first day of the fall semester. Continuing students who hold summer academic appointments must either have been registered for the previous spring semester and have not completed their degree, or be registered for the following fall semester. Students who have withdrawn in spring must be readmitted and register for fall before they can hold a summer appointment. Registration in Summer Session classes is not required to hold an appointment. Summer session registration does not preclude appointing students at greater than 50 percent during the summer.

Appointments greater than 50 percent during the winter break may begin on the day following the last day of the fall semester, but must end not later than the day prior to the first day of the spring semester.

H1.9 Discipline and Termination of Appointment

GSRs: Information regarding discipline and termination of GSRs can be found in the Academic Personnel Manual Section APM 150.

ASEs: Information regarding discipline and dismissal of ASEs – GSIs, AI-GSs, Readers, and Tutors – can be found in UC-UAW contract.

Glossary of Terms

I. glossary of terms.

Academic Senate – The Academic Senate at Berkeley is engaged in the planning and allocation of faculty and capital expenditures. Some of the issues that concern the Senate include setting curricular policies and priorities, advocating for its membership on issues of compensation and academic freedom, setting admission standards, and defending rigorous standards of scholarship for its members and for the students at Berkeley.

Academic Standing – Students are normally in good academic standing if they are making adequate progress toward the completion of degree requirements; have a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.0; and do not have an excessive number of incomplete grades on their records.

Advancement to Candidacy – Students in master’s degree programs apply for advancement to candidacy after they have completed half the unit requirements for their degrees. They indicate on the advancement form whether they plan to complete Plan I (20 units and a thesis) or Plan II (24 units and a comprehensive exam). They must submit their formal application no later than the end of the fifth week of classes of the semester in which they expect to receive the degree. Doctoral students are eligible for advancement to candidacy after they have completed the language requirements for their major and have passed the Qualifying Examination.

Appointments – Graduate Appointments on the Berkeley campus are assigned the following titles: Graduate Student Instructor (GSI), Graduate Student Researcher (GSR), Reader, and Tutor. Other academic titles traditionally held by graduate students, such as Nursery School Assistant and Community Teaching Fellow, are not currently in use at Berkeley.

Comprehensive Exam for the Master’s Degree – Programs decide the content and format of the comprehensive exam required for master’s students under Plan II. The examining committee should be composed of at least two (and preferably three) regular faculty members to conduct the exam, which should cover the knowledge and skills reasonably expected of a master’s degree recipient in the field. The exam may be written, oral, or a combination of the two. Academic Senate regulations require that a student be advanced to candidacy before taking the exam.

Concurrent Program – A concurrent program is the combination of two master’s degree programs, normally on the same campus, in which a limited number of units may be used in common to reduce the time needed to earn both degrees.

Department – A department is an administrative unit with space and resources. A department also includes budgeted faculty members who offer instruction in a titled, specialized discipline, normally affiliated with a school or college. At the graduate level, programs of study lead to the M.A., M.S., and professional master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees.

Designated Emphasis – A designated emphasis is a specialization, such as a new method of inquiry or an important field of application, which is relevant to two or more existing doctoral degree programs. Faculty members who wish to offer a designated emphasis must form a Graduate Group to administer the program. Approval by the Graduate Council is required.

Dissertation – Doctoral candidates are required to complete an extensive, original work based on independent research. The dissertation must be approved by a doctoral committee and be filed with the Graduate Division.

Doctoral Committee – The Doctoral Committee facilitates the student’s exams, guides the research and writing, and administers the doctoral defense (if required). The Doctoral Committee typically must be made up of three tenure-track faculty members from within the student’s department, and must include an Academic Senate member from outside the department.

Doctoral Degree – A doctoral degree is awarded in recognition of a student’s knowledge of a broad field of learning and for distinguished accomplishment in that field through an original contribution of significant knowledge and ideas. To be eligible to receive the doctoral degree, the student must complete a minimum of two years of academic residence, pass a Qualifying Examination administered by a committee approved by the Administrative Committee of the Graduate Council, and submit an approved dissertation completed under the guidance of Berkeley faculty members. The dissertation must reveal high critical ability and powers of imagination and synthesis.

Filing Fee – The Filing Fee is a reduced fee (one-half of the University Registration fee) for doctoral students who have completed all requirements for the degree except for filing the dissertation (Plans A and B) and presenting the Final Defense (Plan A). It is also available to Master’s students with no requirements remaining except for filing the thesis (Plan I) or taking the final comprehensive examination (Plan II). The Filing Fee is not a form of registration nor equivalent to registration. If students wish to use University services that are supported by registration fees, they must pay those fees. Filing Fee is available for the fall and spring semesters only.

Graduate Adviser – Graduate Advisers are nominated by Program Chairs and appointed by the Dean of the Graduate Division, who acts on behalf of the Graduate Council. They provide guidance for entering and continuing students concerning the various steps necessary to complete in order to earn their degrees or certificates. Graduate Advisers may sign petitions to add or drop courses (See Head Graduate Adviser).

Graduate Council – The Graduate Council is a committee of the Academic Senate. Composed of 12 faculty members and three graduate students, the Council is responsible for all academic matters related to graduate education on campus. The Dean of the Graduate Division works closely with the Council in developing new policies and procedures related to graduate education. One of the major duties of the Council is to conduct periodic reviews of all graduate programs to make sure they are functioning at the highest possible level, and to plan for the future.

Graduate Division – The Graduate Division serves as the administrative arm of the Graduate Council by overseeing graduate students’ progress from admission to completion of their degree programs. The Graduate Division offers student services and outreach to guide students through the various steps required for the degree.

Graduate Group – A Graduate Group is an interdisciplinary academic unit, composed of a core faculty from two or more existing departments, that offers a degree in a new method of inquiry or field of study that has been approved by the Graduate Council, the Academic Senate, and systemwide counterparts. The Graduate Group is also the academic unit that administers an interdisciplinary designated emphasis approved by the Graduate Council. As a Graduate Group has no funding or administrative support of its own, an established department is designated to host the Graduate Group and the Group is under the direction of the Dean of the Graduate Division. Four Graduate Groups have a small number of designated faculty FTE and are therefore termed “augmented graduate groups”: the Energy and Resources Group, Neuroscience, Computational Biology, and Computational Precision Health.

Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) – The term Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) is synonymous with Teaching Assistant (TA). A GSI must have fulfilled the necessary academic, spoken English language proficiency, and registration and enrollment requirements for appointment. Chosen for excellent scholarship and promise as a teacher, a GSI serves as an apprentice under the active supervision of the instructor in charge of the course. An appointment as a GSI is for one academic year or less. GSI appointments may not exceed half time.

Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) – The term Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) is synonymous with Research Assistant (RA). A GSR is a graduate student at Berkeley who is engaged in research projects related to his or her dissertation under faculty supervision. There are no specific eligibility requirements regarding level of skills or previous experience, which permits departments and organized research units to make GSR appointments at levels appropriate to resources and recruitment needs.

Head Graduate Adviser – The Head Graduate Adviser of an academic unit has a more comprehensive role than graduate advisers. Only the Head Graduate Adviser can sign documents or make requests to the Graduate Division regarding graduate enrollment, degrees, academic progress, and financial aid.

Joint Degree – A joint degree is generally a doctoral degree program offered by two campuses (UC campuses or UC and another institution). A minimum of one-year academic residency (fee payment and enrollment in a minimum of 4 units) is required at each campus. Faculty, courses, and resources are shared in order to offer a broader-based program. Examination and dissertation committees must be composed of appropriate representatives from each campus.

Major Adviser – Also called Dissertation Adviser, a Major Adviser is usually chosen by the student in consultation with the Head Graduate Adviser. The Major Adviser guides a student’s thesis or dissertation research and writing.

Master of Arts – The Master of Arts (M.A.) degree is awarded to students who have satisfied requirements for their graduate program of study by either passing a final exam or submitting an approved thesis completed under the guidance of Berkeley faculty members. The M.A. ranks above a Bachelor of Arts degree but below a doctoral degree.

Normative Time – Normative time is the elapsed time, calculated to the nearest semester, in which students would need to complete all requirements for the doctorate, assuming that they are engaged in full-time study and making adequate progress toward their degrees. Normative times for doctoral programs have been recommended by department faculty and approved by the Graduate Council and the UC Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs. Normative time has two components: 1) time from the beginning of the student’s graduate work to advancement to doctoral candidacy (NTA); and 2) time in candidacy until the dissertation is filed (NTIC). Most departments at Berkeley have total normative times of five to six years (10 to 12 semesters).

Probation – Students who are not in good academic standing are considered to be on academic probation or subject to dismissal. Students may also be placed on probation for not meeting departmental requirements or expectations. Probation is intended to provide students whose performance is less than satisfactory with a period of time in which to correct the deficiencies and to raise their performance to a level consistent with the minimum standards set by the Graduate Division. Students on probationary status may register, but they may not hold academic appointments, receive graduate fellowships, or be awarded advanced degrees.

Professional School – A professional school is a separate unit offering professional graduate degrees. The curriculum for professional degrees focuses on preparing students for careers in the practice of the profession as opposed to academic degrees, which are awarded for completion of scholarly or theoretical research. However, some professional schools also offer academic degrees.

Program – A program is a sequence of course work and supervised study leading to a degree, normally within a department of instruction or administered by a Graduate Group. The term is used synonymously with field or subfield and also to refer to a subspecialty in which undergraduates or graduates may concentrate their study.

Qualifying Examination – The Qualifying Examination is an oral examination for doctoral candidates and is conducted by four or five faculty members (this varies by major). Students, in consultation with the Head Graduate Adviser, select the three subject areas for the exam as well as the committee members. The exam is usually between two and three hours in length. The purpose of the exam is to ascertain the breadth of a student’s knowledge and preparation. Faculty examiners will judge whether students have the ability to think incisively and critically about both the theoretical and the practical aspects of their major. Some programs expect students to present a topic for the dissertation as part of the Qualifying Exam (although the exam must not be limited to such a topic). Others do not. In those programs that do, students may be expected to have in mind one or two areas from which the dissertation might be developed and to answer questions on its potential significance and possible design. In either case, the examiners should satisfy themselves, by unanimous vote, that students have mastered their subject areas and can, in all likelihood, design and produce acceptable dissertations.

Reader – Readers primarily perform duties related to the grading of papers and exams. They may not perform teaching duties assigned to other academic titles.

Thesis – Students completing a Plan I master’s degree are expected to write a report, referred to as a thesis, on the results of an original investigation, in conjunction with the Thesis Committee. Length and style of the thesis vary by department. All theses are filed with the Graduate Division.

Thesis Committee – The Thesis Committee, selected by the student in conjunction with the Head Graduate Adviser, guides the research and writing of the master’s thesis. The committee is made up of three faculty members, at least two of whom must be from the student’s home department. Typically, the committee chair is the student’s research adviser.

Tutor – A tutor provides training to individuals or small groups of students who require additional teaching help. Tutors at Berkeley work under the direct supervision of a faculty member holding an appropriate instructional title.

Policy Guide Change Log

View the Policy Guide Change Log

Policy and Procedure Memos

Guide to graduate policy.

Policy Changes regarding the Evaluation of Applicants In Graduate Programs-Jun-29-2022
Withdrawal Policy to Accommodate Professional Internships – Jan 23 2018
Revised Oral English Proficiency Policy for Prospective GSIs Approved by Graduate Council-Mar. 7, 2022
Policy Governing Joint Authorship between faculty and students-Jan. 27, 2022
Updated Fee Policy for Graduate Student In Absentia Registration-MEMO-Jan-18-2022
Revision to policy governing in-person and hybrid attendance of qualifying exams-Oct-8-2021
Temporary-Blanket-Exception-to-QEs-MEMO-2020-March11-April15-Dec14-June29
Revision to Enrollment Requirement for Plan II Master’s Students to File for Summer Degree – MEMO – April 19, 2021
Normative Time and NRST Waiver Extensions-MEMO- February 3, 2021
Information Regarding Funding Undocumented Students, Including New Admits and Current Students – January 27, 2021
Revisions to Doctoral Completion Fellowship Eligibility and Stipend Cap Policy – January 22, 2021
Updates to Graduate Council Policies for the 2020-21 Academic Year – Dec. 10 2020
Comprehensive Review of Applicants for Graduate Admission and Fellowship Nominations_2020-November-19
Temporary-Policy-Revision-Regarding-Part-Time-Enrollment-for-Graduate-Students-MEMO-2020-August17
COVID-19-Normative-Time-Milestone-Exams-Filing-Fee-Status-MEMO-2020-May-11
Higher Degree Committee Policy Changes-MEMO-2019-August-29
Revised Policy on UGSI Appointments
Updates to Stipend Cap and Work Restriction for Graduate Division Fellowships-MEMO-2019-January-7
Comprehensive Review of Applicants for Graduate Admission and Fellowship Nominations MEMO_2019-December-6
Funding-for-Undocumented-Students-CHART-2019-August.pdf
Updated UGSI Appointment Policy-MEMO-2019-May-16
Follow up to Oct 9, 2018 memo about funding for Undocumented Grad Students Comprehensive-MEMO-2018-December-21
Understanding for Appointment of Undergraduate GSIs for EECS-MEMO-2016-July-1
Comprehensive Review of Applicants for Graduate Admission and Fellowship Nominations-MEMO-2018-December-18
Funding-for-Undocumented-Students-CHART-2019-August
Undocumented Applicants for Graduate Admission-MEMO-2018-October-9
Summer Enrollment & Degree Filing-MEMO-2018-September-25
Stipend Cap and Work Restriction for Graduate Division Fellowships-MEMO-2018-May-23
New Policy on the Combination of Multi-Year Fellowships-MEMO-2018-May-23
Counting Coursework for Different Degrees (PhD vs. master’s)- MEMO-2018-February-28
Comprehensive Review of Applicants for Graduate Admission and Fellowship Nominations-MEMO-2017-December-1
Graduate Admissions Deferral Policy-MEMO-Fall 2018
Late-ASE-Appointments-with-Modified-Start-Dates-MEMO-2002-February-13
Comprehensive Review of Applicants for Graduate Admission and Fellowship Nominations-MEMO-2016-December-1
Policy Clarification on Filing Fee and University Funds-MEMO-2016-October-28
Download/Print
Policy on Appointment and Mentoring of GSIs-2016-May-2
Graduate Council Revision to DCF Policy-MEMO-2016-May-17
Admissions Policy for Former or Current Berkeley Students-MEMO 2016-April-18
Parenting Leave for Graduate Students with Re-Enrollment-MEMO-2016-April-14
Changes to Lapsing of Candidacy Procedures for Doctoral Students-MEMO-2016-April 8
Revisions to Graduate Council Policies for Qualifying Exams and Dissertation Committees-MEMO-2016-March-8
Comprehensive Evaluation of Applicants for Admission and Fellowship Nominations, and the Role of GRE Scores-MEMO-2015-December-14
Dissertation Embargo Policy MEMO 2013 December 2
Filing Fees for Graduate Degree Conferral in Summer MEMO 2015-April-8
Conferral of Graduate Degrees in Summer MEMO 2015-April-8
Filing Fee MEMO 2015-April-8
GSR appts in Self-Supporting Degree Programs MEMO 2015-April-6
Stipend limits to Grad Div Fellowships Memo 2015-February-11
GRE Studies Annotated Bibliography 2014-December-5
Undocumented Students and Teaching Memo 2014-September-9
ASEs in Self-Supporting Degree Programs Memo 2014-December-19
Appointment of Undergraduate GSIs for EECS Memo of Understanding 2014-September-12
GCGSI Mentoring Policy Memo 1997-March-18
Deferral of Admission Memo 2014-July-23
TOEFL Scores Memo 2014-July-10
In Absentia Registration Memo 2013-December-6
Partial Fee Remission for Undergraduate GSIs Memo 2008-March-10
GSR Appt Dates 3266 Fee Remission Memo 2014-April-28
Revised Filing Fee Regulations Memo 2002-April-5
Parental Accommodation Memo 2007-March-1
Graduate Council Student Parent Policies (Revision of May 1998 Statement) Memo 2003-September-1
Modification of the Oral English Competence Testing Policy Memo 2003-May-29
Qualifications for the Appointment of Undergraduates as Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) Memo 2002-May-28
Graduate Council Student Parent Policies Memo 1998-May-1
Online Academic Progress Report Memo 2013-September-27
Advising Students Eligible for the Doctoral Completion Fellowship Memo 2013-September-17
Late Changes in Study List for Graduate Students Memo 1998-October-22
Dissertation Signature Final Memo 1989-November-22
Applicant Ranking Memo 2002-September-16
Graduate Council Student Parent Policies Memo 1998-May-15
CITI Requirement for Advancement to Candidacy Memo 2005-December-15
Policy Change re Late Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) Appointments Memo 2013-October-10
Dates Admit Decisions Memo 2013-August-11
Partial Fee Remission for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants Memo 2008-March-10
Comprehensive Evaluation of Applicants for Graduate Admission Memo 2012-January-10
GSI Mentoring Dept Memo 1998-March-9
Admission and GSI Appointment Scores on the iBT/Next Generation TOEFL Memo 2005-November-8
New Procedures for Final Report Memo 1990-March-15
GCGSI Mentoring Revised Memo 2012-March-5
Deferral of Admission Memo 2014-May-2
Minimum Enrollment Requirements for Graduate Students Memo 2007-May-1
Filing for Graduate Degrees in Summer Session Memo 2007-May-1
New Testing Policy for the Oral English Competence of Graduate Student Instructors Memo 1999-December-1
Academic Progress Evaluation, Academic Standing, and Appeals Procedures for Graduate Students Memo 1982-November-1
GC Faculty Mentoring Grads Memo 2006-March-6

Dissertation Stress: 7 Proven Strategies to Stay Sane and Succeed

Jul 7, 2023 | 0 comments

Jul 7, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

Are you overwhelmed and stressed by the daunting task of writing a dissertation? Many students feel stressed when writing dissertations because they must create a high-quality and academically rigorous thesis. However, it’s important to remember that managing dissertation stress and staying mentally healthy is key to maintaining productivity and achieving success.

This article will explore seven proven strategies to help you beat dissertation stress and stay sane. By implementing these strategies, you’ll navigate the demanding journey of writing a dissertation and maintain your well-being.

What Is Dissertation Stress and How Does It Affect You?

Dissertation stress refers to the psychological and emotional strain experienced by students during the research, writing, and completion of their dissertations. Its strength comes from the challenges of doing research, meeting standards, and working with deadlines.

Several factors contribute to it. These factors include the need to create new work, the fear of failure, and the challenges of completing a dissertation. Dissertation stress can appear as anxiety, irritability, sleep problems, lack of focus, and physical symptoms like headaches or stomachaches.

How Does It Affect You?

The impact of dissertation stress can be far-reaching, affecting your academic performance and overall well-being. Feeling overwhelmed and stressed hinders clear thinking and focus. This, in turn, makes it challenging to conduct thorough research and produce high-quality work. Stress from your dissertation can harm your body, causing tiredness, a weaker immune system, and trouble balancing work and personal life.

Additionally, dissertation stress may have psychological effects, such as decreased self-confidence, self-doubt, and feelings of isolation. The weight of expectations and the fear of not meeting them can intensify stress levels, negatively impacting your mental health. Managing dissertation stress is important to avoid burnout, which can hinder your progress and well-being.

While dissertation stress is a natural part of the process, there are effective strategies to cope with and minimize its impact. Here are some practical tips to help you navigate the challenging journey of writing your dissertation while maintaining your sanity:

I. Understand and Plan: Developing a Clear Roadmap for Your Dissertation Journey

Writing a dissertation requires a clear understanding of the expectations and requirements. Before diving into the writing process, take the time to thoroughly comprehend what you are expected to do. Break down your dissertation into smaller, manageable tasks and create a detailed plan with realistic deadlines. A clear roadmap lets you feel more in control and confidently tackle each section.

II. Establish a Support Network for Your Dissertation Journey

During this stressful period, the support of family, friends, and fellow students can be invaluable. Seek emotional support from your loved ones and share your concerns and progress with them. Consider joining a study group or finding a mentor who can provide guidance and share their experiences. A support network will alleviate stress and provide motivation and fresh perspectives.

III. Practice Self-Care: Nurturing Your Mind, Body and Wellbeing

Neglecting self-care is easy when you’re engrossed in your work, but prioritizing your well-being is crucial. Regularly exercise, maintain a healthy diet, and get sufficient sleep. Incorporate relaxation techniques such as meditation or mindfulness to alleviate stress. Taking care of your physical and mental health will enhance your productivity and help you maintain a clear focus.

IV. Master Time Management as a Student

Effective time management is essential for managing dissertation stress. Create a realistic schedule that allows for breaks and leisure activities.

Avoid procrastination by breaking your tasks into smaller, more achievable chunks. Set deadlines for each task to keep yourself on track. By managing your time efficiently, you’ll minimize stress and maximize productivity.

V. Take Breaks and Rest to Cope with Dissertation Stress

Getting caught up in the dissertation process and neglecting to take breaks is easy. However, allowing yourself regular breaks is crucial to maintain a healthy work-life balance and prevent burnout. Engage in activities unrelated to your dissertation, such as hobbies or spending time with friends. Taking breaks will rejuvenate your mind, boost creativity, and enhance productivity.

VI. Seek Professional Help from your Supervisor / Tutors

Don’t hesitate to seek assistance from your academic advisor or dissertation coach if you struggle. They can provide valuable guidance and support tailored to your specific needs. Utilize the resources offered by your university’s writing center or counseling services to enhance your writing skills and manage stress effectively. Remember, reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

VII. Celebrate Milestones and Reward Yourself

Completing a dissertation is no small feat, and it’s important to acknowledge your accomplishments along the way. Celebrate milestones, whether completing a chapter or reaching a research goal. Treat yourself to small rewards that bring you joy, such as a movie night or a day off. Celebrating your achievements will boost your motivation and help you stay focused on the finish line.

Writing a dissertation is tough, but these seven tips can help you handle stress and stay sane. Understand, plan, and establish support. Prioritize self-care, manage time well, take breaks, seek help, and celebrate achievements.

Remember, it’s not just about completing your dissertation. It’s also important to prioritize your physical and mental well-being while working towards your academic goals. Stay resilient, and you’ll emerge as a graduate with a remarkable dissertation and newfound strength to face future challenges. Good luck!

Avoid Unnecessary Stress. Get Dissertation Help

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You can alleviate the burden with our professional assistance, ensuring a well-researched and well-written dissertation. Click ORDER NOW to place your order today and enjoy the benefits of our expert writing assistance.

How stressful is a dissertation?

Dissertation writing is very stressful because of the research, academic standards, and time commitment needed.

How do I stop stressing about my dissertation?

To reduce stress related to your dissertation, it is helpful to implement strategies such as effective time management, seeking support from friends and mentors, practicing self-care, and breaking down tasks into manageable chunks.

What are the challenges of a dissertation?

Dissertation challenges: choosing a topic, reviewing the literature, time management, data analysis, staying motivated, and meeting academic standards.

What is the breakdown of a dissertation?

A dissertation usually has different parts: introduction, literature review, methodology, results and analysis, discussion, conclusion, and references. The specific breakdown may vary depending on the academic discipline and research requirements.

Through my engaging and informative blog posts, I aim to provide helpful tips on topics such as essay writing, research skills, and academic planning, empowering students to thrive in their academic pursuits.

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Master of Arts in Applied Psychology (45 unit)

Our vision imagines a region and world in which everyone has access to an inspiring education and the psychological tools and support to propel them toward flourishing lives of meaning, purpose and connection. our education is characterized by strong values, social justice, transformative, dverse community..

The 45-unit MA in Applied Psychology program is for students who wish to pursue a variety of human service fields. This degree program is designed to serve students who are seeking the academic preparation for work areas such as human resources, program development in community-based organizations, youth development work, or as preparation in applying for graduate level PhD work in any branch of psychology. Students should be aware that such a degree will not make them eligible for licensure as an MA-level psychotherapist, nor can they transfer courses to a licensure-track program at a later date (per state regulations). This program is designed to provide students with a solid grounding in the core ideas and concepts underlying the application of psychology to organizational and human development. The program is designed to offer students flexibility to define their program to suit their educational and professional goals. Students have the option to specialize in one of our emphasis areas or take a number of electives across the School of Education and Counseling Psychology (with advisor approval) to round out their program.

MA in Applied Psychology Highlights

Classes held both in-person and online
2 year full-time program (part-time available), start in any term
Emphases available
$701/unit tuition, with over $2 million in Scholarships available.

Emphases & Concentrations

We offer five specialized interest areas. Our four emphases function like a minor. Students who don't choose an emphasis may choose from a variety of electives. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Concentration is similar to the emphases, but requires additional elective coursework.

A focus on culturally and linguistically appropriate counseling experiences centered on a deep understanding of Latino culture, ethnicity, acculturation, and immigration.

Apply psychology to issues of well-being, stress and stress management, the modification of health behaviors, health promotion, wellness, and disease prevention.

Offering training in the application of counseling to issues of gender, diversity in sexual identity and expression, oppression, discrimination, and acculturation, among other topics.

Graduates work in community and law enforcement agencies, private practice, schools, correctional institutions, mental health and rehabilitation facilities, and group homes.

Students will be trained to develop greater proficiency in supporting children, teens, and young adults. Coursework will focus on: issues in early intervention and infancy; issues in school-based settings; developmentally-appropriate interventions; working with disabled children and youth; trauma- informed care; evidence-based approaches to working with children and youth, including short term therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy, play therapy, expressive arts therapy, family therapy, and much more.

Curriculum & Electives

"After having just graduated from UC Berkeley, I was seeking a program that would provide me both a community and a solid academic foundation. And today I am so grateful to say that SCU’s Counseling and Psychology program gave me exactly that. It’s because of the relationships, the knowledge, and the practice I received from this program did I then have the opportunity to become the type of therapist I had sought out to be."

- Kimberly Panelo, ’10, Counseling Psychology

What is Masters Dissertation or Postgraduate Dissertation?

