Philosophy Department Guide for Graduate Students with Policies Relevant to Graduate Students

 

rev. March 2005

 

I .SUGGESTIONS

 

Graduate school is where a student becomes an independent scholar and a colleague in the philosophical community. The following suggestions are ways a graduate student can take full advantage of the opportunities offered by our graduate program:

 

1. Feel free to seek out faculty members for advice, and to initiate discussions about philosophical issues.

 

2. Participate in the intellectual life of the department through brown bag seminars and colloquia. The faculty regard the brown bag seminars as an integral part of the program, and try hard not to make these situations intimidating. We expect and encourage graduate students to participate actively in the discussions. A brown bag seminar is an excellent venue for trying out a paper you intend to present at a conference or submit for publication.

 

3. Attend seminars for which you are not enrolled. This is a good way to get exposure to issues and literature with a minimum of work.

 

4. Graduate seminars rely on the active participation of all students, and so graduate students should regard it as a duty to contribute to class discussions. It is never sufficient merely to do the assigned reading.

 

5. Try to write some seminar papers with an eye to delivery at conferences or eventual publication. Faculty will be able to give advice on how to rewrite papers for such purposes. Students who succeed in publishing while in graduate school have an advantage in job-seeking and other professional opportunities.

 

II. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

 

II. A. Fellowships:

 

II. A.1. Predoctoral Fellowships awarded by the department

Every year the department is given about $10000 in Predoctoral Fellowship money by the Graduate School to distribute on the basis of merit. These funds are grants, not wages. These funds are typically awarded to students in their first 4 years of graduate study.

 

II. A.2. Outstanding Scholars Program

The graduate school awards a number of special 3-year fellowships to promising applicants with especially high scores and grades. The awards consist of a monetary fellowship equivalent to one-half GA. Typically the Graduate School makes an award of summer fellowship money to holders of Outstanding Scholar Awards. The department supplies a half-GA. In effect, an Outstanding Scholar Award means that the student is paid a full GA wage for half the work.

      The various departments in the university nominate applicants for these awards, and the Graduate School awards them. The Graduate School accepts nominations for awards

quite early in the Spring semester. Therefore, if an applicant would like to be considered for an Outstanding Scholar Award, we need to have applications ready to forward to the Graduate School by early February. Therefore, such applications should be complete by January 15th.

 

II. A.3. Multicultural Scholars Program

The graduate school awards a number of special 3-year fellowships to promising applicants from various underrepresented groups. Terms of the award are the same as for the Outstanding Scholars Program.

 

II. A.4. Summer Fellowships

Every summer the department is given a very limited amount of summer fellowship money that is awarded according to merit and the following hierarchy:

1) students who are presenting papers at conferences and have exhausted the Graduate School's allocation. The Graduate School allocates $1000 for your time at UConn after passing the generals. If you exhaust these funds, you have first priority for summer fellowship money.

2) Students preparing for the General Exams (q.v.) or preparing a dissertation prospectus.

3) others

 

Students should submit e-mails or letters requesting Summer Fellowship money and outlining their Summer plans, by mid-April.

 

II. A.5. Dissertation Fellowships

Any student who has passed the Ph.D. exams and has an approved dissertation prospectus is eligible to receive a one-time award of about $3,000 during the summer or the regular school year. Applications are due in June and in December for Fellowships for the next semester. Fellowships are awarded on the advice of the Graduate Committee and the Department.

 

II. B. Graduate Assistantship (GA):

 

II. B.1. General

Every semester the Dean of Arts and Sciences assigns the department a budget for Graduate Assistantships that the Graduate Committee assigns to students on the basis of merit. The Graduate Assistantship is the basic form of support, since a full or a half GA carries with it health insurance and a waiver of tuition.

Assistantship stipends generally increase each year, and they also increase with experience in the following order: B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. candidate (i.e. has passed the Ph.D. general exams).

The normal work load for a full Graduate Assistantship is 20 hours per week. We interpret this to mean either two sections of a 100's level course, one section plus a 10 hour per week research assignment, or a 20 hour per week research assignment.

An award of 1/2 GA entails half the work, half the stipend, but full tuition remission and full health insurance.

 

II. B.2 Training

The University requires first year GAs to take a one-day workshop on teaching as a requirement of the position. In recent years, these workshops have been scheduled during the week before Fall classes begin.

