Home > About Us > Graduate Studies > Ph.D. Program

Ph D. Comprehensive Exams

Applications for fall graduate admissions are due by December 15

Associate Professor Sheri L. Parks and Assistant Professor Psyche Williams-Forson are the Co-Directors of Graduate Studies.

Online applications are available from The Graduate School

Examination Fields | Preparing the Reading List | Scheduling the Exams
Examination Format | Admission to Candidacy

Guidelines for Administering Comprehensive Exams
(for Affiliate Faculty)

Typically when a student is nearing completion of course work (after students who entered the program with only B.A. degrees have earned at least 30 credit hours or students who entered the program with M.A. degrees have earned at least 18 credit hours), he or she begins to prepare for three comprehensive examinations. One exam will be in American Studies history, theory, and method and must be prepared with a member of the Regular faculty. The others will be taken in the two areas of concentration supporting the student's interdisciplinary research. Often the exam for one of the concentrations is prepared with a member of the Core Affiliate or Affiliate faculty. Either the student or the advisor should register the exam with the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS). If any special arrangements have been made, they must be cleared with the DGS in advance.

Examination Fields

1. History, theory, and method of American Studies: an examination that includes but extends beyond material presented in AMST 601 and 603.
2. First area of concentration:
• Cultural Constructions of Difference and Identity
• Cultures of Everyday Life
• Ethnography
• Literature and Society
• Material Culture Studies
• Popular Culture and Media Studies
• Social Policy History
3. Second area of concentration: Students, in consultation with the advisor, should select and define a second area from another of the fields listed above, or from another discipline or sub-field, such as history, feminist theory, historic archaeology, or art history.

Preparing the Reading List

Students prepare and negotiate a reading list with the faculty advisor who will administer the examination. Exam reading lists are expected to be substantial bibliographies reflecting the major contours and current issues of the scholarly literature in the area of concentration. Ordinarily, the student prepares a draft reading list and then meets with the advisor, who may add (or delete) items, as appropriate. The size of the reading list may vary according to the discipline or sub-field. Affiliate faculty administering exams are encouraged to follow the conventions in their own fields of expertise and should feel free to consult with the Director of Graduate Studies if they have questions about the Department's expectations. Students may, with the permission of their advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies, ask a faculty member from outside the university to administer a comp, if there is no one available on campus with the appropriate expertise.

In determining the reading list, students should consider the following factors:

1. Does the bibliography encompass the major contours of the scholarly literature in the field?
2. Does it provide adequate support for the student's intended dissertation topic?
3. For students who anticipate applying for faculty positions in departments other than American Studies, we strongly advise selecting and preparing a comprehensive field considered standard for that discipline with a faculty member from the appropriate department.

Scheduling the Exams

Students are strongly encouraged to schedule and take their examinations as soon as they are prepared for them (but, generally, not before those with B.A. degrees have completed 30 credits of course work or those with M.A. degrees have completed 18 hours of course work). The exams need not be taken in any particular order. Ordinarily, full-time students are expected to complete the examinations within a nine-month period. Part-time students may take longer, but once a student has completed the first examination, the others should be completed within one 12-month period. Students who need longer than a year to complete the exams may petition the Director of Graduate Studies for an extension. Examinations may be scheduled for any date during the Fall or Spring semesters (between August 17th and May 30th). Summer semester exams may be scheduled, on occasion, by special arrangement with the advisor and Director of Graduate Studies.

Examination Format

These general procedures apply to the standard AMST 72-hour take home exam administered by AMST core faculty.