Many postgraduate students experience a feeling of dread when they first begin thinking about the word ‘Dissertation’! As an essential component of most postgraduate degree programmes, the Dissertation can be the key to success or failure. However, there’s no need to spend time on stress and worry if you understand how to create a successful Dissertation .

Masters Dissertation

What is a masters dissertation.

A Masters Dissertation is a lengthy written study on a topic chosen by the student. It is undertaken with the guidance of a faculty supervisor, and involves an extended period of research and writing. The content and length vary depending on your field of study – Dissertations are typically longer in theoretical fields, and shorter in practical fields.

MA Dissertations

MA Dissertations are conventional academic studies in the fields of the Arts, Humanities and some Social Sciences. They are typically comprised of a thorough investigation of a particular topic, based on the application of theoretical knowledge to already-available data (texts, documents, artworks or existing data sets). It is rare for MA dissertations to include extensive data collected by the author, as the focus is primarily on the application of philosophical and theoretical frameworks. The length of MA Dissertations is typically 25,000-50,000 words, although they may be shorter in some degree programmes where a practical element is also included.

MSc Dissertations

MSc Dissertations are often shorter than MA Dissertations, because they rely more heavily on concrete data that can be conveyed with fewer words. However, the content is just as rigorous in a scholarly sense. MSc Dissertations will often involve some practical field work by students, who are expected to collect data through lab activities. For MSc students the Dissertation forms part of a larger process of research reports and data collection.

MBA Dissertations

MBA Dissertations can take several forms. Traditionally they adhere to a more science-based framework and have more in common with MSc Dissertations than MA Dissertations. However, universities are increasingly offering MBA students opportunities to pursue alternative forms of research that encompass more qualitative and philosophical approaches, and that address a wider set of learning outcomes. For this reason the length of the MBA Dissertation can vary significantly depending on the particular institution and the line of research the student undertakes. Furthermore, many MBA programmes do not require dissertations at all!

How Is a Masters Dissertation Different from Undergraduate and PhD-level Dissertations?

Masters Dissertation requires students to engage with their subject area in a more critical manner than they will have done at the undergraduate level. While many Masters students probably completed a Bachelor’s Dissertation , the expectations for the Masters Dissertation are very different. At this level they will be expected to develop a critical analysis that goes beyond the synthesised reviews typically offered in undergraduate studies. In particular, Masters students are expected to develop a clear philosophical and methodological framework for their writing, and this enables them to craft a much more targeted and incisive analysis.

Masters Dissertations also differ significantly from MPhil and PhD Dissertations, because the Masters level requires less original research. A PhD requires a much longer thesis, normally between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Both the PhD and MPhil require a more sophisticated research agenda, which will rely heavily on independent field research or unique text-based research. At the Masters level, research does not need to be completely unique and ground-breaking, as it does for a PhD. However, Masters students are still expected to provide original writing and critical analysis.

What Does a Masters Dissertation Normally Contain?

Masters Dissertation will typically contain the following dissertation structure , although the length and nature of these vary according to the academic field:

Abstract – a brief summary statement that contextualises your research, outlines your methodology and summarises findings.
Literature Review – a chapter that summarises the most important theories and philosophies that are relevant to your research.
Methodology – a dissertation chapter or statement that details the methods used to conduct your research, and provides a justification for this choice.
Analytical Chapters – the main body of the dissertation, these chapters provide the critical analysis of your chosen material or subject.
Conclusion – the final chapter summarises your findings and suggests possible directions for future research.
Bibliography – the bibliography is expected to be quite lengthy and must conform to the style guidelines for your discipline.

Standard Requirements and Assessment of Masters Dissertations

Word Length – Most Masters Dissertations are 15,000 – 50,000 words in length, although as stated above this can vary significantly depending on the subject area. Do remember that the word count typically does not include front matter, foot notes, bibliography or appendices!

Duration of Study – Most UK Masters programmes are one year in length, with the Dissertation submitted at the end of that year. This can vary for longer degree programmes, or in cases where students are allowed an extra ‘writing up’ year.

Submission Deadlines – Submission deadlines will vary among universities so it’s best to check with your specific institution for details. Masters Dissertations are assessed by examiners and the results must be certified by University Exam Boards, which are held twice yearly (normally in July and September). This means that the deadline for submitting dissertations is usually late June or late August, to allow time for marking prior to the Exam Boards. If necessary, students can request an extension to these deadlines if they can demonstrate genuine extenuating circumstances that will delay their submission. Always check with your university for specific regulations regarding submission and extensions.

Grades – The marking system for Masters dissertations is usually on the same numeric scale that is used for other UK assessments. Students must generally achieve a minimum mark of 40 to pass, but most will aspire to higher marks than this. Marks of 60-69 earn a classification of 2.1, or B; Marks over 70 earn a First classification, or A.

Writing a good dissertation requires honest dedication from students and an ability to motivate themselves over a long period of time. You can start off on a successful path by understanding the typical Masters Dissertation requirements, and developing your plan of study accordingly!

David Brigden and Graham Lamont, 2010. Planning Dissertations. Available: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/subjects/medev/Planning_dissertations. Last accessed 08 Apr 2013.

Kjell Erik Rudestam, 2007. Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process. 3rd Edition. SAGE Publications, Inc.

University of Worcester, 2010. Masters Dissertation Handbook. Available: http://www.worcester.ac.uk/registryservices/documents/Masters_Dissertation_Handbook_2010_2011.pdf. Last Accessed 02 May, 2013.

What Is a Master’s Thesis?

Before enrolling in a master’s degree program , it’s important that you know what a thesis is and whether you’ll need to write one. Your thesis is the sum of all of your learned knowledge from your master’s program and gives you a chance to prove your capabilities in your chosen field.

A thesis also involves a significant amount of research, and depending on the subject, may require you to conduct interviews, surveys and gather primary and secondary resources. Most graduate programs will expect you to dedicate enough time to developing and writing your thesis, so make sure to learn more about the department’s requirements before enrolling in your master’s program.

What is a Master’s Thesis?

Unlike thesis projects for undergraduates, which are shorter in length and scope, a master’s thesis is an extensive scholarly paper that allows you to dig into a topic, expand on it and demonstrate how you’ve grown as a graduate student throughout the program. Graduate schools often require a thesis for students in research-oriented degrees to apply their practical skills before culmination.

For instance, a psychology major may investigate how colors affect mood, or an education major might write about a new teaching strategy. Depending on your program, the faculty might weigh the bulk of your research differently.

Regardless of the topic or field of study, your thesis statement should allow you to:

Help prove your idea or statement on paper
Organize and develop your argument
Provide a guide for the reader to follow

Once the thesis is completed, students usually must defend their work for a panel of two or more department faculty members.

What is the Difference Between a Thesis and a Non-Thesis Master’s Program?

A thesis is a common requirement in many research-focused fields, but not every master’s program will require you to complete one. Additionally, some fields allow you to choose between a thesis and a non-thesis track . In the case of a non-thesis program, you won’t have to write a lengthy paper, but you will have to take more classes to meet your graduation requirement.

Whether you choose a thesis or non-thesis program, you’ll still be required to complete a final project to prove your critical thinking skills. If you favor a non-thesis program, your project may be a capstone project or field experience.

Thesis vs. Dissertation

It's common for graduate students to mistakenly use the words "thesis" and "dissertation" interchangeably, but they are generally two different types of academic papers. As stated above, a thesis is the final project required in the completion of many master's degrees. The thesis is a research paper, but it only involves using research from others and crafting your own analytical points. On the other hand, the dissertation is a more in-depth scholarly research paper completed mostly by doctoral students. Dissertations require candidates create their own research, predict a hypothesis, and carry out the study. Whereas a master's thesis is usually around 100 pages, the doctoral dissertation is at least double that length.

Benefits of Writing a Thesis

There are several advantages that you can reap from choosing a master's program that requires the completion of a thesis project, according to Professor John Stackhouse . A thesis gives you the valuable opportunity to delve into interesting research for greater depth of learning in your career area. Employers often prefer students with a thesis paper in their portfolio, because it showcases their gained writing skills, authoritative awareness of the field, and ambition to learn. Defending your thesis will also fine-tune critical communication and public speaking skills, which can be applied in any career. In fact, many graduates eventually publish their thesis work in academic journals to gain a higher level of credibility for leadership positions too.

Tips for Your Master's Thesis

Writing your thesis paper will be a long process, so the first step is to make certain you have a close faculty advisor to guide you along the way. Before starting, consult with other scholarly texts to see exactly how a master's thesis should be structured with an introduction, literary review, main body, conclusion, and bibliography. Finding a thesis topic may be the simplest or hardest part for you, but choose one that interests you and gives you room to explore, according to Ta Da! Creating a detailed outline will prompt an easier flow of ideas for a well-written thesis. It's advised that you stay aware of your thesis defense date to allow enough time for proofreading and possibly sending your work to an editor.

Related Resource: Oral Exam Preparation

Overall, a master's thesis is designed to support a graduate student's academic and professional qualifications for a degree by presenting research findings. While it's important to note that some graduate programs offer non-thesis tracks for master's degrees, the thesis is the main capstone staple for many others. Now that you know what a thesis is, you can decide whether it's a good option for your career or whether a comprehensive exam would be better.

Collapse All

How long is a thesis for a master’s?

A master’s thesis typically ranges from 100 to 300 pages , not including the bibliography. The length will depend on various factors, including the subject matter and method of your research. There’s no ‘correct’ page length you should aim for. Instead, your thesis should be long enough to properly convey all necessary information in a clear and concise manner.

Can you fail a master’s thesis?

While it’s not common, it is possible to fail your master’s thesis.

When you defend your thesis, the committee evaluates whether you understand your field and focus area. In most cases, the advisor you’re working with might help you go over your defense beforehand and address any questions that might come up during the final presentation. If you can’t correctly answer crucial questions from the committee, you will likely be given a chance to resubmit your thesis after making corrections.

Are there specific subjects that don’t require a thesis versus those that do?

Not all subjects will require a thesis at the end of your studies. Applied graduate school programs that focus on hands-on experience over theoretical work will mostly favor evaluating you through applied research projects. For example, nursing, education, and business programs prepare graduates for specific career placements and require them to complete internships or supervised fieldwork.

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Mathematical opportunities in digital twins (math-dt) workshop.

Dec 11, 2023, 9:00 AM - Dec 13, 2023, 5:00 PM

Van Metre Hall, Mason Square (Arlington Campus)

MS Project Presentation - Environmental Science and Policy

Dec 11, 2023, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Hybrid: David King Hall 3006 Zoom - contact the ESP Grad Office at [email protected] for info to join

Master's Thesis Defense - Geography and Geoinformation Science

Dec 13, 2023, 3:00 - 4:30 PM

Exploratory Hall, Room 2312 or via Zoom: https://gmu.zoom.us/j/98750741089?pwd=QzZMQmVKWkFhL2RON0gwaGNIQXpZZz09

Candidate: Jack Graulich Master of Science in Geoinformatics and Geospatial Intelligence Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science

TITLE: Exploring Structure Risk and Hazard Analysis Using Geographic Information and Dynamic Spatiotemporal Trends

Committee:

Thesis Director: Dr. Matt Rice

Committee Members: Dr. Dieter Pfoser, Dr. Nathan Burtch

ABSTRACT:

This research reviews the past, current, and future approaches to hazard risk assessment and its use in accreditation and insurance processes for local governments. The overarching theme of this research is modeling potential risk, defined as the likelihood of an event multiplied by the consequences of the outcomes of a hazard. For the last millennia, efforts have been taken to reduce the risk of fire impacts on surrounding structures, and to reduce the potential for catastrophic spread and destruction of property and loss of life. This thesis research includes an in-depth look at past instances of large fires that resulted in large scale changes in approaches for reducing risk and hazard to structures, and doctrinal approaches for reducing risk and hazards over time. Past visualizations of hazard risk with examples form Sanborn Maps in the late 19 th and early 20 th century are presented, finding similarity with modern GIS-based modeling and mapping approaches. The current industry standard modeling approaches are demonstrating, using frameworks and risk metrics defined by the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). These are used to develop optimized models for fire and structure risk in the City of Fairfax, in the context of local fire and rescue capabilities. The groundwork for future technologies is also analyzed for potential spatiotemporal modeling of and important dynamic risk factor: building occupancy. The technologies reviewed are evaluated according to their function and capability for developing a dynamic spatiotemporal model, with a goal of incorporating risk analysis into the framework of a detailed 4-dimensional structure model. The final discussion in the thesis is about strategies and methods to further model and analysis of risk from the perspective of fire response.

List of In-Progress and Completed Dissertations in Classics

These lists, generated from information self-reported by Ph.D.-granting institutions to the SCS office, show the in-progress and completed dissertations being undertaken in Classics graduate departments across the United States. The list is as current as the data most recently received into the SCS office. If you do not see your department represented or if you have corrections please have your Director of Graduate Students email the requisite information to [email protected]

2010 , 2012 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , 2017

In-Progress (2010 Archive from Newsletters)

Boston University

Julia Dimitriou - "Funny Love: The Significance of Aphrodite in Old Comedy" - Advised by Jeffrey Henderson

Brown University

Lauren Donovan - "Staging Memory: The Octavia and Remembering the Julio-Claudians after Nero" - Advised by John Bodel
Christopher Geadrities - "Ancient Modes of Reading: A Comparison of Ancient Scholarship in Donatus' Commentary on Vergil and the Homeric Scholia" - Advised by Joseph Pucci and S. Papaioannou
Timothy Haase - "Satirical Mechanics in Juvenal" - Advised by John Bodel
Leo Landrey - "Valerius Flaccus' Historical Epic? Contemporary Events and Flavian Context in the Argonautica " - Advised by Joseph Reed

Bryn Mawr College

Andrea Guzzetti - "A Walk Through the Past: Archaeological Museums and Visitors in Italy, Greece, and Israel" - Advised by A. A. Donohue
Catherine Person - "Domestic Shrines in Houses of Roman Greece: A Comparative Study with Asia Minor and Italy" - Advised by A. Lindenlauf
Laura Surtees - "A Thessalian City: The Urban Survey of Kastro Kalithea Thessaly" - Advised by A. Lindenlauf and J. C. Wright)

Cornell University

Todd Clary - "A Comparative Study of Etymological Figures in Homer" - Advised by A. Nussbaum
Anthony Hunter - "Cicero's Use of Poetic Citations" - Advised by D. Mankin
Roman Ivanov - "Pindar's Isthmians 3 and 4: Essays and Commentary" - Advised by H. Pelliccia
Tobias Torgerson - "Refractions of Rome: A Metaphorical Destruction of Rome in Lucan's Pharsalia " - Advised by M. Fontaine
Ioannis Ziogas - "Hesiod in Ovid: The Metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women" - Advised by F. Ahl

Florida State University

McKenzie Lewis - "The Networks of the Arno Valley: Imperialism and the Late Republican Colonization at Arretium, Florentia, and Pisae" - Advised by D. L. Stone

Fordham University

Patrick Lake - "Homer through the Eyes of Plato: Allusion, Paraphrase, and (Mis)quotation of the Odyssey and Iliad in the Republic " - Advised by J. A. Foster

(2011-2012) Harvard University

Elizabeth Engelhardt - “Gendered Speech and the Rhetoric of Childbirth on the Attic Stage” – Advised by Gregory Nagy
Ryan Samuels - “Building Characters: New Comic Ethopoeia in the Second Sophistic” i Advised by Richard Thomas
Philip Pratt - “The Poetics of the Occasion: Praise, Performance, and the Silvae” – Advised by Kathleen Coleman

Johns Hopkins University

Sarit Stern - "The Inseparable Twins? Literacy, Iconographical, and Cultic Representations of Apollo and Artemis Together" - Advised by A. Shapiro

Rutgers University

Kristen Baxter - "Pindar the Pious Poet: Prayer and Its Significance in Epinician Poetry" - Advised by T. Power
Lisa Whitlatch - "The Hunt for Knowledge: Hunting in Latin Didactic Poets" - Advised by L. Kronenberg

Stanford University

Melissa Bailey - "Transactional Media in the Roman World" - Advised by J. Trimble
Kathryn Balsley - "Performances of Justice in Imperial Literature" - Advised by A. Barchiesi
Nicholas Boterf - "The Rhetoric of Locality: Panhellenism and Persona in Archaic Lyric Poetry" - Advised by R. Martin and A.E. Peponi
Sebastian DeVivo - "A Theory of the Traumatic Object in Ancient Greece: War, Memory, Materiality" - Advised by M. Shanks
Alexander Duncan - "Tragic Ugliness: The Anti-valued Body in Athenian Drama" - Advised by R. Martin and A.E. Peponi
Sarah Janda - "Not Written in Stone: Latin Epigram's Collaborative Relationship with the Reader" - Advised by G. Parker
Elizabeth Jones - "The Lyric Spectacle: Bodies, Objects, Landscapes" - Advised by A.E. Peponi
Kyle Lakin - "Foreign Trade, Cooperation and Public Finance in Fourth-Century Athens" - Advised by J. Ober
Courtney Roby - "Text and Technology in Greek and Roman Antiquity" - Advised R. Netz
Matt Simonton - "The Rules of the Few: Political Strategies of Classical Greek Oligarchies" - Advised by J. Ober
Robert Stephan - "House Size, Living Standards, and Economic Growth in the Roman World" - Advised by W. Scheidel
Darian Totten - "Scales of Connectivity in the Late Antique Landscape: Religious, Economic and Social Networks in Southern Italy" - Advised by J. Trimble

University of California, Berkeley (Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology)

Ryan Boehm - "Urbanization and Empire in the Early Hellenistic Period" - Advised by E. Mackil
David DeVore - "How Christianity Succeeded: Memory, Biography, and War in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea" - Advised by S. Elm
Timothy Doran - "Oliganthropia: Social Causes and Policy Effects in Sparta and Beyond" - Advised by E. Mackil
Brendan Haug - "Economy and Society in the Byzantine Fayum" - Advised by T. Hickey
Noah Kaye - "The Attalids and Western Asia Minor: 188-133 BCE" - Advised by E. Mackil

University of California, Berkeley (Classics)

Christopher Churchill - "The Limits of Grief: Speech, Silence, and Loss in Roman Literature" - Advised by E. Oliensis
David Crane - "Dialogical Conceits: A Study of Academic Debate in Platonic Dialogue" - Advised by G.R.F. Ferrari
Thomas Hendrickson - "Portraiture, Paratext, and Roman Biography" - Advised by D. Sailor
Jared Hudson - "Representations of Travel and Transportation in Roman Literature" - Advised by E. Oliensis
Athena Kirk - "Treasured Inventories in the Greek World" - Advised by L. Kurke
Nandini Pandey - "Ovid's Empire of the Imagination: Fictionality, Reader Response, and the Power of Public Image in Augustan Rome" - Advised by K. McCarthy
Daniel Walin - "Slaves and Slave Characters in Aristophanic Comedy" - Advised by M. Griffith

University of California, Irvine, Riverside, San Diego

Clinton Armstrong - "Ovid's Catalogues and Poetic Debate" - Advised by A. Zissos
Debra Freas - "Escaping the Past: Seneca's Troades " - Advised by A. Zissos
Benjamin Sullivan - "Masters of the Country: Aspects of Archaic Greek Land Warfare" - Advised by M. Miles
Jesse Weiner - "Mutable Monuments and Atomistic Poetry in Lucan's Bellum Civile " - Advised by J. Porter

University of California, Los Angeles

Michael Brumbaugh - "Constructing Ideologies of Kingship: Praise Poetry and Hellenistic Egypt" - Advised by K. Morgan
Cameron Fitzsimmons - " Et in Arcadia Ego : Queer Receptions of Platonic Eros" - Advised D. Blank and G. Sissa
Robert W. Groves - "Interpreting the Language Barrier in the Worlds of Heliodorus" - Advised by D. Blank
Emily M. Rush - "Writing Gems: Ekphrastic Description of Precious Stones and Jewelry in Hellenistic Epigrams and Later Greek Prose" - Advised by D. Blank and M. Telò
Ellen Snyder - "The Gendered Construction of Roman Imperium in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita " - Advised by A. Richlin
Charles Stein - "Beyond the Generation of Leaves: Plant and Human Life in Archaic Greek Poetry" - Advised by A. Purves

University of Colorado at Boulder

Amanda Sherpe - "Prayer Language in Virgil's Aeneid " - Advised by P. Knox

University of Florida

Todd Bohlander - "Use of Anticipation in the Attic Orators" - Advised by A. Wolpert
Robert Brewer - " Quo Ruitis, Generosa Domus : Memory and the Elegaic Model in Ovid's Fasti " - Advised by J. Rea
Jaime Claymore - " Reditus ad locum : Cicero's Forensic Repositioning" - Advised by L. Sussman
Brenda Fields - "Fear Mongering in Late Republican Rome, 88-28 BCE" - Advised by V. Pagán
Dustin Heinen - "Dominature: Dominating Nature in the Georgics and Silvae " - Advised by V. Pagán
David Hoot - "Roman Epidaurus" - Advised by R. Wagman

University of Iowa

Joshua Langseth - " Anthropos : The History of a Myth" - Advised by J. Finamore

University of Michigan (Classical Studies)

Cassandra Borges - "The Geography of the Iliad in Ancient Scholarship" - Advised by R. Janko
Carolyn Gersh - "Neoplatonic Naturalism: Music, Biology, and the Soul" - Advised by S. Ahbel-Rappe
Diana S. Guth - "Character and Rhetorical Strategy. Philip II of Macedon in Fourth-Century Athens" - Advised by S. Forsdyke
Rajesh Mittal - " Fata viam invenient : Virgil, Augustus, and the Philosophy of History" - Advised by D. S. Potter
Rebecca Sears - "Narratology and Genre Studies in Ovid's Metamorphoses " - Advised by R. R. Caston
Sonda Tohm - "Contesting Masculinity: Locating the Male Body in Roman Elegy" - Advised by R. R. Caston and B. Dufallo

University of Michigan (Interdepartmental Program in Greek and Roman History)

Claudia Arno - "Going Native: How Romans Became "Roman" in an Expanding World" - Advised by D. S. Potter and N. Terrenato
Alex Conison - "The Organization of Rome's Wine Supply" - Advised by B. Frier

University of Michigan (Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology)

Angela Commito - "The Impact of Environmental Change on Shifting Urban and Rural Landscapes in Late Antique Anatolia" - Advised by C. Ratté
R. James Cook - "Economy, Society and Irrigation at a Graeco-Roman Site in Egypt: The Karanis Canal System" - Advised by S. Herbert and T. Wilfong
Kevin Dicus - "The Sanctuary at Grasceta dei Cavallari: The Actors and Architecture in Etrusco-Romano Ritual" - Advised by N. Terrenato
Lydia Herring-Harrington - "Intentional Visibility and Customization in the Urban Shrines of Pompeii" - Advised by E. Gazda
Emily Holt - "Competition, Resources, and the Consolidation of Social Complexity in Bronze Age Sardinia" - Advised by S. Herbert and J. O'Shea
Tom Landvatter - "Identity, Burial Practices, and Social Change in Greco-Roman Egypt" - Advised by T. Wilfong and S. Herbert
Karen Laurence - "The Administration of Cult: Archaeological Evidence for the Infrastructure of Greek Sancutaries in the 2nd Century C.E." - Advised by S. Herbert
Leah Long - "Economies of Stone: Urbanism and the Marble Quarrying Industries of Roman Asia Minor" - Advised by C. Ratté
Hima Mallampati - "Aquiring Antiquity: The Early History of Classical Collections at the University of Michigan and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston" - Advised by E. Gazda and J. Cherry
Adela Sobotkova - "The Valley of the Kings? A Diachronic Study of Social Complexity in the Tundzha River Valley, Bulgaria" - Advised by C. Ratté and L. Talalay

University of Minnesota

Christine Lechelt - "Allusions of Grandeur: Gigantomachy, Callimachean Politics, and Literary Filiation" - Advised by C. Nappa and N. Krevans

University of Missouri

Morgan Grey - "Subversive Receptions: Ovid and Renaissance Epyllia" - Advised by D. Hooley
Naomi Kaloudis - "The Call of the Wild: The Therapeutic Effect of Theocritus' Pastoral Idylls" - Advised by A. Mori
Rhiannon Rowlands - "Eunuchs and Sex: Beyond Sexual Dichotomy in the Roman Empire" - Advised by R. Marks

University of Pittsburgh

Rhett Jenkins - " Haec Nova Sit Ratio Vincendi : Literary Campaigning in the Works of Julius Caesar" - Advised by H.P. Stahl
Christopher Kurfess - "Restoring Parmenides' Poem: A New Arrangement of the Fragments Based on a Resassessment of the Original Sources" - Advised by E.D. Floyd
Erin O'Bryan - "From Ignobile Vulgus to Rerum Dominos : The Emergence of the Roman Mob in Vergil's Aeneid " - Advised by M. J. Smethurst

University of Toronto

Emily Fletcher - "Pleasure and Cognition in Plato's Philebus and Other Late Dialogues" - Advised by R. Barney
Marie-Pierre Krück - "La Corruption dans la Pensée Grecque Classique" - Advised by V. Wohl
James Lynd - "Aspects of Evil in Seneca's Tragedies" - Advised by A. Keith
Cillian O'Hogan - "Reimagining the Roman Landscape: Space and Geography in the Poetry of Prudentius" - Advised by M. Dewar
Lee Sawchuk - "The Tragic Chorus: Actors, Singers, and Community" - Advised by V. Wohl
Eirene Seiradaki - "Achilles, Regifting and (Im)mortality" - Advised by J. Burgess
Jessica Westerhold - "Ovid's Reception of the Greek Tragic Heroine" - Advised by A. Keith

University of Virginia

Dan Leon - "Arrian, Alexander, and the Usefulness of History" - Advised by J. D. Dillery

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jeannie T. Nguyen - "Medea's Metamorphoses of a Mythin the Greek and Roman Tradition" - Advised by L. McClure
Joy E. Reeber - "Married to a Persona: "Biography" in Ovid's Exile Poetry" - Advised by P. Rosenmeyer