 

II. B.3. Typical Assignments

      For students in their first two years, "sections" are discussion sections of "mega" courses. A "mega" course meets three times a week. Two of those meetings are large lectures (150-330 students). The third meeting is a discussion meeting. Discussion sections are small (30 students) and run by a GA, who is also responsible for grading, must keep office hours, etc. The effect of this arrangement is that a GA is paid for doing a section while doing much less work than would be required if the GA were responsible for constructing and preparing an entire course. The department will have between 24 and 33 “mega” sections to be staffed each semester.

      Graduate students in their third or higher years will be assigned to teach various 100's -level courses for some semesters, in order to learn how to prepare a course on their own.

It is good to have such independent teaching experience on one’s dossier for a job search.

      Once one has such independent teaching experience, a return to the less labor- intensive mega sections is desirable. Since a Ph.D. in Philosophy is supposed to prepare people to be college teachers, all graduate students who get Ph.D.'s will have taught at least one course independently. The vast majority of independent courses are at the various branches of the University, but these hardship posts, which involve commuting, are distributed evenly. There are typically 5 to 7 sections of 100’s-level philosophy courses taught at the branches per semester.

 

II. B.4. Learning to be a college teacher

The instructors of record in the "megas" are responsible for assisting and supervising discussion leaders. Among the resources available are those of the Teaching Institute, mentoring from senior GAs, mentoring from faculty members, and experience. Teaching is what you will get hired to do. When you do your own courses, your teaching in those courses will be evaluated by the University and will become part of your job-application file. The time to start learning to do this well and diligently is as soon as possible. Please read the departmental policy on Graduate Assistants which is in the last section of this document.

 

II. C. Need-Based Aid:

 

Every graduate student should fill out a need-based financial aid form. Need-based aid is administered by a University agency, the Student Financial Aid office, U-116. The applications are analyzed by ETS according to federal standards. Applications are available from the Financial Aid office, and are due in January for aid to begin September 1, and in March for aid during the summer. Need-based aid consists of tuition waivers, work-study grants, and loans. The department has a number of work-study positions for philosophy graduate students. We have never failed to find a work-study position within the department for students who have been awarded work-study funds.

 

II. D. Travel Money and Other Small Grants:

 

Ph.D. students who have completed the generals exam can apply to the Research Foundation for travel grants to deliver papers at conferences and for some research activities. At the moment, the Research Foundation allocates $1000 to each student for travel for the rest of their time at UConn after passing the generals. The Department also has a small fund (donations from faculty) to assist graduate students at whatever level when they deliver papers. Finally, travel to deliver papers at conferences has the highest priority in awarding Summer Fellowship money. In short, we think presenting papers at conferences is important for those entering the profession and will fund it one way or another. There are few better ways to make contact with people in your area of interest and get something on your CV.

 

III. APPLYING TO THE PROGRAM

 

III.A. Mechanics:

 

The simplest and least expensive procedure is to apply online at the Graduate School at http://www.grad.uconn.edu/.

 

Questions about your application are most swiftly dealt with by e-mail. My e-mail is:

samuel.wheeler@uconn.edu

 

III.B: Deadlines:

 

We begin offering applicants GAs and fellowships in mid-February. That means that you have the best chance of getting a GA if your application is in by January 15^th, although the deadline is February 1. We have more qualified applicants for our program than we have graduate assistantships to offer. Therefore, we begin by offering our entire stock of GAs and fellowships to what seem to be our very best candidates. Some of those candidates choose to accept other offers. When that happens, we offer aid to applicants further down on our list. If a great number of our prima facie top applicants go elsewhere, it can happen that a very late applicant will get lucky, and will receive a GA.

 

Our nominations to the graduate school for the Outstanding Scholars Program and the Multicultural Scholars Program are due February 1. Therefore January 15 is the deadline for applicants hoping to be nominated for these award.

 

The deadline for applicants who do not request financial aid is May 1.

 

IV. THE PROGRAM OF GRADUATE STUDY

 

IV.A. Requirements for the M.A. Degree:

 

IV.A.1. Earned Credits

Students must earn at least 24 hours of graduate credit beyond the B.A. with a minimum grade average of B. Except with permission of the Graduate Director, at least 21 out of the first 24 credits taken in University of Connecticut Philosophy Graduate Program must be within the department. A normal semester course load for a student with teaching responsibilities is 3 courses. A student making reasonable progress should have finished the course requirements for the MA by the end of the third semester of Graduate School. By the end of the fifth semester, a student making reasonable progress would have completed 45 out of the 48 credits required for a PhD.

