Additional Information
Transfer Credit
Students who have credits beyond the Master’s degree may be permitted to apply to transfer a maximum of six credits for course work applicable to public administration to the Ph.D. program, if approved by the department chair.
Retention
Students must maintain a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 3.00 or better on the scale of 4.00, and pass all courses throughout the program to remain in good academic standing. Students must have a grade of B or better in all Ph.D. core courses and may not have more than two C grades in other courses used to meet degree requirements. Per Graduate School policy, a given course in our programs may be repeated one time only, and the second grade will replace the first. A student may repeat a maximum of two (2) courses in a given program for the purpose of improving grades. After completion of nine (9) semester hours of graduate work, if the student’s cumulative GPA at the end of a given semester falls below 3.00, the student will be placed on academic probation for the next semester and must satisfy the existing University and Graduate School requirements to return to good academic standing. Students may be dismissed from the program upon recommendation of the Ph.D. Advisory Committee for continued probation beyond two consecutive semesters.
Academic Load
Students who are on leave of absence from full-time employment or who have made arrangements to pursue studies on a full-time basis may take up to twelve (12) hours of credit a semester, with the approval of their advisor. Students working full-time in their professional capacities may enroll for no more than six (6) credit hours each semester without requesting permission from the department chair to take additional classes.
Early Review
After nine credit hours of enrollment in the doctoral programs, students will be interviewed and evaluated as to their strengths and weaknesses performing in the program to date. Remediation or other action, including a recommendation to withdraw, may be indicated at this time.
Time Limitation for Credit
Post-Master’s degree credits earned more than ten (10) years prior to a student’s graduation may not be applied toward the Ph.D. degree.
Additional Requirements
Preliminary Examination
After taking the first four Ph.D. core courses, PADM 7000 ; PADM 7310 ; PADM 7410 ; and either PADM 7130 , PADM 7220 , or PADM 7230 , each Ph.D. student must pass the preliminary exam at the first available offering of the exam or they will be dismissed from the program. The preliminary exam is offered in Spring and Fall at mid-semester on the date announced by the department. The student must be in good academic standing both according to Graduate School and Public Administration Department program criteria to sit for this exam, including having no I’s or grades lower than a B in the Ph.D. core courses.
If the student passes the preliminary exam he or she will seek a dissertation chair among the faculty. If a student fails, he or she may take the preliminary exam the next time it is offered with the approval of the Ph.D. program committee; but in the meantime he or she may not re-enroll in any additional PhD courses. If he or she fails the preliminary exam two times, the student is dismissed from the Ph.D. program. In this case, he or she may elect to apply for the MPA or MPS program.
Preliminary Examination format
The exam will consist of multiple essay questions and the student will have some choice regarding which questions to answer. Details will be provided by the department during the semester of the exam. The exam will be administered over the course of one day from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Qualifying Examination
This examination is offered in Spring and Fall on a date determined by the committee. In a student’s final semester of Ph.D. coursework, or before the end of the second regular semester following their final semester of coursework, he or she must sit for the Qualifying Examination. For example if a student completed coursework in Fall semester, he or she must sit for their Qualifying exam before the end of the next Fall semester and if they completed coursework in Spring semester, he or she must sit for the Qualifying exam before the end of the next Spring semester.
A student must be in good academic standing both according to Graduate School and Department criteria to sit for the exam, including having no I’s or grades lower than a B in the Ph.D. core courses. If, having completed all coursework, an eligible student does not sit for the exam within two regular semesters, he or she is dismissed from the program. If a student fails the qualifying examination and the student’s committee approves the request to take it again, he or she may take the qualifying exam again no later than the next available offering (the questions will be different from the first exam). This exam may only be taken twice. If the student does not retake the exam at the next available offering, he or she is dismissed from the program.
Qualifying Examination format
The student’s qualifying examination will be developed by the student’s committee (Chair and second member at the minimum; the third member can choose to participate.) in conjunction with the other PA faculty. The members of the student’s Committee and one outside PA faculty member will assess the overall quality of the qualifying examination with a grade of pass or fail, based on the view of the majority. This is a two-part examination; the first part is written and the second oral. The written examination will consist of a series of questions specific to the student’s topical area of interest and one general public administration question. All students who complete the written exam will be required to take the second part of the exam on a different day; it consists of an oral examination by the student’s committee and the Public Administration faculty that choose to attend. The oral exam is a free-ranging discussion in which the student must demonstrate public administration competency relevant to their specialization area. The decision of whether a student has passed the qualifying exam will be based on the judgment of the committee considering both the written and oral exam performance of the student.
Candidacy
Once a student has passed the qualifying exam, he or she is a candidate and may register for dissertation credit. All students taking first three dissertation credits must participate in a structured prospectus seminar offered by departmental faculty that will cover project management, the components of a dissertation and idea development, as well was be working actively with their chair and committee on the prospectus. Those credits must be taken during the semester immediately following the successful completion of the qualifying exam requirement.
Dissertation Committee
To review, the selection of Dissertation Committee members is as follows. The Chair is selected immediately after passing the Preliminary exams. The second and third members are selected while the student is completing Ph.D. coursework. The timing of selecting the fourth member and the reader of the Dissertation committee will be determined by the student’s Chair.
Some Chairs prefer to select the fourth member and reader before the Prospectus Defense while others prefer to wait until afterwards. The fourth member may be program faculty or a subject matter or methods expert from another department with Graduate Faculty status; the reader is from another department of the University with Graduate Faculty status. This committee of five members will sit as the final examining body for the dissertation defense. If, they have been selected prior to the Prospectus Defense, the fourth and fifth members may also choose to participate in the prospectus defense. Every Dissertation committee must have at a majority of members from the Public Administration faculty.
Prospectus Defense
After completing the first three dissertation credits, students must defend their prospectus within two regular semesters. A student may only attempt to defend a prospectus two times, and the second attempt must take place within one regular semester of the first attempt. If a student does not successfully defend a prospectus within these constraints, the student is dismissed from the program. The format for the Prospectus will be provided to the student by their committee chair.
Dissertation
The student must continue to take dissertation credits, by registering for PADM 8110 every semester (in the section assigned to their dissertation chair) until a total of 12 dissertation credit hours have been accumulated. From that point on, students register for dissertation continuation credits (PADM 8110 Section 35) at a reduced rate. The student must engage in original, scholarly and significant research in public administration or public policy, guided in this endeavor by the dissertation committee. On the basis of this research, the student must write a work of publishable quality adhering to the style and format required by the Graduate School. The draft of the dissertation must be considered suitable for defense by all members of the student’s dissertation committee for the defense to occur.
Dissertation Defense
Once the full committee approves the dissertation draft for defense, the student must make an oral defense of the dissertation before this body and in the presence of all others who choose to attend. In defending the dissertation, the student is expected to relate its significance to the field of knowledge to which it contributes and to the general field of public administration. The student is judged to have passed the final oral examination if at least four of the five examining committee members certify to that effect. Students failing the defense may be reexamined only once, conditional on the approval of the committee. A majority of the committee will determine if “substantial” or “minor” revisions to the dissertation are necessary after a passing defense. Should substantial revision be necessary due to deficiencies in the dissertation draft, the Dissertation Committee will reconvene at a later date to decide if those deficiencies have been fully addressed. The student may not graduate until a majority of the committee approves the major revisions. In cases where minor corrections are required on the dissertation, the Dissertation Committee Chair shall be responsible for seeing that the proper corrections are made and the final document is ready for submission to the Graduate School in preparation for graduation.