Yale University

Martin Devecka - "Ruins and the Ages of Anxiety" - Advised by E. Greenwood and D. Quint
Noah Dion - "Old Testament Made New: Latin Hezaemeral Epic and Milton's Paradise Lost " - Advised by J. Rogers
Sean Harrigan - "Pindar and the Poetics of Reperformance" - Advised by E.J. Bakker
Jessica McCutcheon - "Fear in Latin Epic" - Advised by C.S. Kraus
Anke Rondholz - "Hosidius Geta, Medea " - Advised by C.S. Kraus and J.F. Matthews

Completed (2010 Archive from Newsletters)

Christus Synodinos - "A Critical Edition of Ps.-Basil De Consolatione in Adversis with Introduction" - Advised by W. Haase
Peter Lech - "Gender, Social Status and Discourse in Roman Comedy" - Advised by Adele Scafuro
Asya Sigelman - " Xenia and the Unity of Time in Pindar's Victory Odes" - Advised by David Konstan
Lisa Mallen - "Early Greek and Homeric Conceptions of Domestic Space" - Advised by R. Hamilton and J. C. Wright
Raymond Capra - "A Commentary on Ibycus of Rhegium" - Advised by D. Sider
James Hunt - "Constantius II in the Ecclesiastical Historians" - Advised by R. J. Penella
Sean Lake - "Literary Parody in Ovid's Metamorphoses " - Advised by J. Clark

Harvard University

Sarah Insley - "Constructing a Sacred Center: Constantinople as a holy city in early Byzantine literature" - Advised by John Duffy
Isabel Köster - "Roman Temple Robbery" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Peter O’Connell - "Prose as Performance : Seeing and Hearing in the Forensic Speeches of Antiphon, Andokides and Lysias" - Advised by Albert Henrichs
Justin Stover - "Reading Plato in the Twelfth Century: A Study On the Varieties of Plato's Reception In the Latin West Before 1215" - Advised by
Paul Kosmin - "Seleucid Space: The Ideology and Practice of Territory in the Seleucid Empire" - Advised by Nino Luraghi
Andreya Mihaloew - "An Exploration of the Function of Lamps in Archaic and Classical Greek Culture: Use, Concepts, and Symbolism" - Advised by Susanne Ebbinghaus
Ariane Schwartz - "Horace and His Readers in Early Modern Europe" - Advised by Richard Thomas

Indiana University

Varunadatta Edirisinghe - "The Concept of Divinity in Lucretius' de Rerum Natura : Venus, voluptas , Epicurus" - Advised by J. L. Franklin, Jr.
Gabriel Patrick Grabarek - "Men of Letters: The Literary and Philosophical Relationship Between Cicero and Brutus" - Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Stacie Lynn Kadleck - "The Ambivalence of Capua in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita " - Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Bruce Lloyd Warren - "Rhetorical Pathos and the Critique of Leadership in Tacitus' Histories " - Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Helene Coccagna - "Embodying Sympotic Experience: Anatomical Manipulations of Athenian Vases" - Advised by A. Shapriro

The Ohio State University

Bridget Buchholz - "Body Language: The Limits of Communication Between Mortals and Immortals in the Homeric Hymns" - Advised by S. Iles Johnston
Steven Maiullo - "From Philosopher to Priest: The Transformation of the Persona of the Platonic Philosopher" - Advised by A. Kaldellis
Sean R. Jensen - "Rethinking Athenian Imperialism: Sub-Hegemony in the Delian League" - Advised by T. J. Figueira
Jason Aftosmis - "Paradigm and Discourse in Archaic Greek Poetry" - Advised by R. Martin
Vincent Tomasso - "Advised by Studies in the Poetics of Quintus of Smyrna" - Advised by R. Martin
Lela Urquhart - "Greek Religion and Indigenous Societies in the Western Mediterranean" - Advised by I. Morris

University of Clagary

Paul J. Harms - "The Logic of Irrational Pharmacological Therapies in Aretaeus of Cappadocia, Scribonius Largus, and Dioscorides of Anazarbus" - Advised by P. Toohey
Alison D. Jeppesen-Wigelsworth - "The Portrayal of Roman Wives in Literature and Inscriptions" - Advised by H. Sigismund-Nielsen
Jason McClure - "Doubling and the Theban Mythological Cycle in Latin Literature" - Advised by P. Toohey
Michael Laughy - "Ritual and Authority in Early Athens" - Advised by E. Mackil and John Camp)
Carolynn Roncaglia - "State Impact in Imperial Northern Italy" - Advised by Eric Gruen and C. Noreña)
Nathan Arrington - "Between Victory and Defeat: Framing the Fallen Warrior in Fifth-Century Athenian Art" - Advised by A. F. Stewart
Maria Garbriella Bruni - "The Monumental Villa at Palazzi di Casignana and the Roman Elite in Calabria (Italy) during the Fourth Century A.D." - Advised by C. Hallett
Margaret C. Foster - "The Cultural Imaginary of Manteia: Seercraft, Travel, and Charisma in Ancient Greece" - Advised by L. Kurke
David Goldstein - "Wackernagel's Law in Fifth-Century Greek" - Advised by A. Garrett and D. J. Mastronarde
Timothy W. Pepper - "Calculus Gratiarum: The Practice of Ambition in Early Ptolemaic Egypt" - Advised by T. Hickey
Felipe Rojas - "Empire of Memory: Anatolian Material Culture and the Imagined Past in Hellenistic and Roman Lydia" - Advised by C. H. Greenewalt, Jr.
Jared Hammad - "Persecution and Identity in the Anti-Pagan Poems of Prudentius" - Advised by M. Salzman
Tim W. Watson - "The Rhetoric of Corruption in the Late Roman Empire" - Advised by M. Salzman
Renée Marie Calkins - "Making Kleos Mortal: Archaic Attic Funerary Monuments and the Construction of Social Memory" - Advised by J. Papadopoulos
Emily A. Kratzer - "The Double Herakles: Studies on the Death and Deification of the Hero in Fifth-Century Drama" - Advised by K. Morgan and J. Papadopoulos
Andrew Alwine - "The Rhetoric and Conceptualization of Enmity in Classical Athens" - Advised by A. Wolpert
Eleni Bozia - "Lucian and His Roman Voices" - Advised by G. Schmeling
Robert Patrick - "Groves in Ovid's Metamorphosis : Staging an Human Experience" - Advised by J. Rea

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Rebecca Muich - "Pouring Out Tears: Andromache in Homer and Euripides" - Advised by D. Sansone
Mark Thorne - "Lucan's Cato: The Defeat of Victory and the Triumph of Memory" - Advised by C. Green
Britta Ager - "Roman Agricultural Magic" - Advised by D. B. Collins
Geoffrey Maturen - "Making pepaideumenoi : Lucanic Reflections on Second Century Greek Culture" - Advised by S. Ahbel-Rappe
Jason Parnell - "The Metaphysics of Theurgy and Christian Eucharist" - Advised by S. Ahbel-Rappe and D. S. Potter
Richard K. Persky - "Kairos: A Cultural History of Time in the Greek Polis" - Advised by S. Forsdyke
Seth Button - "Resource Stress and Subsistence Practice in Early Prehistoric Cyprus" - Advised by S. Herbert
Lisa Cakmak - "Mixed Signals: Androgyny, Identiy, and Iconography on the Graeco-Phoenician Sealings from Tel Kedesh, Israel" - Advised by S. Herbert)
Adrian Ossi - "The Roman Honorific Arches of Pisidian Antioch: Reconstruction and Contextualization" - Advised by E. Gazda
Paul Lesperance - “Symbols and Objects on the Sealings from Kedesh” - Advised by Andrea M. Berlin
David Cuff - "The Auxilia in Roman Britain and the Two Germanies from Augustus to Carcalla: Family, Religion, and 'Romanization'" - Advised by C. Bruun
George Kovacs - " Iphigenia at Aulis : Myth, Performance, and Reception" - Advised by M. Revermann
Kathryn Mattison - "Recasting Troy in Fifth-Century Attic Tragedy" - Advised by M. Revermann
Timothy Perry - "Exile in Homeric Epic" - Advised by J. Burgess
Daniel Barber - "Speaker and Addressee in Horace's Odes " - Advised by J. Strauss Clay
Thomas Garvey - "The Flower of Youth: Coming of Age in Homer" - Advised by J. Strauss Clay
Ornella Rossi - "Letters from Far Away: Ancient Epistolary Travel Writing and the Case of Cicero's Correspondence" - Advised by C.S. Kraus
Tristan Taylor - "The Usurpation in the Roman Empire 68-305 C.E." - Advised by J.F. Matthews
Katherine Wasdin - "The Reluctant Bride: Greek and Roman Wedding Poems" - Advised by K. Freudenburg and C.O. Pache

In-Progress (2012-13 Archive from Newsletters)

Emily Austin - "Weeping and Longing in Homer's Iliad" - Advised by S. Scully
Dustin Dixon - "Mythopoeia in Greek Comedy" - Advised by J. Henderson
Sophie Klein - "Theatrical and Social Performance in Horace" - Advised by P. Johnson
Michael Wheeler - "Reconciling Catullan INvective, Meter and Audience Expectations" - Advised by P. Johnson

Brown University (Classics)

Barbara Blythe - "Petronius' Satyrica : A Novel of Mystic Initiation" - Advised by J. Bodel
Heidi Broome-Rains - "Greek Tragedy and Its Byzantine Tradition" - Advised by D. Konstan
Scott DiGiulio - "Aulus Gellius, the Noctes Atticae , and the Literary Logic of the Miscellany in the Roman Empire" - Advised by J. Bodel
Christopher Geadrities - "Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni: Text, Translation, and Commentary" - Advised by J. Pucci
Timothy Haase - "Advised by Watching Satire Unravel: Satirical Mechanics in Juvenal" - Advised by J. Bodel
Karen Jones - "Raised Voices: Roman Literary Ghosts of the First Century C.E." - Advised by J. Bodel
Adrianne LaFrance - "Literary Criticism in the Evolution of Greek Bucolic Poetry" - Advised by J. Reed
Byron MacDougall - "Gregory of Nazianzus and Festival Rhetoric" - Advised by S. Papaioannou
Anne McDonald - Inquiry and Identity in Plutarch's Platonic Dialogues" - Advised by S. Papaioannou
Joseph McDonald - "Bad Religion: Conceptualizing Sacrilege in Ancient Greece" - Advised by A. Scafuro
Mitchell Parks - "City of Praise: The Politics of Encomium in Fourth-Century Athens" - Advised by A. Scafuro
Anne Rabe - "Breaking the Man: The Development of ad hominem Violent Language at Rome" - Advised by J. Bodel
Wendy Teo - "The Pain is the Pleasure: Tragedy's Paradoxical Appeal" - Advised by D. Boedeker
Matthew Wellenbach - "Greek Choral Poetry in the 5th Century" - Advised by J. Hanink
Jennifer Yates - "Tragedy and the Ancient Novels" - Advised by D. Konstan

Brown University (Ancient History)

Bryan Brinkman - "Popular Expression and Imperial Control: Acclamation in the Roman Empire" - Advised by J. Bodel

Catholic University of America

Edward Arthur Naumann - "Augustine the Pastor and the Judgement of God" - Advised by P. Rousseau

City University of New York - Graduate Center

Timothy Hanford - " Nec una nox est : Multiple Negation in Senecan Tragedy" - Advised by R. Ancona
Cameron Pearson - "The Social, Religious, and Poetic Contexts of Archaic Sepulchral Epigrams from Attica" - Advised by J. Lidov
Alissa Vaillencourt - "Leonidas of Tarentum: A Wandering Poet in the Tradition of Greek Literature" - Advised by D. Clayman
Maura Williams - "Homeric Diction in Posidippus" - Advised by D. Clayman
Charles E. Blume - "The Farm and Its Poetic Landscapes in Hesiod, Theocritus, Virgil and Horace" - Advised by Francis Cairns
Stephen Collins-Elliott - "Roman Consumption, 200 BCE-20 CE" - Advised by Nancy de Grummond
Hillary Conley - "Black-Gloss Ceramics from Monte Pallano and the Implications for the Economy and IDentity of the Inhabitants of Samnium" - Advised by Nancy de Grummond
Charles Harper - "Laboring with the Economics of Mycenaean Architecture" - Advised by Daniel Pullen
Robert Hendrick - "Seeing the Unseeable: Enargia in Hellenistic Philosophy and Latin Epic" - Advised by Svetla Slaveva-Griffin and Tim Stover
Kyle Jazwa - "A Reassessment of Mycenaean Identity and the Evidence for Social Group Integration in Architecture and the Conceptualization of Space" - Advised by Daniel Pullen
McKenzie Lewis - "Roman Colonization and Networks of Transformations in Northern Etruria during the First Century BCE" - Advised by Nancy de Grummond
Donna M. Nagle - "A Space Syntax Analysis of Mycenaean Buildings and Settlements" - Advised by Daniel Pullen
Kevin M. Oliver - "The Epic Hero in Apollonius Rhodius and Valerius Flaccus" - Advised by Francis Cairns
Debra A. Trusty - "Pots in the Periphery: Ceramic Analysis of Mycenaean Cooking Vessels and their Implications for Early State Economies" - Advised by Daniel Pullen
Charles Nick. Aull - "Imperial Power and Legitimacy in the Roman West under the Reign of Valentinian I, 364-375 CE" - Advised by Edward Jay Watts
Laura Leola Brant - "Apuleian Women and Genre Conventions" - Advised by Eleanor Winsor Leach
Kenneth Merton Draper - "Non-lyric Voices in Horace's Odes " - Advised by Eleanor Winsor Leach
Alan Christopher Fleming - "Slavery in Seneca: Institution and Metaphor" - Advised by Eleanor Winsor Leach
Michael Salvator Vasta - "The Crisis of Exemplarity and the Role of History in Sallust" - Advised by Eleanor Winsor Leach
Elisabeth Schwinge - "The Memory of Names: Roman Victory Cognomina and Familial Commemoration" - Advised by Matthew Roller
Laura Garofalo - "Reconstructed Pasts and Retrospective Styles in Flavian Rome" - Advised by Matthew Roller

New York University

George Baroud - "Language and Power in the Annals of Tacitus" - Advised by David Levene
Maria Fernanda Crespo - "Julius Caesar: A New Account of Power" - Advised by David Levene
Daniel Hoyer - "Buying a Province, Building an Empire: Money and Markets in Roman Africa from Augustus to Aurelian" - Advised by Andrew Monson
Inger Neeltje Irene Kuin - "Playful Piety: Religion, Humor and Audience in Lucian" - Advised by Raffaella Cribiore
Jay Mueller - "Literary Midwifery before Plato: Case Studies in Indirect Communication" - Advised by Phil Mitsis
Nathalie Sado Nisinson - "Greek Heroes, Roman Rituals: Cult and Culture Class in Ovid's Heroides " - Advised by David Levene
Melanie Subacus - "Political Cosmopolitanism at Rome" - Advised by Joy Connolly
Brett L. Wisniewski - "Spell Casting in Augustan Poetry: Magic and Discourses of Power" - Advised by Adam Becker
Hanne Eisenfeld - "Only Mostly Dead: Immortality and Related States in Pindar's Victory Odes" - Advised by Sarah Iles Johnston
Samuel Ortencio Flores - "The Roles of Solon in Plato's Dialogues" - Advised by Bruce Heiden
Corey Hackworth - "And they Sang All Day: (Re)Reading the Delphic Hymns to Apollo in Context" - Advised by Fritz Graf
Craig Jendza - "Euripidean Paracomedy" - Advised by Tom Hawkins
John Richards - "The Reception of Thucydides in the Circle of Philip Melanchthon" - Advised by Frank Coulson
Mark Wright - "Triumviral Satire: A Study of the Roman Discourse of Exemplarity in Horace Sermones I" - Advised by William W. Batstone
Gabriel Fuchs - "Renaissance Receptions of Ovid's Poetry from Exile" - Advised by Frank T. Coulson

Princeton University

Virginia Clark - "Landscape and Narrative in Livy" - Advised by Andrew Feldherr
Madeleine Jones - "Seneca and the Environment" - Advised by Andrew Feldherr
Dawn LaValle - "Thecla the Sophist: Methodius of Olympus's Symposium and its Literary Context" - Advised by Constantine Güthenke
Thomas Miller - "What Clemobrotus Fell For: Plato on the Immortaltiy of the Soul" - Advised by Christian Wildberg
Samuel Galson - "Metamorphoses and Natural Science" - Advised by Andrew Feldherr
Andriy Fomin - "How Dio Wrote History: Dio Cassius' Intellectual, Historical and Literary Techniques" - Advised by Sarolta A. Takacs
Lyndy Danvers - "The Ties that Bind: Pseudo-Vergilian Poems in Antiquity" - Advised by Serena Connolly
Katheryn E. Whitcomb - "Augustus the Immortal Savior: The Emperor as a Means of Negotiation in Early Eastern Christian Communities" - Advised by Serena Connolly
James Kierstead - "Social Capital in Democratic Athens" - Advised by Josiah Ober
Foivos Karachalios - "The Politics of Judgement: Dispute Resolution and State Formation in Archaic Greece" - Advised by Richard Martin and Josiah Ober
Sarah Murray - "Trade, Imports & Society in Early Greece (1400-700 BCE)" - Advised by Ian Morris
Katharine Kreindler - "The Economics of Orientalization: Trade Networks between Magna Graecia and Central Italy" - Advised by Ian Morris
Donni Wang - "Contested Boundaries: The Making of Fifth-Century Athens" - Advised by Ian Morris

University of Calgary

Riccardo Bertolazzi - "The Women of the Domus Augusta from the Severian Age until the Advent of the Tetrarchy" - Advised by H. Sigismund Nilesen
Lesley Bolton - "Muscio's Gynaecia : A Translation and Commentary" - Advised by H. Sigismund Nielsen
Ranta Chatterjee - "Liminality and Ambiguity in Homeric and Indic Epics" - Advised by R. Bertolín Cebrián
Megan Falconer - "Persian Gold: Achaemenid Intervention in Greek Politics" - Advised by W. Heckel
Bryan Natali - " Pietas and the Roman State from 70-30 BCE: Politics, Patria and Populus " - Advised by H. Sigismund Nielsen
Lindsay Penner - "The Family Dynamics of the Julio-claudian Households" - Advised by H. Sigismund Nielsen
Alison Waters - "The Ideal of Lucretia in Augustan Latin Poetry" - Advised by P. Toohey
Carolyn Willekes - "From Steppe to Stable: Horses and Horsemanship in the Ancient World" - Advised by W. Heckel

University of California, Irvine

Jeffrey Feland - "Juvenal and the Borders of Mortality" - Advised by J. Porter
Aleah Hernandez - "The Beautiful Grotesque: Depictions of Violence in Homer and Greek Tragedy" - Advised by J. Porter

University of Chicago

Megan Nutzman - "A Hotbed of Healing: Ritual Cures in Roman and Late Antique Palestine" - Advised by C. Faraone
Bart van Wassenhove - "Emotion and Admonition in Seneca's Philosophical Works" - Advised by S. Bartsch

University of Cincinnati

Catherine Baker - "Landscapes of Middle Republic: Roman Imperialism and the Integration of Central Italy" - Advised by S. Ellis
Flint Dibble - "From Livestock to Lifestyle: The Longue Duree of Human-Animal Interaction in Ancient Geece (1400-1200 B. C.)" - Advised by K . Lynch
Kristina Neumann - "Antioch in Four Dimensions : Mapping Exchange in the Roman Empire" - Advised by P. van Minnen
John Ryan - "The ANcient Reception of Aratus' Phaenomena" - Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Whitney Snead - "Netowkrs among Greek Settlements on the Euxine" - Advised by P. van Minnen
Jesse Tanguchi "The Degeneration of Democracy into Tyranny in Plato's Political Thought" - Advised by S. Prince
William Weir - "Ceramics and Socal Practice. Drinking and dinging in the Lower Kouris River Valley" - Advised by E. Hatzak
Adina Stone - "Impluvia in Pompeian Homes" - Advised by M.A. Eaverly and R. Wagman
Jeff Yeakel - "Civil Wars, Revolt and Insurgencies in the Ancient Greek World" - Advised by A. Wolpert
Seth Boutin - "Methods of Misdirection in the Attic Orators" - Advised by G. Van Steen
Daniel Abosso - "A Literary and Exegetical Commentary on Book III of Claudius Marius Victorius' Alethia" - Advised by D. Shanzer
Angela Kinney - "The Personification of Divine Rumor: The Physical Characteristics and Reception of Divine Mass Communication" - Advised by D. Shanzer
Ryan McConnell - "Following the Money on Late Antique Egyptian Estates" - Advised by M. Parca
Amy Oh - "Jerome, Vigilatius, and Religious Debate" - Advised by D. Shanzer
Sergio Yona - "The Psychology of Satire: Philodemean Ethics in Horace's Sermones " - Advised by A. Agoustakis

University of Michigan (Kelsey Museum)

Laura Banducci - "Foodways and Cultural Identity in Roman Republican Italy" - Advised by Nicola Terrenato
Angela Commito - "Environmental Change and the End of Antiquity in Asia Minor" - Advised by Christopher Ratté
Jason Farr - " Lapis Gabinus : The Quarries at Gabii and the Roman tufo Industry" - Advised by Nicola Terrenato
Nicole High-Steskal - "Domesticating Spectacle in the Roman Empire: Representations of Public Entertainment in Private" - Advised by Elaine Gazda
Katharine Larson - "Crafting the Hellenistic World: Technology and Innovation in Hellenistic Glass Production"
Charlotte Maxwell-Jones - "Ceramics of Bactra, 500 BCE-500 CE, Typology, Chronology, and Exchange" - Advised by Sharon Herbert
Lynley McAlpine - "Marble, Memory and Meaning in the Four Pompeian Styles of Wall Painting" - Advised by Elaine Gazda
Neville McFerrin - "Obscured Meanings: Privilege and Viewing in the Pompeian House" - Advised by Elaine Gazda
Marcello Mogetta - "The Origins of Concrete in Rome and Pompeii" - Advised by Nicola Terrenato
Emma Sachs - "Stylistic Illusions in Campanian Wall Painting" - Advised by Elaine Gazda
Emily Holt - "Economy and Environment in Complex Societies: A Case Study from Bronze Age Sardinia" - Advised by John O'Shea & Sharon Herbert
Henry Colburn - "The Sixth Satrapy: Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt" - Advised by Margaret Root
Thomas Landvatter - "Identity, Burial Practices, and Social Change in Graeco-Roman Egypt" - Advised by Terry Wilfong & Sharon Herbert
Kate Allen - " Malo quam bene olere nil olere : Odor in Roman Thought and Literature" - Advised by Ruth Caston
Clara Bosak-Schroeder - "Alternative Ecologies: Ethnography and the Natural World in Classical Literature" - Advised by Francesca Schironi
Ellen Cole - "Lethaeus Armor: Love and Memory in Latin Elegiac Poetry" - Advised by Basil Dufallo
Harriet Fertik - "Publicity, Privacy, and Power in Neronian Rome" - Advised by David S. Potter
Nicholas Geller - "Roman Architecture: The Idea of the Monument in the Poetic Reimaginination of the Augustan Age" - Advised by Basil Dufallo
Matthew Newman - "The Ruins of Heaven: Linguistic and Poetic Indices of Cosmic Instability in Ancient Mediterranean Myth and Thought" - Advised by Richard Janko
Nicholas Rupert - "The Evolution of a Poet: Statius' Achilleid and the Poetics of Self-Reception" - Advised by Paolo Asso and Kathleen Coleman
Bram ten Berge - "Tacitus on Principate and Empire: From Agricola to Annals" - Advised by David S. Potter
W. Graham Claytor - "Karanis: Leadership and Community in an Egyptian Village of the Roman Empire" - Advised by Ian Moyer
Jonathan McLaughlin - "The Transformation of the Roman Auxiliary Soldier in Thought and Practice, 1st C. CE to 4th C. CE" - Advised by David S. Potter
Betsy Warner - "Poems from the Edge: The Goddess, the Shepherd, and the Liminal in Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern Literature, Cult, and Myth" - Advised by Philip Sellew
Don Burrows - "Sex, Lies, and Visual Aids: The Art of Deception in the Ancient Novel" - Advised by Nita Krevans
Christine Lechelt - "Allusions of Grandeur: Gigantomachy, Callimachean Poetics, and Literary Filiation" - Advised by Chris Nappa and Nita Krevans
Rachael Cullick - "Maxima Furiarum: The Female Demonic in Latin Epic" - Advised by Chris Nappa
Anna Everett Beek - "Always Look on the Bright Side of Death: Violence, Death, and Deification in Ovid's Fasti " - Advised by Chris Nappa
Courtney Friesen - "Reading Dionysus: Euripides' Bacchae among Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World" - Advised by Philip Sellew
Cynthia Hornbeck - "Changed Forms and Meandertales: Ovid's Metamorphoses and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake " - Advised by Nita Krevans
Andrew Willey - "Discovering a Higher Law: Cicero's Creation of a Roman Constitution" - Advised by Spencer Cole and George Sheets
Kate Livingston -"'Not on Land, But in the Sea...': A New Evaluation of Structure in Hellenistic Shipwreck Epigrams" - Advised by Anatole Mori
Mara Silvia Sarais - "Seneca's Tragic Songs: A Study of the Choral Odes in the Medea and Oedipus" - Advised by Dan Hooley
Pierce Wade - "English Lucretianisms: Lucretian Reception in Nineteenth Century England" - Advised by Dan Hooley
Sterling Garnett - "The Young and the Wretched: Elegiac Love and Despair Reconsidered" - Advised by Dan Hooley