     A GA who has 24 credits toward the M.A. graded and completed can request to be paid at the Master’s level even before completing the additional requirements for the M.A. degree.

 

IV.A.2. The logic requirement

The logic requirement can be met by passing Philosophy 307 or an equivalent course at another institution with a grade of C or better, or by equivalent performance on an appropriate exam. Philosophy 307 is required of all students who have not taken symbolic logic elsewhere and done well. It is recommended that students be familiar with classical propositional logic before they take 307. A logic committee determines whether a student is eligible to pass by exam or has met the requirement elsewhere. A student has two tries to pass this requirement.

 

IV.A.3. An approved plan of study on file with the Graduate School

The plan of study is a list of the courses that the student has taken. Those courses must add up to 24 credits of Philosophy courses and must include Philosophy 301 and 307 or a course equivalent to 307, unless the student has been exempted from either of these courses by the Graduate Director or the instructor of 301. By the beginning of the second year, the student should have a 3-person committee, and have designed a plan of study for the M.A. that has been approved by that committee. The Graduate School requires that a Plan of Study be submitted after the student has completed 12 credits of coursework.

 

      M.A. plan of study forms can be obtained from the Departmental Secretary, the Graduate Director, or the Graduate School, and must be completed in triplicate. Completed forms are returned to the Graduate School.

 

IV.A.4. The MA Exam: (Master of Arts Degree Examination)

      The MA exam is the exam that is supposed to tell the Philosophy Department, and more importantly, the graduate student, whether it is reasonable for that student to seek a

career in Philosophy. It is the main device by which the Department forces itself to give frank advice and assessment to graduate students. This is the point at which the faculty tries to judge whether a graduate student has a reasonable chance of having a successful career as a professional Philosopher.

One question we ask ourselves is, “Could we reasonably expect to place this person in a tenure-track position at a four -year college once the person gets a PhD?” If we think the answer is “No” then it is in the student’s interest to do something else besides get a doctorate in philosophy.

Philosophy graduate students nationwide are extraordinarily talented, relative to other fields. The average GRE verbal of students intending to go on in philosophy a few years back was between the 80th and 90th percentile. Such students would be star applicants in most fields of graduate study. In philosophy, they are average. The job market selects a small portion of this elite, and consigns the rest of the elite to adjunct work, which pays wretchedly. It is our opinion that a student should find out early which section of the elite he or she belongs to, and act accordingly. Our view is that two years of graduate study should produce enough information to determine whether it is reasonable to risk another four years of one’s life to acquire a PhD in Philosophy.

      Parenthetically, I should remark that the interests of the faculty and the interests of the students diverge at this point. The faculty would be happy to have most graduate

students around for a decade or more. The more graduate students, the better for the faculty. The interest of a student, however, is to end up with a job that pays a reasonable wage. The only way that a PhD in philosophy is relevant to that interest is if the student gets a tenure-track position at a four-year college. The policy that tries to discourage faculty from acting solely on their own interests by keeping unplaceable students in the PhD program is the commitment to 3 years of funding (see IV.A.7 below), which means that admitting someone to the PhD program has costs to the faculty.

 

Formal requirements:

The MA exam may be taken after the student has taken 24 credits of graduate-level philosophy. This can be as early as the end of the student's second semester. It is possible to pass the MA examination before 24 credits have been completed. A student who did not intend to go on past the MA might take the MA exam after two semesters, even though some coursework was still incomplete. Such a student would not actually receive an MA degree, however, until coursework was completed and Graduate School requirements were met. The MA exam MUST be taken no later than the end of the student's 4th semester (i.e. in the typical case, in May of the student's second year).

 

      The student must have completed 24 credits, with the grades turned in by instructors, by the end of the 4th semester of study. Note well: A student who has completed ONLY 24 credits by the end of the 4th semester of graduate study is seriously behind schedule, and has jeopardized prospects for continuation past the Master of Arts degree. This 24-credit rule is thus an absolute minimum, not a recommended number of credits. A student with some teaching responsibilities would ordinarily have completed 36 credits by the end of the 4^th semester. To take the MA exam, the candidate submits two papers to the Director of Graduate Studies, who will then appoint a committee to evaluate those papers. Examination papers are due on the last day of classes of the semester in which the student chooses to be examined. These papers should be between 12 and 20 pages in length, and should show clear understanding of an important issue, in depth acquaintance with some relevant literature, ability to develop and support one's own position, and evidence of philosophical talent.

