History Ph.D.s are professional scholars, college and university teachers, and independent researchers in private, or public, research institutions. The primary mission of the History doctoral program, then, is to provide the region and the nation with professional historians to conduct pure and applied research in written texts, artifacts, images, statistics, oral recollections, and built and natural environments, to disseminate their scholarship or commissioned research in a variety of formats--books, articles, exhibits, catologs, films, interpretation of historic sites, reenactments, museums, classrooms, and public forums.
Admission to the Program
To be admitted without reservation to graduate study for the degree, a student must (1) have met the admission requirements of the Division of Research and Graduate Studies (RAGS) of the University; (2) have completed the requirements for a Master of Arts degree in history or its equivalent; (3) have demonstrated in previous graduate study a potential for doctoral work by completion of a thesis. Applicants should submit three letters of recommendation, the results of the Graduate Record Exam, a letter explaining the applicant’s professional objectives, and a writing sample that demonstrates the student’s ability to conduct research and to write.
Choosing an Advisor
The doctoral student entering the Graduate Program will meet with the Graduate Program Coordinator for course selection and advising. By the time the student registers for her/his second semester's coursework s/he should select an advisor qualified in the field(s) in which s/he wishes to major and willing to direct her/him through the completion of the dissertation. By the end of the second full semester of doctoral work, the student and major advisor should present to the Graduate Program Coordinator a program that specifies the student's history fields, advisors, cognate field, and foreign language skills.
The advisor/advisee relationship may be terminated at any time by either party without prejudice.
Consortium
Students beginning doctoral work study in August 2000 and thereafter are required to participate in the Akron-Kent Doctoral Consortium. Each student must take one approved graduate History course at the University of Akron, and include one University of Akron History Department faculty member on her/his dissertation committee.
Courses
The Ph.D. degree does not rest upon an accumulation of credits but rather upon demonstrated mastery of the discipline. Hence, the only specific course required by the Department is HIST 79894 (College Teaching of History), which is in effect an opportunity to develop teaching capacity. The content of HIST 81001 (Historical Methods) and HIST 81002 (Historiography) is, however, an important part of the education of all graduate students in History. As in the case of other courses, the advisor determines the extent to which the student has mastered this content and whether the student should take either or both of these courses.
Among the student's courses must be at least six graduate seminars or colloquia in History, six hours of coursework with the major advisor (of which at least three must be in a course with a lecture, colloquium, or seminar format), and one course with each of his/her other three field advisors. The student's doctoral program includes a minimum total of 30 hours beyond the M.A. or its equivalent (which includes 3 hours of Hist 79894). Students will take a minimum of 6 hours of coursework in all three of their fields of study, 6 hours of coursework in a cognate field, and 3 additional hours of coursework in any of the above as agreed upon by the student and her/his advisor.
To remedy any interruption in the regular schedule of seminars, colloquia, or lecture courses, the doctoral student may enroll in HIST 89896 (Individual Investigation) courses with faculty willing to offer them. The Department will accept transfers of coursework from other institutions by two means:
(a) Within the limits set forth by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies, graduate credits beyond the Master's earned elsewhere may be transferred and applied to the 30-hour doctoral minimum by petition of student and advisor to the Graduate Program Coordinator.
(b) By similar petition, up to two seminars taken for the M.A. degree may be used to waive part of the doctoral seminar requirement.
Fields of Study
The student elects her/his major and minors from the Department-approved list of General Fields, Specialized Fields, and Thematic Fields. Qualifying exam committees will be comprised of four members in three areas—one each for the general and specialized fields, and two for the thematic field who will collaborate on the third exam. The student’s major field (the field in which the dissertation will be written) can be taken from either the list of general fields or the list of specialized fields. Each student must take qualifying exams in one general field, one specialized field, and one thematic field. For the thematic field, one advisor will be chosen from two of the following areas of specialization: Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, or United States. Students will have the option of defining their own thematic field with the permission of the major advisor. It is the responsibility of the major advisor to ensure that the student’s total historical training provides adequate breadth and historical perspective.
General Fields
Asia
Africa
Medieval/Early Modern Europe
Europe since 1815
Colonial/Early National United States
Nineteenth-Century United States
Twentieth-Century United States
Latin America
Specialized Fields
Balkans
Britain
Germany
France
African American
U.S. Diplomatic
U.S. Westward Expansion
U.S. Military
Public History
Gender/Women
Thematic Fields
Political/Intellectual
Social/Cultural
Empire/Foreign Relations
Race/Ethnicity/National Identity
Consumption/Commodities/Culture
Human Conflict/War/Revolution/Genocide
Religion and Society
Research Skills and Studies in History Cognates
The acquisition and application of a variety of research skills, as well as a ready familiarity with related bodies of disciplinary and field knowledge, provide an essential foundation for the practice of History.
Each student will take a minimum of 6 hours of coursework that relates directly to their research in any one of the following areas: Social Statistics/Computer Programming, Political Science, Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Geography, Philosophy, Literature, the Arts, Religion, Film Criticism, Public History. Other fields may be made available with the prior approval of the Graduate Program Coordinator.
Foreign Language Proficiency Requirement
Doctoral students are required to demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language. Dissertation directors will determine if proficiency in more than one is required for their field of study. Students who earned their M.A. degrees at Kent State University can apply the foreign language proficiency requirement they fulfilled earlier; students from other institutions must pass a departmental foreign language proficiency exam or show that they passed its equivalent at a prior institution. To show timely progress towards their degree, all students on appointment must pass this requirement by the end of their third semester or their appointment will not be renewed; all other students must pass this requirement by the end of their coursework. No student may take the exam more than 4 times.