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Patrick Dombrowski - "Magic and Superstition as Popular Religion in the Roman World" - Advised by James Rives
Mary McElwee Draper - "Gnomic Expressions in the Epinician Poetry of Pindar" - Advised by W. H. Race
John Elias Esposito - "Hetaireia from Homer to Alexander the Great" - Advised by Fred Naiden
Sarah Miller Esposito - "Aitiai and Etiology in Herodotus' Histories" - Advised by Emily Baragwanath
Erin E. Galligan - "Early Helladic Decorated Ceramic Hearths" - Advised by Donald C. Haggis
Hans Jorgen Hansen - "A Commentary on Pindar's Fifth and Sixth Isthmian Odes" - Advised by William H. Race
Robyn Le Blanc - "Power, Architecture and Identity in Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Levantine Cities" - Advised by Monika Truemper
Elizabeth C. Robinson - "The Impact of Roman Expansion in Central-Southern Italy: The Case of Larinum" - Advised by Nicola Terrenato
Erika L. Weiberg - "The Trauma at Home: Wives of Returning Veterans on the Attic Stage" - Advised by William Race
Serena Witzke - "The Influence of Greek and Roman New Comedy on Oscar Wilde's Society Plays" - Advised by Sharon James
Rebecca Worsham - "Middle Helladic Domestic Architecture, Settlements, and Social Complexity" - Advised by Donald Haggis
John Abad - "Religion and Identity in Roman North Africa: The Apologetics of Tertullian" - Advised by Andreas Bendlin
Emilia Barbiero - "Letters in Plautus" - Advised by Regina Höschele
Adriana Carter - "Ritual in Sophocles" - Advised by Victoria Wohl
Vichi Ciocani - "Inventing Virginity: Bodily and Generic Boundaries in the Ancient Novel" - Advised by Hugh Mason
Jody Cundy - "Theas Axion: Wonder, Place, and Space in Pausanias' Periegesis" - Advised by Jonathan Burgess
Patrick L. Hadley - "Athens in Rome, Rome in Germany: Nicodemus Frischlin's 1586 Translations of Aristophanes" - Advised by Martin Revermann
Jessica Higgins - "The Walking Journey in Archaic and Hellenistic Epic" - Advised by Jonathan Burgess
Cara Jordan - "Voicing Power through the Other: Elite Appropriations of Fable in the 1st-3rd Centuries" - Advised by Hugh Mason
Yuriy Lozynsky - "Hymns at Work: Greek Hymnography in Cult Contexts" - Advised by Martin Revermann
Robert McCutcheon - "The Archaeology of Cicero's Letters: A Study in Late Republican Textual Culture" - Advised by Erik Gunderson
Miranda Robinson - "Aurality: Hearing in the Tragedies of Sophocles" - Advised by Victoria Wohl
Lee Sawchuk - "The Tragic Chorus: Actors, Singers, Community" - Advised by Victoria Wohl
Eirene Seiradaki - "Achilles, Regifting, and (Im)mortality" - Advised by Jonathan Burgess
Daniel Walker Moore - "Progress, Learning, and the Benefit of History in Polybius" - Advised by John Dillery
Harold S. Reeves - "Suetonius the Peripatetic: The Greek Intellectual Origins of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars" - Advised by Anthony Woodman
Blanche Conger - "Horace's Mythological Lexicon: Recurring Myths and Meaning in the Odes" - Advised by Jenny Clay
Christopher Caterin - "The Poetics of Anxiety in Lucan's Bellum Civile" - Advised by Gregory Hays
David Hewett - "The First-Person Narratives in Seneca's Epistles" - Advised by Gregory Hays
Courtney Evans - "Time in the Odes of Horace" - Advised by Jenny Clay
Benjamin Jasnow - "What the Shepherds Sing: Popular Culture and Local Identity in the Bucolic Idylls of Theocritus" - Advised by Jenny Clay

Completed (2012-13 Archive from Newsletters)

Joe Diluzio - "Rhetoric and Popular Power in Cicero's Early Speeches" - Advised by A. Vasaly
Seth Holm - "Honeyed Cups: Latent Didacticism in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura" - Advised by S. Scully
Michael Vincze - "Dying to Know: Five Stories on Death and Identity in Apuleius' Metamorphoses" - Advised by J. Henderson
David Berger - "Plato's Lesser Hippias: Translation and Commentary" - Advised by M. L. Gill
Leo Landrey - "Valerius Flaccus' Roman Epic" - Advised by J. Reed
Robin McGill - "Aligning Myths and Experience: The Sanctification of Time in Early Christian Latin Hymns" - Advised by J. Pucci

Bryn Mawr College (Archaeology, Classics and History of Art)

Jessica Sisk - "Female Friendships in Greco-Roman Antiquity" - Advised by R. Scott

Bryn Mawr College (Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology)

Andrea Guzzetti - "A Walk through the Past: Toward a Study of Archaeological Museums in Italy, Greece, and Israel" - Advised by A.A. Donohue
Catherine W. Person - "Household Shrines and Cults in Roman Achaia: A New Approach to Examining Cultural Change under the Roman Empire" - Advised by A. Lindenlauf and R. Scott
Laura Elizabeth Surtees - "On the Surface of a Thessalian City: The Urban Survey of Kastro Kallithea Student" - Advised by A. Lindenlauf and J.C. Wright

City University of New York - The Graduate Center

Michael Broder - "Mensura Incognita: Queer Kinship, Camp Aesthetics, and Juvenal's Ninth Satire" - Advised by C. Williams
Hannah Lansky - "Plutarch's Fortune : A Close Reading" - Advised by P. Simpson
Paul McBreen - Ktiseis/Aitia in Various Ancient Greek Prose Authors" - Advised by J. Stern
Thomas R. Henderson II - "A History of the Athenian Ephebeia, 335-88 B.C." - Advised by James P. Sickinger
Sara Watkins - "Lucan 'Transforms' Ovid: Intertextual Studies in the Bellum Civile and the Metamorphoses" - Advised by Laurel Fulkerson
Robert Cioffi - "Imaginary Lands: Ethnicity, Exoticism, and Narrative in the Ancient Novel" - Advised by Albert Henrichs
Lauren Curtis - "On with the Dance! Imagining the Chorus in Augustan Poetry" - Advised by Richard Tarrant
Tiziana D'Angelo - "Painting Death with the Colors of Life: Funerary Wall Painting in South Italy (IV-II BCE)" - Advised by Adrian Staehli
Andrew Johnston - "The Sons of Remus: memory, community, and the construction of local identity in Roman Gaul and Spain" - Advised by Emma Dench
Duncan MacRae - "Books of Numa: Antiquarianism, writing and the making of Roman religion" - Advised by Emma Dench
Christopher Parrott - "The Geography of the Roman World in Statius' Silvae" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Richard Short - "Religion in Cicero" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Yvona Trnka-Amrhein - "A Study of The Sesonchosis Novel" - Advised by Albert Henrichs
Angeliki Kokkinou - "Poseidon in Attika: Cults and Iconography (c.a. 510-300 B.C.E.)" - Advised by Alan Shapiro
Benjamin Perriello - "Wrestling with Hermes, Heracles, and Eros: Social Tensions and Cult in the Gymnasium of Fourth-Century Athens" - Advised by Silvia Montiglio
Allison Surtees - "The Pouring Satyr: Copies and Context in Greece and Rome" - Advised by Alan Shapiro
Monica Signoretti - "The Language of Sacrifice: On the Verbal Dimensions of Sacrificial Ritual in Ancient Greece" - Advised by Alan Shapiro
Kyle Patrick Johnson - "Communicating Power in Caesar's Commentaries " - Advised by Joy Connolly
Amit Shilo - "The Tablet-Writing Mind of Hades: Poetics of the Afterlife in the Oresteia " - Advised by Philip Mitsis

The Ohio State Univeristy

Benjamin McCloskey - "Xenophon's Kyrou Amathia: Deceitful Narrative and the Birth of Tyranny" - Advised by Anthony Kaldellis
Maxwell Teitel Paule - "Canidia: A Literary Analysis of Horace's Witch" - Advised by Fritz Graf
Rosa Andújar - "The Chorus in Dialogue: Reading Lyric Exchanges in Greek Tragedy" - Advised by Andrew Ford
Meghan DiLuzio - "Female Religious Officials in Republican Rome" - Advised by Harriet Flower
Brigitte Libby - "Telling Troy: The Narrative Functions of Troy in Roman Poetry" - Advised by Denis Feeney
Anna Uhlig - "Script and Song in Pindar and Aeschylus" - Advised by Andrew Ford
Jennifer Mann - "The Moral Psychology of Sincerity in Fifth-Century Athens" - Advised by Andrew Ford
John A. Tully - "Networks, Hegemony, and Multipolarity in the Hellenistic Cyclades" - Advised by Marc Domingo Gygax
Rose MacLean - "Cultural Exchange in Roman Society: Freed Slaves and Social Values" - Advised by Brent Shaw
Adam Gitner - "Horace and the Greek Language: Aspects of Literary Bilingualism" - Advised by Joshua Katz
Aikaterini Tsolakidou - "The Helix of Dionysus: Musical Imagery in Later Euripidean Drama" - Advised by Andrew Ford
Lisa Whitlatch - "The Hunt for Knowledge: Hunting in Latin Didactic Poetry" - Advised by Leah Kronenberg
Alexander Duncan - "Tragic Ugliness: The Interplay of Genre and Aesthetics in Greek Drama" - Advised by Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi and Richard Martin
Nicholas Boterf - "Poet, Performance, and Community" - Advised by Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi and Richard Martin
Elizabeth Jones - "Lyric Physicality: Bodies and Objects in Archaic Greek Lyric Poetry" - Advised by Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi
Matthew Simonton - "The Rules of the Few: Institutions and the Struggle for POlitical Order in Classical Greek Oligarchies" - Advised by Josiah Ober
Sarah Janda - "Not Written in Stone: Martial and the Epigrammatic Reader" - Advised by Grant Parker
Juan Sebastian De Vivo - "The Memory of Greek Battle: Warfare, Identity and Materiality" - Advised by Michael Shanks

University at Buffalo SUNY

Benjamin Costello - "An Analysis of the Architecture and Material Culture from the Earthquake House at Kourion, Cyprus"
William Duffy - "Legacies of an Imaginary People: The Phaecians after Homer"
Scott Gallimore - "An Island Economy: Ierapetra and Crete in the Roman Economy"
Adam Hyatt - "From Taras to Tarentum: The Evolution of a Greek City in Roman Italy"
Matt Notarian - "Civic Transformation in Early Imperial Latium: An Archaeological and Social History of Praeneste, Tibur, and Tusculum"
Panagiota A. Pantou - "Mycenaean Society Outside the Palaces: A Study of Late Helladic IIB-IIIB1 Corridor Buildings"
Crystal Dean - "Roman Women Authors: Authorship, Agency and Authority" - Advised by J. Vanderspoel
Graham Wrightson - "Greek and Near Eastern Warfare 3000 to 301: The Development and Perfection of Combined Arms" - Advised by W. Heckel
Clinton J. Armstrong - "Ovid's Catalogue Tradition and Poetic Debate" - Advised by A. Zissos
Kourtney Murray - "An Enduring Message: Plato, Alcidamas, and the Medium of Writing" - P. DuBois
Paul Keen - "Land of Experiment: The Ptolemies and the Development of Hellenistic Cyprus, 312-58 BCE" - Advised by A. Bresson
Thomas Keith - "Blood, Toil, Tearless Sweat: Sparta in Philosophical Thought of the Late Republic and Early Empire" - Advised by C. Ando and E. Asmis
Rana Leibert - "Hunger for tears: Archaic Poetics and Plato's Critique of Poetic Pleasures" - Advised by M. Payne
Kate Milco - "Perpetua's Two Audiences: The Passio as a Sacred Performance" - Advised by C. Ando
Jody Gordon - "Between Alexandra and Rome: A Postcolonial Archaeology of Cultural Identity in Hellenistic and Roman Cyprus" - Advised by K. Lynch
Marcie Handler - "Crafting Matters: A Coroplastic Workshop in Roman Athens" - Advised by J. Davis
Lynne Kyapil - "The Agricultural Terraces of Korphos-Kalamianos: A Case Study of the Dynamic Relationship Between Land Use and Socio-Political Organizations in Prehistoric Greece" - Advised by J. Davis
Allison Sterrett-Krause - "The Impacts of Private Donations on the Civic Landscapes of Roman Africa Proconsularis" - Advised by S. Ellis
Peter Stone - "'Provincial' Perspectives: The Persians, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid Administrative Center at Tel Kedesh, Israel, in a Regional Context" - Advised by K. Lynch
Catherine Dunar - "Images of the Tiber Island: Art and Archaeology. A Catalog of Artists and Cartographers from the 14th through the 20th. Century" - Advised by R. Wagman
Robert Brewer - "Epic vs. Elegaic Identity: A New Model for Roman Leadership in Ovid's Fasti " - Advised by J. Rea
Megan M. Daly - "Tacitus' Germanicus and the Commanders of Germania" - Advised by V. Pagán
Thomas George Hendren - "Ovid, Augustus, and the Exilic Journey in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto" - Advised by J. Rea
Michael Ritter - "Historicizing Satire: A Vengance Deferred" - Advised by T. Johnson
Alison Lanski - "Emissaries in the Narrative of Herodotus" - Advised by D. Sansone
Karen Laurence - "Roman Infrastructural Changes to Greek Sanctuaries and Games: Panhellenism in the Roman Empire, Formations of New Identities" - Advised by Sharon Herbert
Leah Long - "Urbanism, Art and Economy: The Marble Quarrying Industries of Aphrodisias and Roman Asia Minor" - Advised by Christopher Ratté
Cassandra Borges - "The Geography of the Iliad in Ancient Scholarship" - Advised by Richard Janko
Joseph Groves - "Ethics and Imperialism in Livy" - Advised by David S. Potter
Katherine Lu - "Heracles and Heroic Disaster" - Advised by Ruth Scodel
Jonathan Rowland - "Footnotes to Sappho: An Examination of the Female Poets of Greece" - Advised by Ruth Scodel
Rebecca Sears - "The Practical Muse: Reconstructing the Contexts of a Greek Musical Papyrus" - Advised by Arthur Verhoogt
Shonda Tohm - "Contesting Masculinity: Locating the Male Body in Roman Elegy" - Advised by Ruth Caston and Basil Dufallo
Claudia Arno - "Going Native: How Romans Became 'Roman' in an Expanding World" - Advised by David Potter
Alexander Conison - "The Organization of Rome's Wine Trade" - Advised by Bruce Frier
Jennifer Finn - "Alexander the Great: Forming Political Identity in a Multicultural Empire" - Advised by David S. Potter and Margaret Root
Jared Secord - "Elites and Outsiders: The Greek-Speaking Scholars of Rome, 100 BCE - 200 CE" - Advised by David S. Potter and Raymond Van Dam
M. Christine Marquis - "Reading Aeneas and Dido: Suggestion and INference in Aeneid 1-4" - Advised by Christopher Nappa
Martin Wells - "A Cosmopolitan Village: The Hellenistic Settlement at Gordion" - Advised by Andrea Berlin
Michael Wise - "Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents" - Advised by George Sheets
Heather Woods - "Hunting Literary Legacies: Captatio in Roman Satire" - Advised by Christopher Nappa
Courtney Jade Friesen - “Reading Dionysus: Euripides' Bacchae among Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World” - Advised by Melissa Harl Sellew
T. H. M. Gellar-Goad - "Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and Satire" - Advised by James O'Hara
D. C. Anderson Wiltshire - "'Hopeful Joy': A Study of Laetus in Vergil's Aeneid " - Advised by James O'Hara
Elizabeth Wolfram Thill - "Cultural Constructions: Depictions of Architecture in Roman State Reliefs" - Advised by Monika Truemper
Jaclyn I. Neel - "Creative History, Political Reality: Imagining Monarchy in the Roman Republic" - Advised by Andreas Bendlin
James M. Lynd - "Aspects of Evil in Seneca's Tragedies" - Advised by Alison Keith
Laura E. Mawhinney - "Sympotic and Rhapsodic Discourse in the Homeric Epics" - Advised by Jonathan Burgess
Chris R. Wallace - "The Evolution of the Hellenistic Polis: Case Studies in Politics and Political Culture" - Advised by Ephriam Lytle
Sarah L. McCallum - "Taking Love Seriously: Amor and Erotic Elegy in Vergil's 'Italian Iliad'" - Advised by Alison Keith
Emily R. Fletcher - "Plato on Pleasure, Intelligence and the Human Good: An interpretation of the Philebus " - Advised by Rachel Barney
Melanie Racette-Campbell - "The Construction of Masculinity in Propertius" - Advised by Alison Keith
Mariapia Pietropaolo - "The Elegiac Grotesque" - Advised by Alison Keith
Daniel Leon - "Arrian, Alexander, and the Limits of the Second Sophistic" - Advised by John Dillery
Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi - "Playful Philosophy and Serious Sophistry: Reversals in Plato's 'Euthydemus'" - Advised by Jenny Clay
Andrew Beer - "Socrates and the Art of Healing Souls: A Study in Socratic Rhetoric" - Advised by Jon Mikalson
Rachel Bruzzone - "Cities as Characters in Thucydides" - Advised by John Dillery
Anne Wadlow Drogula - "The Love of His Life: The Programmatic Recurrence of the God Cupid in Ovid" - Advised by John Miller

In-Progress (2014 Archive from Newsletters)

Laurie Hutcheson - "Repeated Speech in the Iliad " - Advised by S. Scully
Michael Wheeler - "Reconciling Catullan Invective, Meter, and Audience Expectations" - Advised by P. Johnson
Rebekah Wysocki - "Death, Chaos and the Underworld in Lucan's Pharsalia " - Advised by P. Johnson
Deana Zeigler - "Death, Kore, and Succession Myths: The Homeric Hymn to Demeter" - Advised by S. Scully
Margaret Beeler - "Seals and Sealings of the Early Bronze Age of Greece: Political Economy and Social Practice" - Advised by J. Wright
Clay M. Cofer - "Grafting as Metaphor in Art, Literature, and Roman Empire-Building in the First Century B.C." - Advised by A.A. Donohue
Lauren Crampton - "Roman Mythological Landscape Painting" - Advised by A.A. Donohue
Ali Emre Kuruçayirli - "Copper and Bronze Artifacts from Selected Sites in Cilicia" - Advised by P. Magee and J. Wright
Emily N. Moore - "Roman Representations of Northern Barbarians" - Advised by A.A. Donohue
Hollister Pritchett - "Representations of Children and Stages of Childhood in Athenian Art from the Late Sixth to Early Fourth Century B.C.E." - Advised by A. Lindenlauf
Danielle Smotherman - "Decoding Meaning: Understanding Communication in Athenian Vase-Painting of the Archaic and Classical Periods" - Advised by A. Lindenlauf
Emily Stevens - "Late Prepalatial Crete" - Advised by J. Wright

Bryn Mawr College (Department Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies)

Diane Amoroso-O'Connor - "Not Bread Alone: The Ancillary Trade of the Cura Annona " - Advised by D. Scott
Lee Burnett - "The Neronian Grotesque: Satire in the Age of Nero" - Advised by C. Conybeare
Jennifer Hoit - "History before History: Historical Memory and the Greek Poetic Tradition" - Advised by R. Edmonds III
Sara Sieteski - "The Offensive and Defensive Role of Outlying Fort and Town Settlements on Hadrian's Wall" - Advised by D. Scott
Abbe Walker - "From Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ: Metaphor and Symbol in the Lives and Deaths of Unmarried Women in Greece and Christian Rome" - Advised by R. Edmonds III
Edward Whitehouse - "Σοφία θεῖα and λόγοι: The Dual Objects of Gregory Nazianzen's Burning Desire" - Advised by C. Conybeare
Lionel Yaceczko - "Ausonius of Bordeaux: Grammar, Rhetoric and the Establishment of a Christian Culture in the Late Roman West" - Advised by W. Klingshirn

City University of New York

Michael Goyette - "Discourses of Illness in Senecan Tragedy" - Advised by C. Williams
Timothy Hanford - " Nec Una Nox Est : Multiple Negation in Senecan Tragedy" - Advised by R. Ancona
Cameron G. Pearson - "Alkmaionid Epigrams and the Framing of Archaic Monuments" - Advised by J. Lidov
Jared Simard - "Classics and Rockefeller Center: John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the Use of Classicism in Public Space" - Advised by R. Ancona
Alan Sumler - "Who Stole the Daedalean Statue?" - Advised by J. Lidov
Allison C. Boex - " Hic Tacitus Lapis : Voice, Audience, and Space in Early Roman Verse-Epitaphs" - Advised by D. Mankin

Duke University

Theodore Graham - "The Tyrant, the City and the Stage: The Shifting Depiction of Tyranny in Athenian Tragedy" - Advised by P. Burian
Mackenzie Zalin - "Studies in Aetiology and Historical Methodology in Herodotus" - Advised by W. Johnson
Patrick Burns - " Armor Belli : Elegiac Diction and the Topic of Amor in Lucan's Bellum Civile " - Advised by M. McGowan
Patrick Callahan - " Prolegomena ad Scholia Vetera Pindarica " - Advised by J. Foster
Matthew Keil - " Concordia as an Historiographical Principle in Sallust and St. Augustan - Advised by R. Penelia and C. Sogno
Calliope Dourou - "From Byzantium to Modern Greece: Recapturing the legacy of Homer in Nikolaos Loukanes' 1526 Iliad ” - Advised Panagiotis Roilos
Mariah E. Smith - "Dimensions of Space and Time in the Literary Worlds of Pliny and Martial" - Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Jacquelyn Clements - "Visualizing Autochthony and Identity in Late Fifthe Century BCE Athens" - Advised by A. Shapiro
Daniel S. Houston - "Aldus Manutius and the Erotemata of Constantine Lascaris" - Advised by C. Celenza
Nicholas Kauffman - "Rereading Death: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Ancient Reception of Homeric Battle Narrative" - Advised by S. Montiglio

McMaster University

Amanda Hardman - "Urbanism in Asia Minor" - Advised by M. Beckman
Jonathan Reeves - "Effects and Legacy of Peloponnesian War at Athens" - Advised by S. Corner
Barbara Scarfo - "Roman Conception of Maternity" - Advised by M. George
Ryan Walsh - "Greek Federal Leagues in the Late Hellenistic Age" - Advised by C. Eilers
Patricia White - "Historiography of the Struggle of the Orders" - Advised by C. Eilers
Michael Jean - "The Fasti in the Classroom: A Critical Edition and Study of the Glosses of Pomponius Laetus on Ovid's Fasti " - Advised by F. Coulson
Marion Kruse - "The Politics of Roman Memory under Justinian" - Advised by A. Kaldellis
Joseph M. Lipp - "Fires, Floods, and Races of Men: Imagining the World's Ending Archaic and Classical Greece" - Advised by C. López- Ruiz
Adam Rappold - "A Festival Reexamined: New Perspectives on the Skira" - Advised by S. Iles Johnston
Aaron Hershkowitz - "Rise of the Demagogues: Political Leadership in Imperial Athens after the Reforms of Ephialtes" - Advised by T. Figueira

University of British Columbia

Justin Dwyer - "Roman Comedy" - Advised by C. Marshall
Jayne Knight - "Roman Anger in Action: Pragmatism, Performance, and Power" - Advised by S. Braund
Andrew McClellan - "Dead and Deader: The Treatment of the Corpse in Latin Imperial Epic Poetry" - Advised by S. Braund
Kevin Solez - "Multicultural Banqueting in the Development of Archaic Greek Society: An Investigation into Modes of Intercultural Contact" - Advised by F. De Angelis
Tyson Sukava - "The Expanding Body: Anatomical Vocabulary and its Dissemination in Classical Athens" - Advised by C. Marshall
Riccardo Bertolazzi - "The Women of the Domus Augusta from the Severian Age until the Advent of the Tetrarchy" - Advised by H. Sigismund-Nielsen
Lesley Bolton - "An Edition, Translation and Commentary on Mustio's Gynaecia " - Advised by H. Sigismund-Nielsen
Megan Falconer - "Persian Gold: Achaemenid Intervention in Greek Politics" - Advised by F. Pownall and R. Bertolin Cebrian
Amber J. Porter - "Empathy and Compassion in the Medicine and Literature of the First and Second Centuries AD" - Advised by P. Toohey

University of California, Berkeley

Seth Estrin - "Objects of Pity: Art and Emotion in Archaic and Classical Greece, c. 520-380 BCE" - Advised by A. Stewart
Rachel H. Lesser - "Listening for the Plot: The Role of Desire in the Iliad 's Narrative" - Advised by M. Griffith
Derin McLeod - "The Point of a Politeia : Changing Conceptions of Regimen and Regime from 500 to 350 BCE" - Advised by G. Ferrari
Sarah Olsen - "Beyond Choreia : Solo and Individualized Dance in Ancient Greek Literature and Culture" - Advised by L. Kurke
Rachel Preminger - "Sallustian Anxieties: the Significance and Value of Fear" - Advised by D. Sailor
Joel Street - "Atypical Lives: Networks of Authority in Plutarch's Theseus-Romulus " - Advised by M. Griffith
Elizabeth A. Wueste - "Politics and Religion in Late Antique Honorific Monuments: Portraiture, Body Sculpture, and Epigraphy" - Advised by C. Hallett
Kevin Batton - "Graphic Language: Visualization and Plot Structure in Aeschylus" - Advised by J. Porter
Chris Edmonston - "Authorship & Ownership: Literary Property in Ancient Greece" - Advised by J. Porter
Jeffrey Feland - "Juvenal and the Boundaries of Libertas " - Advised by J. Porter
Aleah Hernandez - "Horrors of the Unseen: Depictions of Violence in Homer and Greek Tragedy" - Advised by J. Porter
Brian A. Apicella - "The Politics of Knowledge in Plato's Statesman " - Advised by D. Blank
Douglas M. Fraleigh - "Aristophanes on Attic: The Role of Traditional Attic in Comedy" - Advised by B. Vine
Hilary Lehmann - "Feeling Home: House and Ideology in the Attic Orators" - Advised by K. Morgan
William McCrary - "Homeric Subjects: Psychoanalysis, Emotion, and the Iliad " - Advised by B. Vine
Jeremy Brightbill - "The Scenarios of Roman Declamation: - Advisd by S. Bartsch-Zimmer
Marcos Gouvêa, " Homerus vester Mantuanus : Vergil as Authority in Macrobius and Servius" - Advised by S. Bartsch-Zimmer
Kassandra Jackson - "A Doctor on the Clocks: Galen's Use of Clocks and Hours" - Advised by C. Faraone, J. Hall, and A. Bresson
Julie Mebane - "The Head-of-State: Figuring Authority in Roman Politics" - Advised by M. Lowrie
Mitch Brown - "Off-Stage Activity, Plot and Characterization in Menander" - Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Kyle Helms - "The Pursuit of Eloquence: Publicly Supported Rhetorical Education in the High Roman Empire" - Advised by D. Markovic
Alexandros Laftsidis - "Identifying a Hellenistic Ceramic Koine" - Advised by K. Lynch
Molly Miller - "Poetic Evolution of the Female Self in Stories of Sexual Violence" - Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Paschalis Zafeiriadis - "Spatial Organization and Social Change in the End of the Neolithic and the Beginning of Bronze Age in the Regions of Macedonia and Thessaly, Greece" - Advised by E. Hatzaki and J. Davis