1. Preparing for comps is an important mentoring opportunity for students. The goal of comps is to test students’ ability to map intellectually their fields of study. It is understood that students and faculty will negotiate their reading lists and discuss question areas or possibilities. This is an important part of the exam preparation process. However, the comp is a test. It is assumed that students will not know the questions they will receive ahead of time.
2. It is the responsibility of the student and advisor to inform the DGS when a comp is scheduled—prior to the commencement of the exam. Notification by email is sufficient; cc it to yourself as well. Failure to take this step may invalidate the exam.
3. Exams must be delivered to the student by a method that involves a “time stamp”. The easiest way to do this is to administer the exam by email, with a copy of every exam cc’d to the DGS. Please also make certain that the DGS receives a copy of the student’s reading list.
4. Exams must be returned to the DGS by a method that involves a “time stamp.” This can be done via email or by federal express or any other courier service that marks the exact time of receipt of the item. The DGS will then note the time mailed and distribute the exam for grading. Note: Please do not return exams via the department’s (sometimes unreliable) fax machine.
5. The standard AMST exam format for comps taken with core faculty is a 72-hour open-book take home exam. The faculty expects that students will write their essays during the 72-hour period allotted for the exam. The faculty knows, however, that in a take-home exam setting, students have access to books, notes, précis, and similar materials that they have prepared prior to the exam. We anticipate that students will consult prior developed materials, but we also expect that the final essay(s) will be coherent, well-argued and supported, fresh pieces of work. Essays should demonstrate a cogent, illuminating argument/interpretation that is thoroughly reasoned. The essay’s components should be logically connected with one another and supported by substantive and appropriate evidence from the literature on the reading list.
6. Communication of the results of an exam will be on a “need to know” basis. The persons privy to this information should be the DGS, the exam advisor, the student, and in certain cases where the exam result must be negotiated between readers, the second and, if any, third readers. Professors should convey their evaluations directly to the DGS. The Graduate Secretary will only handle the comps at the point of filing the exam and typing the notification letter, which should be cc’d to the student’s program advisor. Exam results should only be conveyed by email or in envelopes—not left out in the DGS’s mailbox.
7. In the event of a failed exam, the procedure is as follows. Both readers will convey their results separately, i.e. w/o consulting, to the DGS. The DGS will select a third reader to make sure of broad agreement that the exam is a failure. The student will be notified of the result and has one re-take opportunity. Readers should provide the student with comments that explain what was unsatisfactory and reiterate expectations. Readers may opt to speak to the student face to face. The re-take should occur in a timely manner—within 6-8 weeks, unless there are extenuating circumstances (family crises, illness, interstate moves) and the student must be given different questions on the same reading list. When the retake is completed, the same three professors will evaluate it. After each has evaluated the exam, consultation may be taken among the readers concerning the results. A second failure will result in termination from the Ph.D. program.
8. Under normal circumstances, the second reader of the 72-hour take home exam will be a blind reviewer. The second reader will be selected by the DGS, who may consult with the first reader to ascertain subject expertise needed. Faculty make every effort to read and return exams within 21 days. Exams may be given the following grades: Honors; High Pass; Pass; and Fail.
9. On occasion, where appropriate, the second reader may be negotiated in advance between the student and exam advisor. For example, in interdisciplinary exams, where two disparate kinds of expertise are needed (e.g. ethnography and popular culture or cyberculture studies and material culture studies), it may make sense to do this. In such a case, the exam advisor must obtain approval of the DGS prior to the exam. Under no circumstances may any student take all three exams with this kind of arrangement, however.
   

In certain instances, the standard exam format may not be deemed appropriate for an exam in a particular field of study. For example, some disciplines observe the convention of administering 2-3 hour written exams in which the student does not have access to books or notes; others prefer oral exams or "slide exams" requiring students to respond to visual materials. For exams taken outside the department, the rule will continue to be that students will take the form of exam typical of that department or discipline. Exams taken outside the department generally involve only a single reader, unless the outside field’s convention requires more than one examiner (as, for example, in the case of oral exams in the WMST department, which require at least two examiners). Students and advisors who are uncertain about the acceptability of a certain exam format are invited to review the affiliate faculty guidelines and consult with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Admission to Candidacy

Successful completion of the Ph.D. examinations is one of three requirements for admission to candidacy. In addition, students must satisfactorily complete all course work (except for 12 credits of AMST 899) and successfully defend their dissertation proposal in a meeting with their committee members. (See also the section on Admission to Candidacy in Ph.D. Program Requirements.)

Revised 10/27/03