The Department permits graduate students to demonstrate proficiency in foreign languages in the following ways:
(a) French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Latin: by passing a departmental language examination.
The examination will consist of two 45-minute sections. The first section requires the student to translate a passage of between 350-500 words with the aid of a dictionary. The second section will consist of a passage of between 500 and 700 words. The student will be asked to summarize the passage, this time without the aid of a dictionary. The content of both passages will be historical in nature.
Each examination will be evaluated by a History faculty member proficient in the language. The student must pass both sections of the examination at the same time. S/he will be informed of the results (pass or fail; no letter or numerical grades will be assigned). The student who fails the foreign language proficiency examination may retake the examination the next time that it is administered.
(b) Languages other than French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Latin: by passing a written examination, administered and graded by an external examiner, with oversight by the student's major advisor, the Graduate Program Coordinator, and the external examiner.
Doctoral Candidacy Examinations
When the student has satisfied all of the above requirements, s/he is eligible to take doctoral candidacy examinations. All incomplete coursework must be finished, foreign language requirements fulfilled, and students must also have met the requirement of having taken at least six hours of coursework with their major field professors and at least three hours of coursework with each of their other three field advisors. It is the judgment of the Department that this should normally be done no later than the summer after the fourth semester of doctoral work. Meeting this schedule will permit most students to complete the research for and often the writing of the dissertation before seeking a position.
The student takes written and oral examinations in three fields of study(see Fields of Study, above.) The student should choose fields and field reading lists as early in her/his program as possible. S/he should not wait until the semester before her/his doctoral candidacy examinations to perform this important task. Field advisors should not experience such undue pressure to supervise and approve a reading list on short notice.
The availability of doctoral examination fields is dependent on the availability of the appropriate faculty in the Department.
The Graduate Program Committee has issued the following recommendations regarding the length of the doctoral candidacy examinations reading lists:
In order to standardize students' preparation for comprehensive examinations, advisors are to assign approximately 75 books (plus articles as required) in each of the general and specialized fields, and approximately 25 books (plus articles as required) for each half of the thematic field.
The written and oral examinations will emphasize both historiographical issues and general knowledge of each field. Please be aware that the examinations will consist of questions normally requiring a maximum of eight hours of writing. The student cannot be granted an extension of these time limits. The oral examination will be scheduled immediately following the completion of the written doctoral candidacy examinations.
Students who pass the written and oral examinations are admitted to candidacy.
The Dissertation
A student admitted to doctoral candidacy proceeds writing the dissertation, which must show an ability to use primary and secondary sources in a critical and discriminating manner, to interpret them with originality, and to present the results in a clear and effective synthesis. The dissertation should be of such quality and originality as to result in significant publication. (A complete list of doctoral dissertations in History completed at Kent State University is available on the Department’s website. Copies of all theses are available at the University's Main Library.)
The Doctoral Dissertation Committee
The doctoral dissertation committee must include three historians (the candidate's major advisor and two others). One of the other historians must be from the University of Akron. The third historian on the committee may be from one of three universities in Northeast Ohio (University of Akron, Cleveland State University, Youngstown State University) with which Kent State University's Department of History maintains a policy of reciprocal graduate faculty status. No special documentation is necessary to allow a faculty member from these universities to join a thesis committee. Additional faculty (for example, from another discipline at Kent State University or from an institution not listed above) may be, at the advisor's discretion, included as supplements to the three official members of the committee. Students wishing to utilize such additional faculty should consult the Graduate Program Coordinator concerning the proper procedure. The doctoral dissertation committee must be fully assembled before the prospectus can be circulated.
The Doctoral Dissertation Prospectus
The candidate's doctoral dissertation prospectus should be approved by the Graduate Program Committee no later than one semester (excluding summer) after the candidate passes his/her comprehensive exams.
The dissertation prospectus should be between 5 and 10 pages long and should include a description of the dissertation topic and its significance, a discussion of its place within the relevant literature, an indication of the methodology to be employed, and a discussion of the sources to be consulted, including some indication of where the sources are physically located. The candidate is also required to submit a one-page abstract with the prospectus. The prospectus and abstract should be submitted in triplicate. Sample prospectuses and abstracts are available in the Graduate Program Office (305 Bowman).
Prospectuses for doctoral dissertations that involve oral interviews must also be approved by the Kent State University Human Subjects Review Board to protect the anonymity of individuals who are the subject of study. (An excellent reference work for conducting oral history interviews is Donald A. Ritchie's Doing Oral History [Twayne Publishers, 1994], which discusses the rules and legal prescriptions for undertaking oral interviews, information of which the KSU Human Subjects Review Board might not be aware.) For further information about the Human Subjects Review Board, contact the dean of the Division of Research and Graduate Studies.
All members of the doctoral dissertation committee (including the outside discipline member) must approve the dissertation prospectus before it can be circulated to members of the Graduate Program Committee. Dissertation committee members must indicate their approval by signing the appropriate form (obtained from the Graduate Program Coordinator or the Graduate Secretary). No prospectus can be circulated without all of the required signatures.
To ensure timely approval of the doctoral dissertation prospectus, the candidate is advised to submit it to her/his doctoral dissertation committee members as early in the semester as possible. The candidate is also counseled to provide advisors and committee members with adequate time to read and critique the prospectus. Again, the burden of timeliness rests solely with the student.
A fundamental change of dissertation topic (but not a simple modification) requires the submission of a new prospectus to the Graduate Program Committee. The Graduate Program Committee must also approve a change in advisor.
The Doctoral Dissertation Defense
Following the candidate's successful defense of her/his dissertation, the Department recommends to the Division of Research and Graduate Studies the conferral of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