University of Colorado Boulder

Reina Callier - "Missing Persons: Character, Context, and Ovidian Poetics" - Advised by C. Newlands
Mitch Penzer - "Dark Humor in Imperial Latin Literature" - Advised by J. Elliot
Miller Krause - "The Chracters of Roman Declamation" - Advised by K. Kapparis
Generosa Sangco-Jackson - "Horace's Roman Odes: A Therapeutic Reading" - Advised by T. Johnson
Bill Smith - " Mors Honestissima : Cicero and the Contemplation of Suicide in the Late Republic" - Advised by J. Rea
Jeff Yeakel - "Population Dynamics in Ancient Greek Civil Wars, Insurgencies and Revolts: A Systems Approach" - Advised by A. Wolpert
Aaron Burns - "Diatribe and Plutarch's Practical Ethics" - Advised by J. Finamore
Vanessa Espinosa - "Submitting to God: A Comparative Study of Apuleius's Metamorphoses , Augustine's Confessions , and Aelius Aristides's Sacred Tales " - Advised by J. Finamore
Matthew Horrell - "Foreground and Background in the Homeric Epics" - Advised by R. Ketterer
Andrea Brock - "Environment and Topography of the Archaic Forum Boarium" - Advised by N. Terrenato
Daniel Diffendale - "Visible Vessels and Values in Classical Archaeology" - Advised by N. Terrenato
Jennifer Kreiger - "The Business of Commemoration: A Comparative Study of Roman Neapolitan Catacombs" - Advised by E. Gazda
Katherine Larson - "Crafting the Hellenistic World: Technology and Innovation in Hellenistic Glass Production" - Advised by S. Herbert
Jana Mokrisova - "The Role of Mobility During the LBA-EIA Transition in the SE Aegean and SW Anatolia" - Advised by C. Ratte
Emma Buckingham - "Identity and Material Culture in the Interplay of Locals and Greek Settlers in Sicily and South Italy in the Archaic Period" - Advised by C. Antonaccio
Katherine R. De Boer - " Puellae Moriturae : Women and Death in the Odyssey , the Aeneid , and the Metamorphoses " - Advised by S. James
Zack P. Rider - "Approaching Divinity: The INteraction Between Gods, Humanity and Poet in Didactic from Hesiod to Manilius" - Advised by J. O'Hara
Daniel Schindler - "Local Poettery in Late Roman and Byzantine Galilee (400-700CE)" - Advised by J. Magness

University of Southern California

Dina Boero - "Simeon and the Making of the Stylite" - Advised by K. van Bladel
Matthew Chaldekas - "Vision and Character in Theocritus" - Advised by W. Thaimann
Scott Lepisto - "The Dynamics of Speech in Senecan Prose" - Advised by T. Habinek
Afroditi Manthati-Angelopoulou - "Feeling Words: Language and Emotion in Aeschylean Tragedy" - Advised by W. Thalmann
Robert Matera - "Propertian Corpora and a Poetics of Open Textuality" - Advised by T. Habinek

University of Texas at Austin

Jacqueline DiBiasie - "The Writing on the Wall: The Spatial and Literary Context of Domestic Graffiti from Pompeii" - Advised by R. Taylor
Don Carlo Goduto - "Communities of Assemblages: A Network Analysis Perspective on Cultural Contact and Interaction in Southern Italy from 750-475 BCE" - Advised by A. Rabinowitz
James A. Inman - "The Orphic Argonautica : Grammar, Tradition, Translation" - Advised by T. Hubbard
Jonathan MacLellan - "The Technitai of Dionysus: Theater and Politics in the Hellenistic World" - Advised by P. Perlman
Laura Brooke Rich - "Ridicule in Ancient Rome" - Advised by A. Riggsby
Alex Cushing - "The Economic Relationship between Patron and Freedman in Italy in the Early Roman Empire" - Advised by C. Bruun
Susan Dunning - "Roman Ludi Saeculares from the Republic to Empire" - Advised by A. Bendlin
John MacCormick - "The Paradox of Guilt: Motive and Moral Judgement in Greek and Roman Philosophy" - Advised by B. Inwood
Janet Mowat - "The Private Sphere in Forensic Rhetoric" - Advised by V. Wohl
Gilbert Nathan - "Cicero and Roman Epicureanism in the Late Republic" - Advised by B. Inwood

University of Washington

Edward Bertany - Apollo Through Time and Space: from Homer's Troy to Ovid's Rome" - Advised by O. Levaniouk
Rachel Carlson - " Apes...Ego Eivinas Bestias Puto : Apian Imagery in Classical Literature" - Advised by J. Clauss
Allison Das - "When (S)he Spoke: A Study of the Feminized Voice in the Aeschines-Demosthenes Orations" - Advised by Ruby Blondell
Brandon Jones - "The Sophistic Roman: Education and Status in Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny" - Advised by A. Gowing
Jessica Kapteyn - "All Italy an Orchard: Landscape and the State in Varro's de Re Rustica " - Advisd by S. Culpepper Stroup
Bridget Langley - "Written on Running Water: Ovidian Poetics in the Roman Waterscape" - Advised by S. Hinds

University of Western Ontario

Alexandra Dawson - "Non-Athenian Scenes of Supplication in Euripidean Tragedy" - Advised by A. Suksi
Mary Deminion - "Gender in Justinian's Digest of Roman Law " - Advised by K. Olson
Dwayne Meisner - "Orphic Theogonies" - Advised by C. Brown
Jonathan Vickers - "Ancient Greek Acrobatics" - Advised by A. Suksi

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Susan Drummond - "Conversations We Never Had: Cicero and Varro's INtertextual Dialogue" - Advised by G. Nelsestuen
Stephen Geiger - "The Conquered Conquers: The Art of Exile in Josephus" - Advised by J. Beneker
Amanda C. Gregory - "Crafting Images: Critical and Aesthetic Discourse in Hellenistic Poetry" - Avised by P. Rosenmeyer
Kathleen C. Rogers - "Finding Time to Write: Literary Amicitia and the Economy of Time in Flavian Rome " - Advised by A. Dressler

Completed (2014 Archive from Newsletters)

Sophie Klein - "Playing the Part: The Role of the Client in Horace's Sermones and Epistles " - Advised by P. Johnson
Stella Diakou - "Lapithos: The Upper Geometric Cemetery" - Advised by J. Wright
Eleanor V. Mulhern - "Roman Nostalgia: Exemplarity and Romanitas in Late Republican and Imperial Literature" - Advised by C. Conybeare
Sr. Maria M. Kiely - "Ambrose the Pastor and the Image of the Bride: Exegesis, Philosophy, and the Song of Songs" - Advised by P. Rousseau
Brent Douglas Gilbert - "The Image of God: Greek Medicine and Trinitarian Polemic in Gregory of Nyssa's De Hominis Opificio " - Advised by W. McCarthy
Alissa A. Vaillancourt - "Leonidas of Tarentum: A Wandering Poet in the Tradition of Greek Literature" - Advised by D. Clayman
Lindsay Lauren Sears-Tam - "Didaskalos: The Invention of the Teacher in Classical Athens" - Advised by J. Rusten
Joseph G. Miller - "Democritus and the Critical Tradition" - Advised by J. Gonzalez
Stephen A Collins-Elliott - "The Table of the Transient World: Long-term Historical Process and the Culture of Mass Consumption in Ancient Rome and Italy, 200 BCE - 20 CE" - Advised by N. de Grummond
Hillary E. Conley - "Black-Gloss Ceramics from the Samnite/Roman Habitation Site on Monte Pallano and the Implications for the Economy and Identity of the Inhabitants of Samnium" - Advised by N. de Grummond
Alexander Buzick - "Fragmentary Tragic Poetry in Cicero" - Advised by M. McGowan
Daniel Bertoni - "The Cultivation and Conceptualization of Exotic Plants in the Greek and Roman Worlds" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky and Richard Thomas
Vladimir Bošković - "The Ethos of Language and the Ethical Philosophy of Odysseus Elytis" - Advised by Panagiotis Roilos
Claire Bubb - "Galen's Anatomy: Audience and Context" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky
Tom Keeline - "A Rhetorical Figure: Cicero in the Early Empire" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Andrea Kouklanakis - "Satire, Blame Poetics, and the Suitors in the Homeric Odyssey" - Advised by Gregory Nagy
Julia Scarborough - "The Silent Shepherd: Pastoral as a Tragic Strategy in Virgil's Aeneid " - Advised by Richard Thomas
Michael Holstead - "Homeric Arming Rituals: A Study of Oral Composition and Ritual Dynamics" - Advised by J. Ready
Michael Salvatore Vasta - "The Crisis of Exemplarity and Sallust's Histories " - Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Hanne Eisenfeld - "Only Mostly Dead: Immortality and Related States in Pindar's Victory Odes" - Advised by S. Iles Johnston
Luke Gorton - "Through the Grapevine: Tracing the Origins of Wine" - Advised by C. López-Ruiz
Craig Jendza - "Euripidean Paracomedy" - Advised by T. Hawkins
John Richards - "Thucydides in the Circle of Philip Melanchthon" - Advised by F. Coulson
Agapi Stefanidou - "The Reception of Epic Kleos in Greek Tragedy" - Advised by T. Hawkins
Mark Wright - "The Liber Amicus : Studies in Horace Sermones I" - Advised by W. Batstone
David H. Kaufman - "Love, Compassion and Other Vices: A History of the Stoic Theory of the Emotions" - Advised by H. Lorenz
Madeleine K. Jones - "Seneca: The World According to Nature" - Advised by A. Feldherr
Mallory A. Monaco - "The Hellenistic Past in Plutarch's Lives " - Advised by C. Güthenke
Jason Pedicone - "Dramatic Measures: Meter and the Birth of Book Lyric in Greece and Rome" - Advised by D. Feeney
Daniel J. Tober - "The Autobiographical Community: Local Historiography in Classical and Hellenistic Greece" - Advised by N. Luraghi
Martin Sirois - "The Early Cynic Tradition: Shaping Diogenes' Character" - Advised by C. Wildberg
Donna G. Zuckerberg - "The Oversubtle Maxim Chasers: Aristophanes, Euripides,a nd their Reciprocal Pursuit of Poetic Identity" - Advised by A. Ford
Bryan Natali - "Pietas: Gods, Family, Homeland, Empire" - Advised by H. Sigismund-Nielsen
Sasha-Mae Eccleston - "Apuleius' Novel Narrative: Speech, Ethics, and Humanity in the Metamorphoses " - Advised by K. McCarthy
J. Marilyn Evans - "Funerary Ritual and Urban Development in Archaic Central Italy" - Advised by J. Peña
Virginia M. Lewis - "Myth, Locality, and Identity in Pindar's Sicilian Odes" - Advised by L. Kurke
Naomi A. Weiss - " Mousike and Mythos : The Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy" - Advised by m. Griffith and L. Kurke
Emily Jusino - "Misleading Reports, False Resolutions, and Sophoclean Dramaturgy" - Advised by S. Nooter
Jacobo Myerston - "The Reception of Mesopotamian Etymologizing in Early Greek POetry and Cosmogony" - Advised by C. Faraone
Natalie Abell - "Reconsidering a Cultural Crossroads: A Diachronic Analysis of Ceramic Production, Consumption, and Exchange Patterns at Bronze Age Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece" - Advised by J. Davis
Charles Campbell - "Poets and Poetics in Greek Literary Epigram" - Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Allison Cartmell Emmerson - " Memoria et Monumenta : Local Identities and the Tombs of Roman Campania" - Advised by S. Ellis
David Hetrick - "Coming Home to Drama: Alternative Paradigms of Nostos in Sophoklean Tragedy" - Advised by G. Van Steen
Lindsay Samson - "The Philosophy of Desire in Theocritius' Idylls " - Advised by M. Depew
Henry Colburn - "The Sixth Satrapy: Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt" - Advised by M. Root
Angela Commito - "Environmental Change and the End of Antiquity in Asia Minor" - Advised by C. Ratte
Lynley McAlpine Marble - "Memory and Meaning in the Four Pompeian Styles of Wall Painting" - Advised by E. Gazda
Don Burrows - “The Art of Deception: Longus and the Ancient Novel” - Advised byNita Krevans
Christine Lechelt - “Allusions of Grandeur: Gigantomachy, Callimachean Poetics, and Literary Filiation” - Advised by Nita Krevans and Christopher Nappa
Rhian Rowlands - "Eunuchs and Sex: Beyond Sexual Dichotomy in the Roman World" - Advised by R. Marks
Erin E. Galligan - "Early Helladic Decorated Ceramic Hearths" - Advised by D. Haggis
Elizabeth C. Robinson - "The Impact of Roman Expansion in Central-Southern Italy: The Case of Larinum" - Advised by N. Terrenato
Serena Witzke - "Reading Greek and Roman New Comedy Through Oscar Wilde's SOciety Plays" - Advised by S. James

University of Pennsylvania

Joanna Kenty - "Forense Regnum: Oratory from Republic to Principate" - Advised by C. Damon
Hamish Cameron - "Constructing a Borderland: Roman Imperial Geographic Writers on Mesopotamia from the 1st to 4th Centuries CE" - Advised by C. Moatti
Orazio Cappello - "Cicero's Academica and the Foundation of a Roman Academy" - Advised by A. Boyle
Nicole Giannella - "The Mind of the Slave: the Limits of Knowledge and Power in Roman Law and Society" - Advised by C. Moatti
Ann Morgan - "Promoting Pedigree: Elite Identity, Civic Memory, and Competitive Munificence in Roman Asia Minor" - Advised by J. Gates Foster
Bartolo Anthony Natoli - "Speech, Community, and the Formation of Memory in the Ovidian Exilic Corpus " - Advised by G. K. Galinsky
Luis Alejandro Salas - "Anatomy and Anatomical Exegesis in Galen of Pergamum" - Advised by L. Dean-Jones and R. J. Hankinson
Vichi Ciocani - "Virginity and Representation in the Greek Novel and Early Greek Poetry" - Advised by H. Mason
Cara Jordan - "Voicing Power through the Other: Elite Appropriations of Fable in the 1st-3rd Centuries C.E." - Advised by H. Mason
Patrick L. Hadley - "Athens in Rome, Rome in Germany: Nicodemus Firschlin's 1586 Translations of Aristophanes" - Advised by M. Revermann
Yuriy Lozynsky - "Ancient Greek Cult Hymns: Poets, Performers and Rituals" - Advised by M. Revermann
Robert McCutcheon - "An Archaeology of Cicero's Letters: A study of Late Republican Textual Culture" - Advised by E. Gunderson
Miranda Robinson - "Ways of Hearing Sophokles: AUditory Spaces and Social Dynamics in the Elektra , Philoktetes , Trachiniai , and Oidipous Tyrannos " - Advised by V. Wohl
Naomi Campa-Thompson - "I Do What I Want: Freedom and Power in Classical Athens" - Advised by R. Blondell
Lissa Crofton-Sleigh - "The Building of Verse: Descriptions of Architectural Structures in Roman Poetry" - Advised by C. Connors
Morgan Palmer - "Inscribing Augustan Personae: Epigraphic COnventions and Memory Across Genres" - Advised by A. Gowing
Laura Zientek - "The Landscape of Civil War: Geography, Ecphrasis, and Philosophy in Lucan's Bellum Civile " - Advised by C. Connors
James Kruck - "The Modalities of Roman Translation: Source-representative, Allusive, and Independent" - Advised by D. Nousek
Peter Miller - "Athletes in Song and Stone: Victory and Identity in Epinician and Epigram" - Advised by C. Brown
Lisa M. Feldkamp - "Let Sleeping Eros Lie: Erotobucolic Poetry in Hebrew, Greek and Roman Literature" - Advised by P. Rosenmeyer
Kerry A. Lefebvre - "With You in That Dress: Cultus and Elegy in Rome" - Advised by L. McClure
Colleen M. Rice - "Carried away by Bacchus: The Power and Politics of bacchic Inspiration in the Augustan Poets" - Advised by A. Dressler
Josh Smith - "Greek and Roman Scholarly Traditions: Ancient Interpretations of Euripides, Aeschines, Terence, and Vergil" - Advised by J. McKeown
Matthew P. Vieron - "Poetic Voice and Readership in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura " - Advised by A Dressler and P. Rosenmeyer

In-Progress (2015 Archive from Newsletters)

Rachel Fisher – “Mortal Women as Voices of Counsel in Homer’s Iliad” – Advised by S. Scully
Colin Pang – “Hesiod – and Homer – in Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica” – Advised by S. Scully
David T. West – “The Case for Politics: a Cross-generic Study of Cicero’s Arguments for Political Engagement” – Advised by A. Vasaly
E. Perot Bissell – “Expansive Epic: Subsumption, Totalization, and Primacy in the Narratives of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Indian Subcontinent” – Advised by J. Reed
Justin E. Byrd – “Highest Good or Strong Poison: the Rhetorical Construction of Patronage in the Brahmin Tradition” – Advised by J. Fitzgerald
Darrel Janzen – “Performing Citizen Identity within Confined Spaces in the Literature at the End of the 1st Century CE” – Advised by J. Bodel
Joseph Kurz – “The Barcid Empire?” – Advised by J. Bodel
Dominic Machado – “Collective Action and Social Identity in the Roman Army during the Late Republic” – Advised by J. Bodel and L. Mignone
Rachel Philbrick – “Credibility amidst the Incredible: Hyperbole and Persuasion in Ovid’s Exile Poetry” – Advised by J. Reed
Daria Resh – “Early Metaphraseis in Byzantine Hagiography (c. 800-c.1000)” – Advised by J. Pucci
Jennifer Swalec – “Weaving for the Gods: The Role of Textiles in Ancient Greek Religion” – Advised by A. Scafuro
Fred Fraser – “The Role of Metaphors and Similes in Plotinus’ Enneads” – Advised by W. McCarthy
Natasha Binek – “The Rehabilitation of Aphrodite in Vergil’s Aeneid” – Advised by H. Pelliccia
Micaela Carinano – “Ceramic Evidence for Food and Feasting on Proto- and Neopalatial Crete” – Advised by S. Manning
Michael Esposito – “Information and its Uses in the Aeneid: Knowledge, Rhetoric, and the Struggle for Power” – Advised by M. Fontaine
Katherine Jarriel – “Small Worlds After All? Landscape and Community Interaction in the Cycladic Bronze Age” – Advised by S. Manning
Jeffrey Leon – “Beyond ‘Counting Sheep’: Isotopic Approaches to Minoan and Late Cypriot Shepherding and Political Economy” – Advised by S. Manning
Jacob Nabel – “Crossing the Euphrates: Arsacid Hostages and Roman-Parthian Relations in the First Century CE” – Advised by B. Strauss
Goran Vidovic – “The Allusive Playwright: Self-Reflexivity and Metapoetry in Terence” – Advised by M. Fontaine
Mackenzie Zalin - “Studies in Aetiology and Historical Methodology in Herodotus,” - Advised by W. Johnson (completed 2016)
Carl Young - “Plato's Cretan Colony: Theology and Religion in the Political Philosophy of the Laws” - Advised by J. Atkins (completed 2016)
Robert Dudley - “"Rhetoric, Roman Values, and the Fall of the Republic in Cicero's Reception of Plato" – Advised by J. Atkins (completed 2016)
Theodore Graham - "The Tyrant, the City, and the Stage: The Shifting Depiction of Tyranny in Athenian Tragedy" – Advised by P. Burian
Kathryn Langenfeld - " Forging a History: the Inventions and Intellectual Community of the Historia Augusta" - Advised by M. T. Boatwright
John Aldrup-MacDonald - "Paper Trails: The Ephemeral Document in Greek Politics and Law" - Advised by J. Sosin
Timothy Shea - “The Dead among the Living: Mapping Death in Classical Athens” - Advised by C. Antonaccio and S. Dillon
Melissa Huber - "Monumentalizing Infrastructure: the City and People of Rome under Claudius" - Advised by M. T. Boatwright
Patrick Burns – “ Amor Belli : Elegiac Diction and Themes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile” – Advised by M. McGowan
Lauren Carpenter – “Achilles Tatius: An Intertextual Reading of the Myths” – Advised by M. McGowan and D. Konstan
Elizabeth Mitchell - "Thinking through bodies: cupids as mediators in Roman art" - Advised by Emma Dench
Anthony Shannon - "Africa Romana: Tradition, Appropriation and Interaction in the Development of Pre-Existing Urban Landscapes in Roman North Africa" - Advised by Adrian Staehli

(2015-2016) Harvard University

Samantha Blankenship - "Greek and Persian Historiography of the Achaemenids" - Advised by Paul Kosmin
Michael Konieczny - "The Power of Talk: Discourse, Interpretation, and Ideology in the Annals of Tacitus" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Kyle Guenther Grothoff – “A Cultural History of Astrology” – Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Mariah Elaine Smith – “Space and Performance in Martial’s Epigramsand the Letters of the Younger Pliny” – Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Amanda Hardman – “Roman Baths in their Urban Context” – Advised by M. Beckmann
Kyle McLeister – “Publicani in the Principate” – Advised by E. Haley
Jonathan Reves – “Kenesis: The Efects of the Peloponnesian War on Athenian Society and Culture” – Advised by S. Corner
Barbara Scarfo – “The Social Construction of Roman Maternity” – Advised by M. George
Patricia White – “Reinterpretations of the Struggle of the Orders: Re-working Historical Memory” – Advised by C. Eilers
Nathalie Sado Nisinson – “Greek Heroes, Roman Rituals: Cult and Culture Clash in Ovid’s Heroides” – D. Levene
Calloway Scott – “Asklepios on the Move: Cult and the Institutions of Healthcare in Classical Greece”
Hanna Golab – “Postclassical Choral Performances” – Advised by A. Ford
Amanda Klause – “Grief, Loss, and the Boundaries of the Self in Statius’ Silvae” – Advised by D. Feeney
Brahm Kleinman – “Accountability in the Roman Republic (201-49 BCE)” – Advised by H. Flower
Paul Touyz – “Satyr-play as Genre and its Critical Conception in Antiquity” – Advised by A. Ford
Mathura Umachandran – “Dis/Enchanting Antiquity: Exile and Return to Antiquity in the Thought of Theodor Adorno, Hanna Arendt and Erich Auerbach” – Advised by B. Holmes
Vanya Visnjic – “The Origins of the Concept of Duty in Antiquity” – Advised by C. Wildberg
Clem Wood – “Exemplarity in Tacitus” – Advised by A. Feldherr
Scott Barnard – “Actors & Conspirators: Civic Anxiety in Late Attic Tragedy” – Advised by E. Allen-Hornblower
Aaron Beck-Schachter – “The Motility of Cult Icon and Ritual Surrogate in Euripidean Tragedy” – Advised by T. Power and T. Figueira
Charles George – “Epigrams of Diogenes Laertius” – Advised by T. Power
Aaron Hershkowitz – “Rise of the Demagogues: Political Leadership in Imperial Athens after the Reforms of Ephialtes” – Advised by T. Figueira
Brian Mumper – “Inconcinnitas Rerum: Imparting and Obscuring Meanings in Sallust’s Historiography” – Advised by T. Brennan
Maude Côté-Landry – “Political Authority and Religion in Ancient Greece” – Advised by F. De Angelis
Ryan Johnson – “Greece and the Near east”
Grace A. Gillies – “Despicable Cities: Urban Sites of Disgust in Roman Satire and Related Genres” – Advised by A. Richlin
Irene Han – “Think Like a Woman: Plato and Desire” – Advised by G. Sissa
Justin Vorhis – “The Best of the Macedonians: Alexander as Achilles in Curtius, Plutarch, and Arrian” – Advised by K. Morgan
Mitch Brown – “Invisible Drama: Offstage Activity in Menander” – Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Taylor Coughlan – “Dialect and Poetic Meaning in Hellenistic Book Epigram” – Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Alison Fields – “An Archaeology of the Athenian Economy” – Advised by K. Lynch
Kyle Helms – “Masters of Eloquence and Empire: The Integration of Latin Rhetorical Education and Roman Political Power” – Advised by D. Markovic
Kathleen Kidder – “Representations of Truth and Falsehood in Hellenistic Poetry” – Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Alexandros Laftsidis – “The Hellenistic Ceramic ‘Koine’ Revisited” – Advised by K. Lynch
David Schwei – “The Empire Strikes: The Making of the Roman Imperial Currency System” – Advised by B Burrell and P. van Minnen
Meg Sneeringer – “The Prehistoric Material from the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project/Archaeological Survey” – Advised by J. Davis
Jesse Taniguchi – “Political Agency and Philosophical Reform in Plato’s Republicic” – Advised by Susan Prince
Pachalis Zafeiriadis – “Spatial Organization and Social Change in the End of the Neolithic and the Beginning of Bronze Age in Macedonia, Greece” – Advised by J. Davis and E. Hatzaki
Sara Agnelli – “Galen on Tremor, Rigor, Palpitation and Spasm: An English Translation of Galen’s De Tremore, Rogore, Palpitatione et Colvulsione Liber, with Introduction, Text and Critical Commentary” – Advised by K. Kapparis
Nicholas Dee – “Currencies of Control in Tacitus’ Histories: Oaths, Money and Religion in the Civil Wars of 69 CE” – Advised by A. Augoustakis
Tyler Fyotek – “Coping with Mortality: Ancient Greek Thought on Death and Dying” – Advised by P. Dilley
Michael S. Overholt – “Phantasiaand the Art of Living from Plato to Galen” – Advised by J. Finamore

University of Michigan

Andrea Brock – “Environmental and Topography of the Archaic Forum Boarium” – Advised by N. Terrenato
Dan Diffendale – “Containing Multitudes? Visible Vessels and Values in Classical Archaeology” – Advised by N. Terrenato
Jenny Kreiger – “The Business of Commemoration: A Comparative Study of Italian Catacombs” – Advised by E. Gazda and E. Sears
Katherine Larson – “Innovation in the Production and Consumption of Glass during the Hellenistic Period” – Advised by S. Herbert
Paolo Maranzana – “Cities and Countryside in Late Roman-Early Byzantine Central Anatolia” – Advised by C. Ratté
Neville McFerrin – “Fashioning Realities: Ambiguity, Adornment, and the Performance of Social Position in the Pompeian House” – Advised by E. Gazda
Jana Mokrisova – “The Role of Mobility during the LBA-EIA Transition in the SE Aegean and SW Anatolia” – Advised by C. Ratté
Emma Sachs – “Stylistic Allusions in Campanian Wall Painting” – Advised by E. Gazda
Timothy Hart – “Beyond Romans and Barbarians: Power and Environment in the Danube Borderland” – Advised by D. Potter and R. van Dam
Garrett Ryan – “Placing Power: Greek Cities and Roman Governors in Western Asia Minor, 69-235 CE” – Advised by R. van Dam
Christopher Dobbs – “Not All Fun and Games: Elite Uses of Leisure for Socio-Economic Control in Ancient Rome” – Advised by R. Marks

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (History)

Bret Devereaux – “Sinews of War: The Social and Economic Roots of Roman Victory in the Second Century BCE” – Advised by R. Talbert
Corey Ellithorpe – “Circulating Imperial Ideology: Coins as Propaganda in the Roman World” – Advised by R. Talbert
Hilary Bouxsein – “Talking Truth: The Vocabulary of Honesty in Early Greek Poetry” – Advised by J. Strauss Clay
Megan Bowen – “Prayer Formulae in Ovid” – Advised by J. Miller and K. Meyers
Joshua Hartman – “Refracted Histories: Allusive Negotiations of the Past in Late Antiquity” – Adivsed by S. Hinds
Eunice Kim – “The Fugitive: Murder and Exile in Ancient Greece (Age of Heroes)” – Advised by O. Levaniouk
Adriana Vazquez – “Vates and Initiates: Augustan Poetic Manipulation of Greek Mystery Cult” – Advised by S. Hinds

University of Wisconsin – Madison

Mary Clare Dolinar – “Between Gods and Mortals: Divinity, Mortality, and Religious Ritual in Euripides” – Advised by L McClure
Adrienne Hagen – “Human(s and) Nature in the Literature of Late Republican Rome” – Advised by J. Beneker
Rachel Hart – “Cultural Agency and the Failure of Western Binaries in Greek Scientific Texts” – Advised by J. Beneker
Marie La Fond – “Material Memory in Homer’s Odyssey” – Advised by P. Rosenmeyer

Completed (2015 Archive from Newsletters)

Dustin W. Dixon – “Myth-making in Greek and Roman Comedy” – Advised by J. Henderson
Michael I. Hulin Wheeler – “Meter in Catullan Invective: Expectations and Innovation” – Advised by P. Johnson
Barbara Blythe – “Petronius’ Satyrica: A Novel of Mystic Initiation” – Advised by J. Bodel
Scott DiGiulio – “Aulus Gellius, the Noctes Atticae, and the Literary Logic of Miscellany under the High Roman Empire” – Advised by J. Bodel
Byron MacDougall – “Gregory of Nazianzus and Christian Festival Rhetoric” – Advised by S. Papaioannou
Anne McDonald – “Plutarch and the Philosophical Dialogues” – Advised by S. Papaioannou
Tara Mulder – “Fetal Actors, Female Bodies: Childbirth in the Roman Empire” – Advised by J. Bodel
Anne Rabe – “Innovation and Invective in Cicero’s Violent Metaphors” – Advised by J. Bodel
Matthew C. Wellenbach – “Choruses for Dionysus: Studies in the History of Dithyramb and Tragedy” – Advised by J. Hanink

Bryn Mawr College (Archaeology)

Johanna Best – “Religion of the Roadways: Roadside Sacred Spaces in Attica” – Advised by A. Donohue
Clay Cofer – “The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Ancient Understanding of Grafting” – Advised by A. Donohue
Steven Karacic – “The Archaeology of Hittite Imperialism and Ceramic Production in Late Bronze Age IIA Tarsus-Gözlükule, Turkey” – Advised by P. Magee
Edward Naumann – “Augustine the Preacher and the Judgement of God” – Advised by P. Rousseau
Allison C. Boex – “Hic Tacitus Lapis: Voice, Audience, and Space in Early Roman Verse-Epitaphs” – Advised by D. Mankin
Carrie A. Fulton – “Lost in Transportation: Trade Networks and the Materiality of Cargoes in the Ancient Mediterranean” – Advised by V. Platt
Catherine M. Kearns – “Unruly Environments: The Making of a 1st Millennium BCE Political Landscape on Cyprus” – Advised by C. Manning
Clifford Robinson – “The Longest Transference: Self-Consolation and Politics in Latin Philosophical Literature” – Advised by P. Burian
Robert E. Hendrick III – “Seeing the Unseeable: The Philosophical and Rhetorical Concept of Enargeia at Work in Latin Poetry” – Advised by T. Stover and S. Slaveva-Griffin
Alexander Buzick – “Fragmentary Tragic Poetry in Cicero” – Advised by M. McGowan
Matthew A. Keil – “Concordia as an Historiographical Principle in Sallus and St. Augustine” – Advised by R. Penella and C. Sogno
Rebecca Brown - "The Roman Odysseus" - Advised by Richard Thomas
Saskia Dirkse - "The Great Mystery: Death, Memory and the Archiving of Monastic Culture in Late Antique Religious Tales" - Advised by John Duffy
Erika Nickerson - "The Measure of All Things: Natural Hierarchy in Roman Republican Thought" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Sergios Paschalis - "Tragic palimpsests: The reception of Euripides in Ovid's Metamorphoses " - Advised by Albert Henrichs
Julian Yolles - "Latin literature and Frankish culture in the Crusader States (1098-1187)" - Advised by Jan Ziolkowski
Coleman Connelly - "Contesting the Greek Past in Ninth-Century Baghdad" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky
Rebecca Katz - " Arma virumque : The Significance of Spoils in Roman Culture" - Advised by Emma Dench
Sarah Lannom - "Pindaric Aspects of Ovid's Metamorphoses " - Advised by Richard Tarrant
Sarah Rous - "Ancient Upcycling: Social Memory and the Reuse of Marble in Athens" - Advised by Adrian Staehli
Laura Leola Brant – “Apuleian Women and Genre Conventions” – Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Kenneth Morton Draper – “Non-Lyric Voices in Horace’s Odes: The Poetics of Disguise and Infiltration” – Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Alan Christopher Fleming – “Slavery in Seneca: Institution and Metaphor” – Advised by E. Winsor Leach
Nicholas Kauffman – “Rereading Death: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Ancient Reception of Homeric Battle Narrative” – Advised by S. Montiglio
Neeltje Irene Kuin – “Lucian and the Comic in Ancient Religious Experience” – Advised by R. Cribiore
Brett Wisniewski – “Casting Spells in Augustan Poetry: Magic, Song and Discourses of Power” – Advised by A. Becker
Virginia Clark – “Landscapes of Conquest: Space, Place, and Environment in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita” – Advised by A. Feldherr
Aaron Kachuck – “Solitutde and Imagination: Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Propertius” – Advised by D. Feeney
Dawn LaValle – “Methodius of Olympus’ Symposium, Imperial Greek Literature and the Aesthetics of Hope” – Advised by C. Güthenke
Danielle Meinrath – “Leading (And Reading) by Example: Exemplarity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses” – Advised by A. Feldherr
Thomas Miller – “Plato’s Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul” – Advised by C. Wildberg
Simon Oswald – “Trends in Early Epigram” – Advised by J. Katz
Andriy Fomin – “How Dio Wrote History: Dio Cassius’ Intellectual, Historical, and Literary Techniques” – Advised by S. Takacs
Kevin Solez – “Multicultural Banqueting in the Development of Archaic Greek Society: An Investigation into Modes of Intercultural Contact” – Advised by F. De Angelis
Tyson Sukava – “The Expanding Body: Anatomical Vocabulary and its Dissemination in Classical Athens”

University at Buffalo

James Artz – “The Drainage Network of the Athenian Agora” – Advised by B. Ault
Krishni Burns – “The Magna Mater Romana: A Sociocultural Study of the Cult of the Magna Mater in Republican Rome” – Advised by S. Dyson
Kevin Roth – “Learning Latin as a Second Language, Using Latin for a Third: a Linguistic and Pedagogical Investigation of Neo-Latin Foreign Language Textbooks” – Advised by R. Woodard
Erin Warford – “The Multipolar Polis: A Study of Processions in Classical Athens and the Attic Countryside” – Advised by B. Ault
Alexander J. Lessie – “Becoming Mark Antony: A Metabiographical Study of Characterization and Reception” – Advised by A. Richlin
Kristin L. Mann – “The Fabulist in the Fable Book” – Advised by K. Morgan and A. Richlin
Natalie Abell – “Reconsidering a Cultural Crossroads: A Diachronic Analysis of Ceramic Production, Consumption, and Exchange Patterns at Bronze Age Ayia Irini, Kea, Greece” – Advised by J. Davis
Charles Campbell – “Poets and Poetics in Greek Literary Epigram” – Advised by K. Gutzwiller
Andrew Connor – “Temples as Economic Agents in Early Roman Egypt: The Case of Tebtunis and Soknopaiou Nesos” – Advised by P. van Minnen
Emily Egan – “Nestor’s Megaron: Contextualizing a Mycenaean Institution at Pylos” – Advised by J. Davis
Allison Emmerson – “Memoria et Monumenta: Local Identities and the Tombs of Roman Campania” – Advised by S. Ellis
Kristina Neumann – “Mapping the Transformation of Roman Antioch: The Coin Evidence” – Advised by B. Burrell
David Hoot – “The Sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus in Roman Times” – Advised by R. Wagman
Generosa Sangco-Jackson – “Horace’s Roman Odes: A Therapeutic Reading” – Advised by T. Johnson
William P. Smith III – “Mors Honestissima: Cicero and Suicide Contemplation in the Late Republic” – Advised by J. Rea
Jeff Yeakel – “Population Dynamics in Ancient Greek Civil Wars, Insurgencies and Revolts: A Systems Approach” – Advised by A. Wolpert
Amy Norgard – “The Senses in Horace’s Sermones” – Advised by A. Augoustakis
Sergio Yona – “The Psychology of Satire: Epicurean Ethics in Horace’s Sermones” – Advised by A. Augoustakis
Sharada Shreve-Price – “Complicated Courtesans: Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans” – Advised by C. Gibson
Ryan Hughes – “The Archaeology of a Colchian Landscape: Results of the Eastern vani Survey” – Advised by C. Ratté
Charlotte Maxwell-Jones – “Ceramics of Bactra, 500 BCE-500 CE, Typology, Chronology, and Exchange” – Advised by S. Herbert
Clara Bosak-Schroeder – “Ecology, History, and the Other in Ancient Greece” – Advised by F. Schironi
Nicholas Geller – “Roman Architexture: The Idea of the Monument in the Roman Imagination of the Augustan Age” – Advised by D. Dufallo
Matthew Newman – “The Ruins of Heaven: Linguistic and Poetic Indices of Cosmic Instability in Ancient Mediterranean Myth and Thought” – Advised by R. Janko
W. Graham Claytor – “Mechanics of Empire: the Karanis Register and the Writing Offices of Roman Egypt” – Advised by I. Moyer and A. Verhoogt
Jonathan McLaughlin – “The Transformation of the Roman Auxiliary Soldier in Thought and Practice” – Advised by D. Potter
Aaron Beek - “Freelance Warfare and Illegitimacy: the Historians' Portrayal of Bandits, Pirates, Mercenaries, and Politicians” - Advised by Andrew Gallia
Anna Beek - “Always Look on the Bright Side of Death: Violence, Death, and Supernatural Transformation in Ovid's Fasti” - Advised by Christopher Nappa
Andrew Willey - “Discovering a Higher Law: Cicero's Creation of a Roman Constitution” - Advised by Christopher Nappa
Justin Arft – “Queen of the Curse: The Odyssey’s Formulaic Interrogation and Arete’s Determination of Odysseus’ Epic Identity” – Advised by D. Schenker
Matthew Crutchfield – “A New Heroism: A Study of the Battle Scenes in Lucan’s Bellum Civile” – Advised by R. Marks
Andrew Smith – “Homeric Constructions: The Reception of Homeric Authority” – Advised by D. Schenker
Eric Thienes – “Remembering Trajan in Fourth-Century Rome: Memory and Identity in Spatial, Artistic, and Textual Narratives” – Advised by D. Trout
Ryan Horne – “Imperial Power and Local Autonomy in Greek Garrison Communities: The Phrourarchia and the Polis” – Advised by R. Talbert
Heather Elomaa – “The Poetics of the Carmina Priapea” – Advised by R. Rosen
Anna Goddard – “Ovid’s Satiric Successors in the Early Imperial Period” – Advised by J. Farrell
Lydia Spielberg – “The Rhetoric of Documentary Quotation in Roman Historiography” – Advised by C. Damon
Kathryn Wilson – “Signs in the Song: Scientific Poetry in the Hellenistic Period” – Advised by R. Rosen
Erich Merkel – “The Role of Eloquence in Tacitus” – Advised by A. Woodman
Rachel Carlson – “The Honey Bee and Apian Imagery in Classical Literature” – Advised by J. Clauss
Allison Das – “Medical Language in the Speeches of Demosthenes” – Advised by R. Blondell
Brandon F. Jones – “The Sophistic Roman: Education and Status in Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny” – Advised by A. Gowing
Jessica Kapteyn – “All Italy and Orchard: Landscape and the State in Varro’s De Re Rustica” – Advised by S. Culpepper Stroup
William N. Bruce – “Industry, Community, and the Sacred: Life Outside the City Walls at Sardis” – Advised by N. Cahill
Kathleen C. Rogers – “Finding Time to Write: Literary Amicitia and the Economy of Time in Flavian Rome” – Advised by A. Dressler

In-Progress (2016-2017 Academic Year )

Elizabeth Baxter - "A Spring of Ambrosial Words: Pindar's Theory of Poetry" - Advised by Jeffrey Henderson
Peter Blandino - "Music as Drama in Euripides" - Advised by Herbert Golder
Rachel Fisher - "Homophrosyne and Women in the Iliad" - Advised by Stephen Scully
Laurie Hutcheson - "Reported Speech in the Iliad" - Advised by Stephen Scully
Amanda Jarvis - "Euripides and Thucydides from 415-411: Thematic Parallels" - Advised by Jeffrey Henderson
Daniel Libatique - "Tereus, Procne, and Philomela: Speech, Silence, and the Voice of Gender" - Advised by Patricia Johnson
Colin Pang - "Engaging Hesiod and Homer in Quintus Smyrnaeus and Imperial Greek Poetry" - Advised by Stephen Scully
David West - "The Case for Politics: A Cross-Generic Study of Cicero's Arguments for Political Engagement" - Advised by Ann Vasaly
Elliston Perot Bissell - "Expansive Epic: Subsumption, Totalization, and Primacy in the Narratives of Greece, Rome and the Indian Subcontinent" - Advised by Joseph D. Reed
Justin Byrd - "Highest Good or Strong Poison: The Construction of Patronage in the Brahmin Tradition" - Advised by James Fitzgerald
Keith Fairbank - "A Dividing Sea: The Adriatic World from the Death of Alexander to the Foundation of Nicopolis" - Advised by Graham Oliver
Christopher Geadrities - "Einhard: Vita Karoli Magni. Text, Translation and Commentary" - Joseph Pucci
Stephany Hull - "The Model Teacher: Mentorship and Exemplarity in Philosophical Dialogues" - Joseph Pucci
Darrel Janzen - "The Outsider Within: Self-Seclusion by the Roman Elite from 40 to 130 CE" - Advised by John Bodel
Luther Karper - "The Greeks and the Roman Civil Wars of the Late Republic" - Advised by Graham Oliver
Dominic Machado - "Communities and Collective Action in the Republican Army" - Advised by John Bodel and Lisa Mignone
Daria Resh - "Early Metaphraseis in Byzantine hagiography (c. 800 - c. 1000)" - Advised by Joseph Pucci and David Konstan
Trigg Settle - "Trauma and the Interpretation of Tragedy: Studies in Greek Theater and Drama" - Advised by Johanna Hanink
Jennifer Swalec - "Dress and the Making of Gender in Ancient Greece" - Advised by Adele Scafuro
Michiel Van Veldhuizen - "Divining Disaster: Signs of Catastrophe in Ancient Greek Culture and Society" - Advised by Pura Nieto

The Catholic University of America

Luigi De Luca - "The Quest for Health in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea: Botany, Pharmacology and Nutrition" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Fred Fraser - "Figurative Language in the Philosophy of Plotinus" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Kathleen Kirsch - "The Soul at War in Late Antiquity: the Image of Spiritual Warfare in the Poetry of Prudentius" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Benjamin Lewis - "The Senses and Sensory Metaphors in Augustine’s Confessions" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Alex Poulos - "Callimachus and Callimacheanism in the Poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Damon Smith - "Basil of Caesarea’s Theory of Language in Practice: Understanding the Hexaëmeron" - Advised by William J. McCarthy
Sr. Maria del Fiat Miola - "Spaces of Salvation in Sixth-Century Arles: The Women’s Monastery as Household and Family" - Advised by William E. Klingshirn
Karen Carducci - "The Roman Lapidary Discourse from Pliny the Elder to Isidore of Seville" - Advised by William E. Klingshirn
Dennis Alley - "Pindar and the Poetics of Autonomy: Authorial Agency in Pythian Four" - Advised by Hayden Pelliccia
Liana Brent - "Corporeal Connections: Tomb Disturbance, Reuse and Violation in Roman Italy" - Advised by Eric Rebillard
Natasha Binek - "The Reception of Aphrodite in Vergil's Aeneid " - Advised by Hayden Pelliccia
Micaela Carignano - "What's for Dinner?: Recreating Minoan Dining Practice in Neopalatial Households and Palaces" - Advised by Sturt Manning
Jennifer Carrington - "Network Analyses of Everyday Ceramics in Ptolemaic Egypt" - Advised by Sturt Manning
Theodore Harwood - "How to Read the Book: St. Augustine on the Interpretaiton of Scripture" - Advised by Charles Brittain
Katherine Jarriel - "Small Worlds After All? Landscape and Community Interaction in the Early Cycladic Bronze Age" - Advised by Sturt Manning
Michael Esposito - "Knowledge and its Uses in the Aeneid " - Advised by Michael Fontaine
Theodore Graham - "The Tyrant, the City, and the Stage: The Shifting Depiction of Tyranny in Athenian Tragedy" – Advised by P. Burian (completed 2017)
Kathryn Langenfeld - "Forging a History: the Inventions and Intellectual Community of the Historia Augusta" - Advised by M. T. Boatwright (completed 2017)
Tom Cole - “Republican Rhetoric and Its Limits in Tacitus” - Advised by J. Atkins
Courtney Monahan - “Matrona visa: Women's Public Visibility and Civic Identity in Hispania Tarraconensis” - Advised by M. T. Boatwright
David Stifler – “Lucian and Atticism: A Barbarian at the Gates” - Advised by W. A. Johnson
Eliza Gettel - "Between Federalism and Imperialism: The koina of Roman Achaea from the 1st to 3rd century CE" - Advised by Emma Dench
Barbara Scarfo - "To which their lot condemns them: The Socio-Cultural Construction of Maternity in the Roman World" - Advised by Michele George
Amanda Devitt - "Fandom and Fanaticism: Studies in the Spectatorship of Roman Chariot Racing" - Advised by Michele George
Ari Zatlin - "The Contingency of Cicero: Ciceronian Reception in the Early Empire" - Advised by Joy Connolly
Chris Parmenter - "Commodity and Identity in Archaic Greece" - Advised by Barbara Kowalzig
Stephanie Crooks - "The Poet's Tomb: Space for Immortality" - Advised by Alessandro Barchiesi
Philip Katz - "The Ideology of the Ship in Greece and Rome" - Advised by Barbara Kowalzig
Calloway Scott - "Asklepios on the Move" - Advised by Barbara Kowalzig
Nathalie Sado Nisinson - "Greek Heroes, Roman Rituals: Cult and Culture Clash in Ovid's Heroides" - Advised by David Levene
Emily Hulme - "Under the Shadow of the Hephaistion: Τἐχνη and Ἐπιστήμη in the Platonic Dialogues" - Advised by Christian Wildberg
Caroline Mann - "Transgression in Roman Republic Religion" - Advised by Harriet Flower
Emily Curran - "Lucretian and Epicurean Influences on Horace's Odes" - Advised by Denis Feeney
Carolyn Tobin - "Remembering Sulla, 78 BC - 160 AD" - Advised by Harriet Flower
Noah Levin - "Roman Desire during the First Triumvirate" - Yelena Baraz
Aaron Beck-Schachter - "The Goddess on Parade: Portable Icons in Archaic and Classical Greece" - Advised by Timothy Power
Charles George - "The Philosophical Epigrams of Diogenes Laertius" - Advised by Timothy Power
Aaron Hershkowitz - "Rise of the Demagogues: Political Leadership in Imperial Athens after the Reforms of Ephialtes" - Advised by Thomas Figueira
Brian Hill - "Recurrent Imagery and Incremental Didacticism in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura" - Advised by Leah Kronenberg
Ella Wallace - "The Sorcerer's Pharmacy: Magic and Science in Classical Pharmaceutical Literature" - Advised by Leah Kronenberg
Ava Shirazi - "The Mirror and the Senses: Reflection and Perception in Classical Greek Thought" - Advised by Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi and Andrea Nightingale
Israel McMullin - "Touching Heroes: the Homeric Construction of Intimacy" - Advised by Richard Martin
Eunsoo Lee - "Visual Agency in Euclid's Elements: A Study of the Transmission of Visual Knowledge" - Advised by Reviel Netz
Jonathan Weiland - "The Roman Poor: in the City and the Country" - Advised by Jennifer Trimble and Walter Scheidel
Anja Krieger - "People, Ships, and the Sea: Seafaring in the Eastern Mediterranean, c. 1600 BCE - c. 50 BCE" - Advised by Michael Shanks

State University of New York at Buffalo

Massimo Betello - "Management and Exploitation of Pedestrian Traffic in Ancient Rome: The Case of Pompeii" - Advised by Stephen Dyson
Jennifer Krantz - "Dialects and Identity: The Ancient Greek View of Greek Dialects" - Advised by Carolyn Higbie
Lana Radloff - TBD - Advised by Stephen Dyson
Justin Dwyer - "Apollodoros of Karystos and the Tradition of New Comedy" - Advised by C. W. Marshall
Bethany Brothers - "The Ludi as Medium for Imperial Propoganda in the Severan Age" - Advised by Jeremy Rossiter (U Alberta), Leanne Bablitz
Chelsea Gardner - "The Mani Peninsula in Antiquity: An Archaeological, Historical, and Epigraphic Investigation into Regional Identity - Advised by Hector Williams
Ryan Johnson - "The κατάδεσμοι of Selinous: Intermediaries between Near Eastern and Greek Traditions of Cursing" - Advised by Franco De Angelis
Christopher Adams - "The Unreality Effect: Realism, Discourse, and the Elegiac Persona" - Advised by Kathleen McCarthy
Daniel Esses - "Images of the World: Cosmology and Rhetoric in Plato's Timaeus and Laws " - Advised by John Ferrari and Mark Griffith
Morgan Hunter - "Making Troy Great Again: the Cult of the Palladion at Troy, Athens, and Rome" - Advised by Mark Griffith
Morgan King - "The Path of Love: Travel, Immobility, and the Construction of Difference in Roman Love Elegy" - Advised by Kathleen McCarthy
Mark McClay - "Memory and Performance in the Orphic-Bacchic Lammelae" - Advised by Mark Griffith
Kevin Moch - " Quoium Pecus ? Representations of Italian Identity in Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics " - Advised by Ellen Oliensis
Kelsey Turbeville - "A Given Image: The Iconography of Votive Bronze" - Advised by Kim Shelton
Hans Bork - "The Anthropology of Insult in Plautus" - Advised by Amy Richlin
Grace Gillies - "Despicable Cities: Urban Sites of Disgust in Roman Satire and Related Genres" - Advised by Amy Richlin
Irene Han - "One Hundred and One Nights: Plato and the Metaphysical Feminine" - Advised by Giulia Sissa
Nathan Kish - " Oratio Inepta : The Ethics of Style in Latin Rhetorical Invective" - Advised by Amy Richlin
Elliott Piros - "The Imagination of Objects: Production, Consumption, and Description in Martial's Epigrams" - Advised by Francesca Martelli and Amy Richlin
Ben Radcliffe - "The Plastic Sovereign: Figuring Politics in Early Greek Poetry" - Advised by Alex Purves
Justin Vorhis - "The Best of the Macedonians: Alexander as Achilles in Arrian, Curtius, and Plutarch" - Advised by Kathryn Morgan
Celsiana Warwick - "For Those Yet to Come: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad " - Advised by Alex Purves

University of California, Santa Barbara

Brett Collins - "The Ancient Reception of Thersites" - Advised by Helen Morales
Aerynn Dighton - "The Roman Toga: The Social Effects of the Interface Between Object and Body" - Advised by Dorota Dutsch
Regina Loehr - "Emotion in Polybius' Histories " - Advised by Robert Morstein-Marx
Nicole Taynton - "Desire and Self-Construction in Tibullus' Elegies : Reading Tibullus with Lacan" - Advised by Sara Lindheim
Deepti Menon - "Staging the Foreign Imaginary: the 'Other' on the Comedic Stage" - Advised by Dorota Dutsch
Marshall Evans - "Seen and Unseen: The Concept of Idolatry in 1 Corinthians" - Advised by Christine Thomas
Catherine Baker - "Landscapes of the Middle Republic: Roman Imperialism and the Integration of Central Italy" - Advised by Steven Ellis
William Dibble - "From Livestock to Lifestyle: The Longue Durée of Human-Animal Interaction in Ancient Greece" - Advised by Kathleen Lynch
Kathleen Kidder - "Representations of Truth and Falsehood of Hellenistic Poetry" - Advised by Kathryn Gutzwiller
Christopher Motz - "The Impact of Knowledge Networks on Workshop Construction in the Western Roman Empire" - Advised by Steven Ellis
Alexandros Laftsidis - "The Hellenistic Ceramic 'Koine' Revisited" - Advised by Kathleen Lynch
Paschalis Zafeiriadis - "Spatial Organization and Social Change: The Transition from Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in Macedonia, Greece" - Advised by Eleni Hatzaki

University of Colorado - Boulder

Ian Oliver - "The Audiences of Herodotus: The Influence of Performance on the Written Histories " - Advised by Peter Hunt
Sam Kindick - "Ovid's City: Rome in the Ars Amatoria and the Fasti " - Advised by Carole Newlands
Elizabeth Deacon - "Tellers of Long Tales: Homeric Structures in the Greek Ideal Novel" - Advised by John Gibert
Andrew P. Clark - "Solon the Poet, Solon the Lawgiver, Solon the Sage: The Changing Narrative and Historical Personage of Solon of Athens" - Advised by Robert S. Wagman
Rob Conn - "Vernae in the Roman Republic" - Advised by Velvet Yates
Neil Beers - "Love and the Nature of Things: Ovid's Reception of Lucretius and his Poetic Immortality" - Advised by Velvet Yates
April Spratley - "Musical Instruments and Intertextuality in Ovid" - Advised by Konstantinos Kapparis
Tim Griffith - "Lactantius, On the Anger of God" - Advised by Konstantinos Kapparis
Jennifer Nelson - "Gian Vittorio Rossi's Eudemia: Annotated Edition of Books 1-5 with an Introduction and Translation" - Advised by Jennifer Rea
Paloma Rodriguez - "Sacrilegae Artes: Attitudes Toward Prostitution in the Roman World" - Advised by Konstantinos Kapparis
Kory Plockmeyer - "Cultural Exchange and the Empire of Alexander: A Postcolonial Analysis of Quintus Curtius Rufus" - Advised by Victoria Pagan
Sebastian Anderson - "Poetry in Public" - Advised by Craig Williams
Orestis Karatzoglou - "Fear of Personal Death in Plato" - Advised by Kirk Sanders
Aine McVey - "Suetonius' Use of Anecdotes in De Vita Caesarum " - Antony Augoustakis
Robert K. Morley - "Poverty in the Fictional Works of Petronius and Apuleius" - Advised by Craig A. Gibson
Tyler Fyotek - "Deathics: Homeric Ethics as Thanatology" - Advised by Paul Dilley
Jeremy Swist - "Roman Kings and their Exempla in Post-Augustan Imperial Historiography" - Advised by Sarah E. Bond
Matthew Horrell - "Epic Hyperbole in Homer" - Advised by Robert C. Ketterer
Caitlin A. Marley - "Sentiments, Networks, Literary Biography: Towards a Mesoanalysis of Cicero's Corpus" - Advised by Paul Dilley
Jacqueline Jones - "At Cliff's Edge: Studies of the Single Heroides " - Advised by Robert C. Ketterer
Vanessa Espinosa - "Submitting to God: A Comparative Study of Apuleius's Metamorphoses , Augustine's Confessions , and Aelius Aristides's Sacred Tales " - Advised by John F. Finamore
David Morphew - "Passionate Platonism: Plutarch on the Positive Role of Non-Rational Affects in the Good Life" - Advised by Victor Caston
Ryan Seaberg - "Lexical Blends in Greek and Latin" - Advised by George A. Sheets
Elizabeth Torresson - "Demeter and her Youth at the Crossroads of Poetry, Politics, and Religion" - Advised by Nita Krevans
Nicholas Wagner - "Haec Templa: Religion in Cicero's Orations" - Advised by Spencer Cole

University of Missouri - Columbia

Justin James - "Emblem of Empire: The Roman Army as Symbol for Roman Identity in Late Republican and Early Imperial Literature" - Advised by Dennis Trout
Claire McGraw - "Imperial Gods: divine Representations and the Imperial Cult in Rome" - Advised by Dennis Trout
Christopher Dobbs - "Not Just Fun and Games: Exploring Ludic Elements in Greek and Latin Literature " - Advised by Raymond Marks
Katy Chenoweth - "Mapping Seneca: Cognitive Cartography and Moral Imagination in the Natural Questions " - Advised by Raymond Marks

University of New Brunswick

Marilyn Sarah McGrath - "A Search for the Homeland of Horses Found at Bronze Age Greek Sites" - Advised by Maria Papaioannou (Classics) and Sue Blair (Anthropology)

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Cicek Beeby - "Spatial Narratives of Mortuary Landscapes in Early Iron Age Greece" - Advised by Donald Haggis
John Beeby - "Literary and Archaeological Etruscans on the First Century BCE" - James Rives
William Begley - "The Avignon Manuscript and the Transmission of Rufinus' Translation of Origen's Peri Archon " - Advised by Robert Babcock
Emma Buckingham - "Identity and Material Culture in the Interplay of Locals and Greek Settlers in Sicily and the Early Archaic Period" - Advised by Donald Haggis and Carla Antonaccio
Patrick Dombrowski - "Magic and Supersititions and Roman Popular Religion" - Advised by James Rives
Sarah Miller Esposito - "Commemorating the Past in Herodotus' ethnographic logoi " - Advised by Emily Baragwanath
Sarah Hilker - "From Houses to Settlements: A Consideration of Mycenaean Social Structure" - Advised by Donald Haggis
Catharine Judson - "Protogeometric and Geometric Crete" - Advised by Donald Haggis
Keith Penich - "Vision and Narrative in Apollonius' Argonautica " - Advised by James O'Hara
Matthew Schueller - "Public Entertainment Venues as Network Actors in Roman Macedonia and Thrace" - Advised by Jennifer Gates-Foster and Herica Valladares
Tedd Wimperis - "Vergil's Political Myths: Cultural Memory and Constructed Ethnicity in the Aeneid" - Advised by James O'Hara
Jessica Wise - "Gender, Speech, Authority: Ovid's Fasti and Augustan Thought on Women" - Advised by Sharon James
William Beck - "The Narrative of the Iliad: Time, Space, and Plot" - Advised by Bridget Murnaghan
Alice Hu - "The Epic Successors of Tragedy: Problems of Generation and Overliving in the Reception of Greek Tragedy in Roman Epic" - Advised by Joseph Farrell
Amy Lewis - "Aristophanes' Vulgar Poetics" - Advised by Ralph Rosen
Scheharezade Kahn - "Pseudonymous Authors of the Second Sophistic" - Advised by Ralph Rosen
Marcie Persyn - "Bilingual and Multicultural Allusions from Meleager to Varro" - Advised by Cynthia Damon
Thomas Sapsford - "The Life of the Kinaidoi " - Advised by Thomas Habinek
Robert Matera - "The Vulnerable Corpus of Propertius" - Advised by Thomas Habinek
Russell Pascatore - "Zeus' Plan in Early Greek Poetry's Construction of Political and Social Identity" - Advised by William Thalmann
Christian Lehmann - "The End of Augustan Literature: Ovid's Epistulae ex Ponto IV" - Advised by Anthony Boyle
Afroditi Angelopoulou - "Emotionality and the Embodiment of Morality in Aeschylean Tragedy" - Advised by William Thalmann
Louis Palazzo - "The Garden of Atticus" - Advised by Thomas Habinek
Matthew Chaldekas - "Vision in Theocritus: Perception, Performance, Poetics" - Advised by William Thalmann
Jennifer Devereaux - "The Enacted Text: Evidence for Mind-Body Analogy as a Structuring Mechanism in Latin Texts" - Advised by Thomas Habinek
Elke Nash - "Honor and Women in Greek Tragedy" - Advised by William Thalmann and Thomas Habinek
Andrea Pittard - "In the Eye of the Beholder: Audience Reaction to Gender Performance in Ancient Rome" - Advised by Andrew M. Riggsby
Margaret Clark - "Laying the Groundwork: Agricultural Land in the Roman Agricultural Imaginary" - Advised by Andrew M. Riggsby
Benjamin Crowther - "Life on the Streets: Architecture and Community along the Colonnaded Avenues of the Roman Empire (1st-4th c. CE) - Advised by Rabun Taylor
Stephanie Craven - "The Mercenaries of Hellenistic Crete" - Advised by Paula J. Perlman
Kyle Sanders - "Pindar and the Enigmatic Tradition" - Advised by Thomas K. Hubbard
Colin Yarborough - "Xenophon's Political Class: Revitalization and Reconciliation in the 4th Century" - Advised by Paula J. Perlman
Laura Takakjy - "Building a Home in Atomic Rome: Lucretius on the Biological Family and Community" - Advised by Lesley Dean-Jones
Einav Denbin - "Weaving Practices Outside Athens: The Case of the epinetra" - Advised by Nassos Papalexandrou
Hilary Bouxsein – “Talking Truth: The Vocabulary of Honesty in Archaic Greek Poetry” – Advised by Jenny Strauss Clay
Megan Bowen – “Prayer in Ovid’s Metamorphoses” – Advised by John Miller and K. Sara Myers
Timothy Brannelly – “A Clash of Characters: Jupiter and Juno in Ovid’s Fasti” – Advised by K. Sara Myers and John Miller
Courtney Evans – “Time in the Odes of Horace” – Advised by Jenny Strauss Clay
Mary Gilbert – “Racine Reads the Ancients: Andromaque, Britannicus, Iphigénie and Phèdre” – Advised by Jon Mikalson
David Hewett – The First Person Narratives in Seneca’s Epistles” – Advised by Gregory Hays
Sarah Miller – “The Rhetoric of apologia in Cicero’s Letters” – Advised by Jane Crawford
Jocelyn Moore – “When You Can’t Go Home Again: The Destruction of the oikos in Greek Tragedy” – Advised by Jon Mikalson
Nick Rich – “Word Order in Latin Accusativus cum infinitivo Constructions” – Advised by Coulter George
Sarah Teets – “One is not born a Greek: Josephus and Cultural Identity in the Against Apion ” – Advised by John Dillery
Evan Waters – “Lucian and Greek Historiography” – Advised by John Dillery
Sarah Herbert - "The Philosopher and the Farmer: Socrates and Spatial Metaphor in Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero" - Advised by K. Sara Myers
Edward Bertany – “Apollo through Time and Space: From Homer’s Troy to Ovid’s Rome” – Advised by Olga Levaniouk
Matthew Gorey – “Physics and History in Virgil’s Aeneid” – Advised by Stephen Hinds
Eunice Kim – “The Fugitive: Murder and Exile in the Age of Heroes” – Advised by Olga Levaniouk
Xiaoran Luo – Polyphemus and His World” —Advised by Stephen Hinds
Alberto Requejo – “Hesiod, Lucretius, and Virgil in Columella's Treatise on Agriculture: Ideology and Intertext” - Advised by Stephen Hinds
Adriana Vazquez – “Vates and Initiates: Augustan Poetic Manipulation of Greek Mystery Cult” – Advised by Olga Levaniouk
Mary Clare Dolinar - "Between Gods and Mortals: Divinity, Mortality, and Religious Ritual in Euripides" - Advised by Laura McClure
Stephen Geiger - "The Conquered Conqueres: The Art of Exile in Josephus" - Advised by Jeffrey Beneker
Molly Harris - "Leaving War Behind: War, Return, and Survival in Greek Tragedy" - Advised by Laura McClure
Rachel Hart - "Identity and Truth in Greek Ethnographic Texts" - Jeffrey Beneker
Marie La Fond - "οὔτω τοι τόδε σῆμα πιφαύσκομαι: Significant Objects in the Odyssey " - Advised by Patricia Rosenmeyer
Alex Zhang - "Classical Natural Law Theories from Attic Rhetoric to Aristotle" - Advised by Victor Bers and Verity Harte
Allison Glasscock - "Learners and Seekers in the Platonic Corpus" - Advised by Verity Harte
Claudia Rammelt - "The Impact of the Emerging Renaissance Thucydides on Machiavelli's 'Istorie Fiorentine'" - Advised by Emily Greenwood
Cynthia Polsley - "Contrafactual Structures and Hologrammar in Ancient Greek Narrative" - Advised by Egbert Bakker
Emily Kress - "Chance and Spontaneity in Physics II.4-6" - Advised by Verity Harte
Geoffrey Moseley - "Plato Arabus" - Advised by Dimitri Gutas
Jennifer Weintritt - "Troy Story: The Epic Cycle in Latin Epic" - Advised by Irene Peirano Garrison
Kyle Khellaf - "The Paratextual Past: Digression in Classical Historiography" - Advised by Christina Kraus
Meghan Freeman - "Encountering the Past: Republican and Augustan Rome as Memoryscape" - Advised by Diana Kleiner
Noreen Sit - "Nobility on Parade: Roman Processional Movement as Performance of Status" - Advised by Kirk Freudenberg
Rachel Love - "Writing After Livy: Ab Urbe Condita Historgraphy as Tradition and Reception" - Advised by Christina Kraus
Sarah Derbew - "The Metatheater of Blackness: Looking at and through Blackness and Ancient Greek Literature and Art" - Advised by Emily Greenwood
Yunfeng Lin - "The Language of Plato: from Stylistics to Linguistics" - Advised by Victor Bers and Egbert Bakker

Completed (2016-2017 Academic Year)

Jennifer Yates - "The Ancient Novels and the Tragic Tradition" - Advised by John Bodel and David Konstan
Charles Kuper - "The Latin Controversial Dialogues of Late Antiquity" - Advised by Catherine Conybeare
Sara Sieteski - "Recontextualizing Military Structures along the Stanegate and Hadrian's Wall Utilizing Aerial Photography and GIS Mapping" - Advised by Russell T. Scott
Abbe Walker - "Bride of Hades to Bride of Christ: The Virgin and the Otherworldly Bridegroom in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome" - Advised by Radcliffe G. Edmonds and Catherine Conybeare
Katheryn Langenfeld - "Forging a History: The INventions and Intellectual Community of the Historia Augusta" - Advised by Mary Boatwright
Theodore Graham - "Playing the Tyrant: The Representation of Tyranny in Fifth-Century Tragedy" - Advised by Peter Burian
David Camden - "Medicine and Cosmology in Classical Greece: First Principles in Early Greek Medicine" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky
Tyler Flatt - "Redeeming Epic: Furor , Classical Tradition, and Christian Cosmos in Late Antiquity" - Advised by Jan Ziolkowski
Alexander Forte - "Tracing Homeric Metaphor" - Advised by Gregory Nagy
Amy Koenig - "The Tongueless Nightingale: Loss of Voice in the Literature of the Roman Empire" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman
Ross Brendle - "The Function and Significance of Late Attic Black-figure Vases" - Advised by Alan Shapiro
Rex Crews - "The Handbooks De Officio Proconsulis: Authorship and Audience" - Advised by James Rives
Zackary Rider - "Caelum Ascendid Ratio: The Divinizing Role of Knowledge in Didactic Poetry from Hesiod to Manilius" - Advised by James O'Hara
Jessica Wise - "Gender, Rhetoric, Authority: Ovid's Fasti and Augustan Thought on Women" - Advised by Sharon James
Hans Hansen - "Pindar's Isthmian 6: A Commentary and Literary Study" - Advised by William Race
Katherine De Boer Simons - "Death and the Female Body in Homer, Vergil, and Ovid" - Advised by Sharon James
Robyn Le Blanc - "The Public Sacred Identity of Roman Ascalon" - Advised by Jodi Magness
Elizabeth Clark - "The Chronicle of Novalese: Translation, Text and Literary Analysis" - Advised by Robert Babcock
Pablo Molina - "Paul in Rome: A Case Study on the Formation and Transmission of Traditions" - Advised by James Rives
Daniel Schindler - "Late Roman and Byzantine Galilee: A Provincial Case Study from the Perspective of the Imported and Common Pottery" - Advised by Jodi Magness
Erika Weiberg - "The Trauma at Home: Wives of Returning Veterans in Greek Tragedy" - Advised by William Race
Tedd Wimperis - "Cultural Memory and Constructed Ethnicity in Vergil's Aeneid" - Advised by James O'Hara
Kassandra Jackson - "A Doctor on the Clock: Hourly Timekeeping and Galen's Scientific Method" - Advised by Christopher Faraone and Elizabeth Asmis
Julia Mebane - "The Body Politic and Roman Political Languages" - Advised by Michele Lowrie and Clifford Ando
Branden Kosch - "Reading Demosthenes" - Advised by Helma Dik and David Martinez
Mitch Brown - "Menander Offstage" - Advised by Kathryn Gutzwiller
Ian Oliver - "The Audiences of Herodotus: The Influence of Performance on the Histories" - Advised by Peter Hunt
Sara Agnelli - "Galen on Tremor, Rigor, Palpitation and Spasm: A Critical Edition" - Advised by Konstantinos Kapparis
Miller Krause - "Major Characters in Roman Declamation" - Advised by Konstantinos Kapparis and Lewis Sussman
Philip Cook - "Abandoning the City: Meaning and Identity in Lucan's Rome" - Advised by Jennifer Rea
Matthew Horrell - "Epic Hyperbole in Homer" - Advised by Robert Ketterer
Jacqueline Jones - "At the Cliff's Edge: Studies of the Single Heroides" - Advised by Robert Ketterer

University of Michigan (Interdepartmental Program)

Tiggy McLaughlin - "Christian Pedagogy and Christian COmmunity in the Fifth- and Sixth- Century Mediterranean" - Advised by Raymond Van Dam
Amy Pistone - "When the Gods Speak: Oracular Communication and Concepts of Language in Sophocles" - Advised by Ruth Scodel
Zach Andreadakis - "Reading for Clues: Detective Narratives in Heliodorus' Aithiopika" - Advised by Richard Janko
Jaqueline Stimson - "Killing Romans: Legitimizing Violence in Cicero and Caesar" - Advised by David Potter
Rachael Cullick - “Maximae Furiarum: The Female Demonic in Augustan Epic” - Advised by Christopher Nappa
Jacob Feeley - "Josephus as Political Philosopher: Hist Theory of Ideal Monarchy" - Advised by Julia Wilker and Cynthia Damon
Eyal Meyer - "The Satraps of Western Anatolia and the Greeks" - Advised by Jeremy McInerney and Lauren Ristvet
Jeff Ulrich - "Platonic Reflections in Apuleius" - Advised by Emily Wilson and Cynthia Damon
Elizabeth Palazzolo - "The Roman Cultural Memory of the Conquest of Latium" - Advised by Cynthia Damon and Joseph Farrell

In Progress (2017-2018 Academic Year)

James Ferguson - "The Roman Tertullian: De Spectaculis and Christian Identity" - Advised by Zsuzsanna Varhelyi
John Paul Aldrup-Macdonald - “Athenian Democracy on Paper” - Advised by Joshua D. Sosin
Laura Camp - “Schools of Greek Mathematical Practice” - Advised by Joshua D. Sosin
Thomas J. B. Cole - “Political Thought in Tacitus' Minor Works” - Advised by Jed Atkins
Alexander John Fowler - “The Necklace of Harmony: Nonnus and Neoplatonism” - Advised by José González
Melissa Huber - "Monumentalizing Infrastructure: The City and People of Rome in the Time of Claudius" - Advised by Mary T. Boatwright
Adrian C. Linden-High - “Slaves and Ex-Slaves in the Roman Military Community under the Principate” - Advised by Mary T. Boatwright
Courtney Monahan - "Matrona Visa: Women's Public Visibility and Civic Identity in Hispania Tarraconensis" - Advised by Mary T. Boatwright
David W. F. Stifler - “Lucian and the Atticists: A Barbarian at the Gates” - Advised by William Johnson
Ana Belinskaya – “Internal Narrators and the Evolution of Roman Space in Ovid’s Fasti” – Advised by Laurel Fulkerson.
Michelle Currie – “Fear in Senecan Tragedy” - Advised by Tim Stover
Amy Dill – “Second Order Centers and the Mycenaean Argolid-Corinthia” – Advised by Daniel J. Pullen
Carolyn Fine – “New Investigations into Prehistoric Corinth: the ‘Neolithic rhyton’ and continuity of cult” – Advised by Daniel J. Pullen
Ann Glennie – “Water Collection, Storage, and Usage at Cosa in the Roman Republic and Imperial Period” – Advised by Andrea De Giorgi
Alexander Skufca – “Egypt and Universal Empire in the Works of Diodorus and Strabo” – Advised by John Marincola
Allison Smith – “The Interconnectivity of Bathing Architecture in Central and Northern Italy” – Advised by Andrea De Giorgi
Keating McKeon - "No Going Back: Attic Tragedy and the Autocratic Return" - Advised by Naomi Weiss
Alexandra Schultz - "Monumental Libraries" - Advised by Paul Kosmin and Richard Thomas
James Taylor - "Changing Places: geological change and the shaping of landscapes in classical thought and imagination" - Advised by Richard Thomas
James Zainaldin - "Philosophy, Rhetoric, Science: The Formation of Specialized Knowledge at Rome, 100 BCE – 200 CE" - Advised by Kathleen Coleman and Mark Schiefsky

Ohio State University

Kathryn Caliva - "Prayers and Pragmatic Speech Acts in Greek Poetry" - Advised by Sarah Iles Johnston
Alice Gaber - "Praise and Desire: Chorality, Narrative, and the Choral Voice in Archaic Lyric" - Advised by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes
Marcus Ziemann - "The Iliad and Gilgamesh Reconsidered: Contexts for Appropriations of Assyrian Propaganda" - Advised by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz
Brandon Bourgeois, “Roman Imperial Accessions: Politics, Constituencies, and Communicative Acts”- Advised by Antony Kaldellis
Warren Huard - "The Association of Herakles and Dionysos in Archaic Greece" - Advised by Sarah Iles Johnston
William Little - "Sappho in the Renaissance: the Evidence from the Latin Commentary Tradition"- Advised by Frank Coulson
Simeon Ehrlich – “Greco-Roman Urban Form in its Global Context” – Advised by Ian Morris
Stephen Sansom – “The Poetics of Style in the Shield of Heracles: Speech, Ekphrasis, and Sound” – Advised by Richard Martin
Scott Arcenas – “Stasis: the nature, frequency, and intensity of political violence in ancient Greece” Advised by Josh Ober
Eunsoo Lee – “Visual Agency in Euclid's Elements: a study of the transmission of visual knowledge” – Advised by Reviel Netz
Israel McMullin – “Touching Heroes: the Homeric construction of intimacy” – Advised by Richard Martin
Jon Weiland- “ The Roman Poor: in the city and the country” – Advised by Jen Trimble and Walter Scheidel
Justin Dwyer – “Apollodoros of Karystos and the Tradition of New Comedy” – Advised by C.W. Marshall
Bethany Brothers – “The Ludi as a Medium for Imperial Propaganda in the Severan Age” – Advised by Jeremy Rossiter (University of Alberta) and Leanne Bablitz
Chelsea Gardner – “The Mani Peninsula in Antiquity: An Archaeological, Historical, and Epigraphic Investigation into Regional Identity” – Advised by Hector Williams
Ryan Johnson – “The κατάδεσμοι of Selinous: Intermediaries between Near Eastern and Greek Traditions of Cursing” – Advised by Franco De Angelis
Graham Butler – "The Production of Similarity: a Comparative Perspective on the Literary Representation of Slaves in Antiquity" – Advised by C.W. Marshall
Caroline Cheung - "Storage and Packaging for an Empire: Agricultural Economies in West-Central Italy, c. 200 BCE – 200 CE" - Advised by J. Theodore Peña
Eric Driscoll - "Contest and Contestation in the Athenian Empire" - Advised by Emily Mackil and Nikolaos Papazarkadas
Lynn Gallogly - "Figures of Speech: Bodies, Texts, and Performance in Lucian" - Advised by Mario Telò (Classics)
Marissa Henry - "Meat, Nectar and Ambrosia, and Cannibalism in Archaic Hexameter Poetry" - Advised by Leslie Kurke
Chris Waldo - "Making Meaning in the Victory Ode" - Advised by Leslie Kurke
Hans Bork – “A Rough Guide to Insult in Plautus” – Advised by Amy Richlin
Grace Gillies – “Writing in the Street: the Development of Urban Poetics in Roman Satire” – Advised by Amy Richlin
Nathan Kish – “The Ethics of Style in Latin Rhetorical Invective” – Advised by Amy Richlin
Dale Parker – “Plato’s Arguments and Aristotle’s Reception” – Advised by David Blank
Elliott Piros – “Martial and the Poetics of Popular Consumption” – Advised by Francesca Martelli & Amy Richlin
Ben Radcliffe – “The Aesthetics of Equality in Early Greek Poetry” – Advised by Alex Purves
John Tennant – “Proverbial Plato: Proverbs, Gnomai, and the Attempt to Reform Discourse in Plato’s Republic” – Advised by Kathryn Morgan
Celsiana Warwick – “For those Yet to Come: Gender and Kleos in the Iliad” – Advised by Alex Purves

University of California, Riverside

Carly Maris - "Parading Persia: West Asian Geopolitics and the Roman Triumph" - Advised by Michele Renee Salzman
Shawn Ragan - " Inter Divos Referri : Roman Imperial Cult in the Third Century C.E." - Advised by Michele Renee Salzman
Elizabeth Parker - "The Rhetoric of Geography in the Panegyrici Latini" - Advised by Michele Renee Salzman
Jeffrey Banks - "Early Helladic Corinth," Jack L. Davis and Eleni Hatzaki
Mohammed Bhatti, "Imperial Greeks and Their Memory of the Roman Republican Past,” Peter van Minnen
Gabriele Busnelli, “Inquiring Knowledge: On Callimachean Epistemology,” Kathryn Gutzwiller
Christopher Miller, “A Cultural History of the Roman Centurion,“ Peter van Minnen
Alexandros Laftsidis, “The Hellenistic Ceramic ‘Koine’ Revisited,” Kathleen Lynch
Efthymia Tsiolaki, “Diachronic Landscapes and Social Change in Pylos, Western Messenia, Greece: The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project and its Archaeological Context in Prehistory,” Jack L. Davis
Paschalis Zafeiriadis, "Analyzing Spatial and Social Structures in Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Macedonia, Greece," Eleni Hatzaki and Jack L. Davis

University of Colorado, Boulder

Elizabeth Deacon - "Tellers of Long Tales: Homeric Structures in the Greek Ideal Novel: - Advised by John Gibert
Tyler Denton - "Monuments and Monumentality in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita" - Advised by Jackie Elliott
Samuel L. Kindick - "Ovid's City: Rome in the Ars Amatoria and the Fasti" - Advised by Carole Newlands
Emilie Jordan - "Are you not entertained?: Comedy in Ovid's Metamorphoses " - Advised by Jennifer A. Rea
Maria Papaioannou - "Epigram and Cult: A New Study of the Rock-Cut Precinct of Artemidorus at Thera" - Advised by Robert S. Wagman
Konstantinos Arampapaslis, “Witches in Imperial Latin Poetry”- Advised by Antony Augoustakis
Stephen Froedge, “ Plenus monstris : Monsters and Monstrosity in Flavian Epic”- Advised by Antony Augoustakis
Orestis Karatzoglou, “Platonic Psychology”- Advised by Kirk Sanders
Adam Kozak, “Humans and Natura in Flavian Epic” ”- Advised by Antony Augoustakis
Aine McVey, “Anecdotes in Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum ”- Advised by Antony Augoustakis
Clayton Schroer, “Exile in Flavian Epic”- Advised by Antony Augoustakis
Jessica Wells, “Gender and Genre in Martial”- Advised by Craig Williams
Jeremy J. Swist - " A Principio Reges : The Reception of the Seven Kings of Rome in Imperial Historiography from Tiberius to Theodosius" - Advised by Sarah E. Bond
Kenneth Elliott - "Rewards for Violence: Praemia in Roman Declamation" - Advised by Craig Gibson
Vanessa Espinosa - "Submitting to God: A Comparative Study of Apuleius's Metamorphoses , Augustine's Confessions , and Aelius Aristides's Sacred Tales" - Advised by John Finamore
Robert Morley - "Poverty in the Fictional Works of Petronius and Apuleius" - Advised by Craig Gibson
Louise Loehndorff – “Setting Rufinus in Context: A Holistic Approach to the Translation of Origen’s Psychology of Thought and Sin” – Advised by Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Megan Wilson – “A Social History of Theater In Attalid Asia Minor” – Advised by Ruth Scodel
Elizabeth Nabney – “The Impact of Labour-Motivated Mobility on Family Structures in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt” – Advised by Arthur Verhoogt
Parrish Wright – “Competing Narratives of Identity and Urbanism in Central and Southern Italy, 750 BCE – 100 BCE” – Advised by David Potter
Daniel Walden – “To Sing the Deeds of Men: Epithet and Identity in Homeric and Indo-European Epic” – Advised by Ben Fortson
Zachary Hallock – “Inclusion and Transparency: The Emergence of State Record Keeping in Republican Rome in the 4th Century BCE” – Advised by David Potter
David R. Morphew – “Passionate Platonism: Plutarch on the Positive Role of Non-Rational Affects in the Good Life” – Advised by Victor Caston
Christian Axelgard – “Tragedy and Identity in Fourth-Century Athens” – Advised by Ruth Scodel
James Faullkner –“Intellectual Currents in the Gracchan Period” – Advised by David Potter and Basil Dufallo
Malia Piper – “No Romance without Finance: the Role of Money in Roman Comedy” - Advised by Ruth Caston
Jan Dewitt – “The Aedileship, the Quaestorship, and the Development of the Roman State” – Advised by David Potter
Joshua Reno - "Holy Obscenity: Sexual Invective in the Pauline Corpus" - Advised by Stephen Ahearne-Kroll and Melissa Harl Sellew
Anthony Thomas - "Old (Testament) Solutions to New Problems: Ambrose of Milan's Use of Old Testament Exegesis in the Nicene Controversies" - Advised by Meliisa Harl Sellew
Cicek Beeby – "Spatial Narratives of Mortuary Landscapes in Early Iron Age Greece" – Advised by Donald Haggis
John Beeby - "Literary and Archaeological Etruscans of/in the First Century BCE" - Advised by James Rives
Emma Buckingham - "Identity and Material Culture in the Interplay of Locals and Greek Settlers in Sicily in the Early Archaic Period" – Advised by Donald Haggis & Carla Antonaccio
Patrick Dombrowski - "Magic and Superstition as Roman Popular Religion" – Advised by James Rives
Andrew Ficklin – “ Cupido Caesar : Venus’ Other Son in Augustan Art and Text” – Advised by James O’Hara
Sarah Hilker – "From Houses to Settlements: A Consideration of Mycenaean Social Structure" – Advised by Donald Haggis
Catharine Judson - "Protogeometric and Geometric Crete" – Advised by Donald Haggis
Katelin McCullough – “Women in Roman Crete and Cyrenaica: Female Representation Civic and Religious Spaces of the Eastern Mediterranean” - Advised by Jennifer Gates-Foster
Brian McPhee - "Apollonius' Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns " – Advised by Patricia Rosenmeyer
Keith Penich - "Vision and Narrative in Apollonius' Argonautica " – Advised by James O’Hara
Matthew Schueller - "Public Entertainment Venues as Network Actors in Roman Macedonia and Thrace" – Advised by Jennifer Gates-Foster & Herica Valladares
Katie Tardio – “Roman Conquest and Changes in Animal Economy in the North-East of the Iberian Peninsula” – Advised by Jennifer Gates-Foster & Benjamin Arbuckle
William Beck, "The Narrative of the Iliad : Time, Space, and Plot" - Advised by Sheila Murnaghan
Greg Callaghan, “Attalid Networks: Seeking Status and Acquiring Authority Beyond State Capacity” - Advised by Julia Wilker and Jeremy McInerney
Morgan Condell, “The Forest Resources of Ancient Greece: Management, Exploitation, and Trade” - Advised by Jeremy McInerney
Alice Hu, "The Epic Successors of Tragedy: Problems of Succession and Overliving in Latin Epic” - Advised by Joseph Farrell
Amy Lewis, "Aristophanes' Vulgar Poetics" - Advised by Ralph Rosen
Scheherazade Khan, "Spectacular Mimesis: A Dynamic Representational Strategy in Roman Imperial Culture" - Advised by Ralph Rosen
Marcie Persyn, "Code-switching and Bilingualism in Saturis Lucilii " - Advised by Cynthia Damon
Ryan Pilipow, “The Little Men of Law: A Social History of the Jurist in Late Antiquity” - Advised by Cam Grey
Ruben Post, “The Economics of the Achaian Koinon ” - Advised by Jeremy McInerney and Cam Grey
Jane Sancinito, “Merchants in the Later Roman Empire” - Advised by Cam Grey
Cynthia Susalla, “Heritage, Conflict and Ancient Rome: Discourse and Practice” - Advised by Cam Grey
Ching-Yuan Wu, “The Local Impact of the Koinon of the Cities in Pontus” - Advised by Julia Wilker
Edward Bertany - “Apollo through Time and Space: From Homer’s Troy to Ovid’s Rome” - Advised by Olga Levaniouk
Charles Carver - “Ἕρκος Ἀθηναίων: The Ajax Myth, the Trojan War, and the Construction of Civic Ideology in Fifth-Century Athens” - Advised by Ruby Blondell
Daniel Conner – “ Mille simul leti facies: The Allusive Battlefield of Silius’ Punica ” - Advised by Stephen Hinds
Xiaoran Luo - “Polyphemus and his World” - Advised by Stephen Hinds
Megan O’Donald - “Lexical Figures in Homer” - Advised by Olga Levaniouk
Anna Simas - “Killer Queen: Clytemnestra as Goddess, Heroine, and Monster” - Advised by Ruby Blondell
Treasa Bell - "Monsters in Latin Epic" - Advised by Christina S Kraus
Kevin Feeney - "Roman Imperial Succession from Maximinus Thrax to Justinian" - Advised by Noel Lenski
Andrew Hogan - "The Auction of Pharaoh: Institutions, Markets, and Culture in the Mediterranean during hte First Millennium BC" - Advised by J. G. Manning
Niek Janssen - "Round Pegs into Square Holes: Parody and the Fitting in Greco-Roman Literature" - Advised by Irene Peirano and Kirk Freudenburg
Zachary Wolens - "Seneca's Metamorphoses: Ovidian Change and Disorder in Senecan Tragedy" - Advised by Kirk Freudenburg
Kyle Conrau-Lewis - "The Classical Index: Reading the Historiographical Compilations of valerius Maximus, Frontinus and Plutarch" - Advised by Christina Kraus
Daniel Ferguson - "Eudaimonia in the EE" - Advised by David Charles
Reier Helle - "Unity, Part, and Whole in Stoic Philosophy" - Advised by David Charles

Completed (2017-2018 Academic Year)

Charles Bartlett - "Roman Political Economy and Legal Change: The Effects of Empire on Property in Roman Law" - Advised by Emma Dench
Gregory Mellen - "Deliberative Fictions: Isocrates' Assembly Speeches" - Advised by David Elmer & Harvey Yunis
Monica Park - "The Mortal Divine: Callimachus and the Making of an Imperial Theology" - Advised by Paul Kosmin & Leslie Kurke
Marco Romani Mistretta - "Invention and Discovery in Greek and Roman Thought" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky
James Townshend - "Horace and the Ancient Grotesque" - Advised by David Elmer and Richard Thomas
David Ungvary - "Verse and Conversion: Poetship, Christianity, and the Transformation of the Roman World, AD 400-700" - Advised by Jan Ziolkowski
Katherine van Schaik - "Medical Decision Making in Greco-Roman Antiquity" - Advised by Mark Schiefsky
Moyses Marcos - "Julian and Themistius: Panegyric, Communication, and Power in the Fourth Century Roman Empire" - Advised by Michele Renee Salzman
Andrew Horne - "Making Freedom in Cicero and Horace" - Advised by Michèle Lowrie
Paul Vadan – “Crisis Managemwnt and Socio-Political Risk in the Hellenistic Age” - Advised by: Alain Bresson
Francois Geradin - "City foundations in Egypt and Western Asia in the Second Century B.C." - Advised by Joe Manning

In Progress (2018-2019 Academic Year)

Thomas J.B. Cole - "Political Thought in Tacitus' Minor Works" - Advised by J. W. Atkins
Alexander John Fowler – "The Necklace of Harmony: Nonnus and Neoplatonism" - Advised by José González
Clinton Kinkade - "The Afterlives of a Classic: Documenting Sophocles’ Reception in the Ancient World" - Advised by C. E. Catenaccio
Adrian Linden-High — "Slaves and Ex-Slaves in Roman Military Communities under the Principate" — Advised by M. T. Boatwright.
Courtney Monahan - "Matrona Visa: Women's Public Visibility and Civic Identity in Hispania Tarraconensis" - Advised by M. T. Boatwright
David W.F. Stifler - "Lucian and the Atticists: A Barbarian at the Gates" - Advised by W.A. Johnson
Laura Winters - “Schools of Greek Mathematical Practice” - Advised by J. D. Sosin
Massimo Cè - "From menis to ira : Ancient Translators of Homer" - Advised by Richard Thomas
Emma Brobeck – “Craftsmen, Identity, and Status in the Literature of Flavian Rome” – Advised by Stephen Hinds
Konnor Clark – “Giton’s Performance of Status in the Satyrica of Petronius” - Advised by Catherine Connors
David West - "The Case for Politics: A Cross-Generic Study of Cicero's Arguments for Political Engagement" - Advised by Ann Vasaly (April 2018)
Rachel Fisher - "Homophrosyne and Women in the Iliad" - Advised by Stephen Scully (April 2018)
Laurie Hutcheson - "Reported Speech in the Iliad" - Advised by Stephen Scully (2018)
Amanda Jarvis - "Euripides and Thucydides from 415-411: Thematic Parallels" - Advised by Jeffrey Henderson (November 2017)
Daniel Libatique - "Tereus, Procne, and Philomela: Speech, Silence, and the Voice of Gender" - Advised by Patricia Johnson (April 2018)
Elizabeth Baxter - "A Spring of Ambrosial Words: Pindar's Theory of Poetry" - Advised by Jeffrey (Sept 2018)

In-Progress (2019-2020 Academic Year)

Christine Boltsi - "Hellenistic Influences on Catullus' Lesbia and the Intersection of Erotics and Poetics in the Catullan Corpus" - Advised by K.S. Myers
Sam Crusemire - "Preverbs in Attic Prose: Grammaticalization, Aktionsart, and Functional Gramma" - Advised by Coulter George
Holly Maggiore - "Love, Death, and Daimones: Euripides' δαἰμων and Contemporary Greek Religion" - Andrej Petrovic
Sidney Christman - "The Role of Divine Emotion in the Homeric Hymns" - Advised by Ivana Petrovic
Vergil Parson - "Panegyric in Latin Pastoral" - Advised by John Miller
Rebecca Frank - "Delphic Divination in Plutarch's Work" - Advised by Ivana Petrovic
Kevin Scahill - "Livy's Moral History of the Third Macedonian War" - Advised by Anthony Corbeil
Joseph Zehner - "Genealogy and Early Greek Philosophy" - Jenny Strauss Clay
Evan Waters - "Playing the Historian: Lucian's Historiographical Parodies in Context" - Advised by John Dillery
Adam Gross - "άμυδροῖς γράμμασι: Thucydides' Use of Documents - Advised by John Dillery
Matt Pincus - "Voices in the Interstices: Internal Aporia in the Platonic Dialogues" - Advised by Jenny Strauss Clay
Timothy Brannelly - "A Clash of Characters: Jupiter and Juno in Ovid's Fasti " - Advised by Sara Myers and John Miller
Peter Moench - "Pindar's Physics of Family: Kinship, Heredity, and the Problem of Being Human" - Advised by Jenny Strauss Clay
Brett Evans - "Poetic Exchange in Callimachus" - Advised by Ivana Petrovic
Nick Rich - Constituent Order in Latin AcI Clauses" - Advised by Coulter George

ASWB Master's Exam Prep 2024 4+

Practice questions, flashcards, pdg apps srl, designed for iphone.

4.9 • 19 Ratings
Offers In-App Purchases

iPhone Screenshots

Description.

Zen Prep is the #1 app for passing your exam, WITHOUT stress and anxiety. You will experience better exam practice, lower stress, and less anxiety with our step-by-step training, exam simulators, motivation programs, exam resources, and tips and tricks. Zen Prep is recommended by top teachers and mental health experts. ONE APP - ALL YOU NEED TO PASS YOUR EXAM You will find all the information you need to pass the ASWB MSW exam. All in one app. This study app directly aligns with the ASWB MSW exam blueprint, giving you the preparation you need to achieve the highest score possible. "THE ASWB MSW BIBLE"... ?! You will see why this app is referred to as "The ASWB MSW Bible" - It's so comprehensive! It will teach you everything you need to pass your exam. WHAT WILL YOU MASTER? • All the ASWB MSW exam sections. • How to learn. • How to practice. • How to motivate yourself. • How to behave on the exam day. PRACTICE QUESTIONS Any test prep guide is only as good as its practice questions and answer explanations, and that's another area where Zen Prep stands out. The practice questions are similar to the actual exam. Each answer is explained in-depth to make the principles and reasoning behind it crystal clear. PRACTICE TESTS Choose to train in a particular subject or topic. You will get access to over a dozen practice tests. REAL EXAM SIMULATOR Practice in conditions similar to the real ASWB MSW exam. Check your knowledge and get a sense of your predicted score. FLASHCARDS Swipe the cards to quickly review ASWB MSW concepts without the need to go through the whole test, complete the right amount of questions for you, and get some quick studying in. INCREASE MOTIVATION & REDUCE EXAM STRESS Positive reminders are one of the simplest and most powerful tools for exam preparation. It's all about your mindset and keeping the right thoughts. You are a winner and you will ace the exam! The app will motivate you on those hard days when motivation is needed the most. SCORE PREDICTION Get your ASWB MSW score prediction based on how you pass the real exam simulator, and study the topics you need to revisit to improve your score. TIPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Get to know how to successfully get prepared and pass the exam, learn all the strategies, tips, and tricks useful to ace the ASWB MSW exam. Zen Prep will be your most valuable study resource – helping you prepare, stay motivated, and pass the exam with flying colors. • More Than 3000+ Exam-Style Practice Questions. • In-depth rationales created by industry leaders. • A full ASWB MSW exam simulator. • Practice Tests. • Motivation techniques. • Positive reminders. • Custom exam builder to focus on your weak areas. • Progress tracking to keep you moving toward your study goals. • Dozens of study methods, from practice tests, real exam simulators, custom quizzes, study resources and more. • An entire library of up-to-date resources that will help you pass your exam. • Full suite of revision material. • Latest Content Update: Practice Materials ready for 2024 • 99.5% of our members pass on their first try, and we guarantee you will, too. • And much more! In short, it's everything you need to succeed with a bunch of hugely valuable extras sprinkled on top. ON EXAM DAY... YOU WILL THANK US! On the exam day, you will feel confident. You will see how similar the exam questions are compared to Zen Prep's training materials. **Our content has been updated to the latest 2024 guidelines.** If you have questions or comments, email us any time: [email protected] ASWB® is a registered trademark of the Association of Social Work Boards®, which is unaffiliated, not a sponsor, or associated with Zen Prep. Privacy Policy - http://zenprep.co/privacy-policy Terms and Conditions - http://zenprep.co/terms

Version 3.0.0

Thank you for using ZenPrep! We’ve made some tweaks and improvements under the hood in this version to make your ZenPrep experience even smoother. Content updated.

Ratings and Reviews

Needs improvement.

The App is getting only three stars because it includes answer options ‘all of the above’ which is not an option in the real exam. Besides, I found several question that I answered correctly according to the explanation but identifies the correct answer as wrong.

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COMMENTS

Dissertation Stress: Causes And How To Get Rid Of It
Here are the top 5 causes: The deadline is approaching fast and you are not even halfway finished with your dissertation. The topic is too complex and you are struggling to make any meaningful progress. There are too many things you need to work on and you can't get enough sleep.
All-nighters and self-doubt: learn from our dissertation disasters
If you're frustrated and stressed because of your dissertation, you're not alone. Photograph: Alamy Guardian Students Students All-nighters and self-doubt: learn from our dissertation disasters...
Debunking dissertation stress
Debunking dissertation stress With less than a month left of our masters programme and the ongoing dissertation season currently on everyone's mind, it's so easy to get lost in the chaos around you. Here are 5 things you could do to ease out some dissertation stress. Plan and organise First things first, plan and organise your day.
How to deal with a total lack of motivation, stress and anxiety when
I am very stressed and anxious, and I am really thinking of not submitting at all. I want to do more work and more research but with only 3 weeks left b before the deadline (there is not much to do). I have pushed writing the Introduction for 3 days now. It is Wednesday and I was supposed to start writing it on Monday.
Stress and Coping Mechanisms Among College Students
In this contribution, I present the results of a systematic literature review on stress and coping mechanisms among college students to establish what research has been conducted and to what extent there is evidence of the relationship of self-compassion as a coping mechanism for stress among college students.
3 tips for managing thesis writing stress
Writing your thesis can be a stressful experience. Here, Dr Sonia Greenidge from UCL's Student Psychological and Counselling Services gives you her top tips to manage this stress.
How to keep motivated when working on your dissertation or final
Find study partners. In many cases, having a study partner (s) will keep you motivated and accountable to each other to keep going. Additionally, having someone else read your work could help identify any mistakes you missed. Partnering up with someone who is committed as you will also make your study sessions go faster.
Dissertation Stress: Don't Ignore the Warning Signs
The students working on their dissertation can experience two types of stress: emotional and behavioural. 1. Emotional Signs. Sadness. Loss of interest in the activities that you felt interesting. Restless and anxious. Angry, argumentative and irritable. Concentration issues. Mental Laziness.
PDF [THESIS AND DISSERTATION GUIDE]
Graduate School Cornell University [THESIS AND DISSERTATION GUIDE] Suggested timelines, formatting requirements, required sections, considerations and formatting suggestions for producing your dissertation or thesis. Revised Spring 2018 CONTENTS OVERVIEW
The role of resilience, emotion regulation, and perceived stress on
The goal of this thesis was to examine the relationships between protective and risk factors to experiencing stress and how these factors may predict academic performance in college students. 125 college students were surveyed twice over the course of a semester on emotion regulation strategies, trait resilience, and perceived stress.
Understanding and Managing Academic Stress: A Guide for Master's Students
Stress among master's students. Stress is an unavoidable part of everyone's life. The term 'stress' was first coined in 1936 by Hans Selye, who defines it as a 'non-specific response of the body to any demand for change'. ... To know more about how a master's dissertation is written in various fields, check out our dissertation ...
Writing a master dissertation -students' difficulties and coping
This case study explores the sources of stress and use of coping strategies amongst Higher Education lecturers. In semi-structured interviews, lecturers (N=10) reported experiencing a wide range ...
Help! I'm a postgrad: how to combat the stress of doing a master's
Master's students can put a lot of pressure on themselves and become perfectionists Mel Withers The upside of all this research is that there is a more open conversation on campuses about mental...
Guide to Graduate Policy
For graduate students, the Graduate Division produces guides for filing the Master's thesis and Doctoral dissertation, and an overview of appointments called What You Need to Know About Being a GSI, GSR, Reader, or Tutor. Information in those resources supplements this guide, but in case of apparent contradiction, the Guide to Graduate Policy ...
Writing my thesis and feeling really stressed
Writing my thesis and feeling really stressed - help! Hi guys, I'm a Master's student in molecular bio & genetics. I'm currently writing my thesis (or rather trying to) in anticipation of submitting final draft and defending at the end of July.
PDF Causes of students' stress, its effects on their academic ...
The g oal of this thesis is to identify factors causing stress among students in Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Finland. 1.3.1 Specific Objectives of the Study In order to meet the general objective (aim), the study will focus on the following specific obje ctives: 1. To identify the causes of stress among students .
Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University
Dissertations Graduate Research 2006 Sources of Stress, Levels of Stress, and Coping Strategies of Faculty and Staff at Northern Caribbean University ... Davis-Roberts, Gloria, "Sources of Stress, Levels of Stress, and Coping Strategies of Faculty and Staff at Northern Caribbean University" (2006). Dissertations. 320.
7 Proven Strategies To Beat Dissertation Stress & Stay Sane
Dissertation stress refers to the psychological and emotional strain experienced by students during the research, writing, and completion of their dissertations. Its strength comes from the challenges of doing research, meeting standards, and working with deadlines. ... Master Time Management as a Student. Effective time management is essential ...
Applied Psychology
Master of Arts in Applied Psychology (45 unit) Our vision imagines a region and world in which everyone has access to an inspiring education and the psychological tools and support to propel them toward flourishing lives of meaning, purpose and connection. Our education is characterized by Strong Values, Social Justice, Transformative, Dverse ...
Researching and Writing a Masters Dissertation
Abstract. Usually around 300 words long, the abstract is meant to be a concise summary of your dissertation. It should briefly cover the question(s) you aim to answer, your primary argument and your conclusion. Introduction. The purpose of the introduction is to provide context for the rest of the dissertation, setting out your aims and the scope of what you want to achieve with your research.
What is Masters Dissertation or Postgraduate Dissertation?
A Masters Dissertation is a lengthy written study on a topic chosen by the student. It is undertaken with the guidance of a faculty supervisor, and involves an extended period of research and writing. The content and length vary depending on your field of study - Dissertations are typically longer in theoretical fields, and shorter in ...
What Is A Master's Thesis?
As stated above, a thesis is the final project required in the completion of many master's degrees. The thesis is a research paper, but it only involves using research from others and crafting your own analytical points. On the other hand, the dissertation is a more in-depth scholarly research paper completed mostly by doctoral students.
Master's Thesis Defense
Master of Science in Geoinformatics and Geospatial Intelligence Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science. TITLE: Exploring Structure Risk and Hazard Analysis Using Geographic Information and Dynamic Spatiotemporal Trends. Committee: Thesis Director: Dr. Matt Rice Committee Members: Dr. Dieter Pfoser, Dr. Nathan Burtch ABSTRACT:
List of In-Progress and Completed Dissertations in Classics
These lists, generated from information self-reported by Ph.D.-granting institutions to the SCS office, show the in-progress and completed dissertations being undertaken in Classics graduate departments across the United States. The list is as current as the data most recently received into the SCS office. If you do not see your department represented or if you have corrections please have ...
ASWB Master's Exam Prep 2024 4+
iPhone Screenshots. Zen Prep is the #1 app for passing your exam, WITHOUT stress and anxiety. You will experience better exam practice, lower stress, and less anxiety with our step-by-step training, exam simulators, motivation programs, exam resources, and tips and tricks. Zen Prep is recommended by top teachers and mental health experts.