      There are three grades possible on the MA exam: Fail, MA Pass and Ph.D. Pass. Since a "Fail" grade would be a judgment that, although the student's work was judged to be of passing graduate quality by members of the Philosophy department, it is nevertheless not passing, a Fail on the MA examination is quite rare.

 

IV.A.5. Terminal MA and Admission to the Ph.D. program

 

IV.A.5.1 The Masters Examination

     The MA examination is a requirement for receiving our M.A. in Philosophy and for being allowed to continue on in the Ph.D. program. The submitted papers are an important component of that decision.

The committee assigned to evaluate the MA examination papers is asked to judge whether the papers provide sufficient evidence of the capacities needed to pursue Ph.D. research in this department. Those papers that do provide such evidence are forwarded to the Graduate Committee with a recommendation that the student receive a grade of "Ph.D. Pass". The recommendation of the examining committee from the evidence of the examination papers is part of the evidence on which a student's admission to the Ph.D. program is determined.

      The Graduate Committee, on the basis of the student's overall record, consultation with the members of the graduate faculty, and the report of the Masters Examination

Committee for the student, will decide whether to allow the student to continue on in the Ph.D. program. Students have a reasonable prospect of continuing on if they have mostly A's and A-'s on their record, few incompletes, and have clearly demonstrated creativity or talent, as reflected in Professors' comments on written work.

      The standards are rigorous. Students will be notified in writing by the Director of Graduate Studies about the results of the MA exam and the Graduate Committee's decision on admission to the Ph.D. program.

 

IV.A.5.2 Along with the papers submitted as the Masters Exam, a student who wishes to continue on in the PhD program must submit a “statement of research interests” to the Graduate committee. This should be roughly 2000 words describing the philosophical problems or research areas that the students finds to be most interesting.

 

IV.A.5.3 A student will be allowed to continue on in the PhD program only if at least two faculty members indicate (preferably in writing) to the Graduate Committee a willingness to serve on that student’s committee. It is the responsibility of the student to talk to faculty members and solicit these indications.

 

IV.A.6. The Master’s Review for students who have an MA in Philosophy from another university:

     The MA review is a requirement for being allowed to continue on in the Ph.D. program for students who come to the program with an M.A. in Philosophy from another department. Just like for the Master’s Exam, students must submit two papers from Philosophy seminars, at least one of which must be a seminar taken at the University of Connecticut. These papers must be submitted at the end of the second semester (or its full-time equivalent) of course work in the department. The submission date is the last day of classes of the semester.

      The decision on whether to allow the student to continue on in the Ph.D. program will be made on the basis of an examining committee's evaluation of papers, the student's grades, and consultation with the members of the graduate faculty, in the way described above for the Master’s Exam.

 

IV.A.7. Funding commitment

Allowing students to continue on in the Ph.D. program after the Master’s Exam is a commitment of the department to three more years of full funding, given satisfactory and timely progress and continued good performance. In most cases in the past, a student in the Ph.D. program receives full funding for four years past the M.A., i.e. through the student’s sixth year in the program. Full funding means one full GA or the equivalent.

 

                  A necessary condition of satisfactory and timely progress is the following: By the end of their fourth year of graduate study students must have a dissertation prospectus approved by the department and on file with the Graduate School. Students who enter the program with an MA must have a final dissertation prospectus on file with the Graduate School by the end of their third year. In effect, this means that a prospectus must be on file at the end of the academic year following the August in which the student takes the General Examinations (q.v.).

                  Students who fail to meet this condition no longer have a guarantee of funding.

 

                  In the case of students who arrive with an MA from another institution and are allowed to continue on in the Ph.D. program after a Master’s Review, the funding commitment is one year less, i.e. two more years with the same provisos. In most cases in the past, such students have usually received three more years of funding.

 

 

IV.B. Requirements for the Ph.D.

 

IV.B.1. The logic requirement

Same as that for the M.A., except that the quality of work must be B- or above.

 

IV.B.2. Earned Credits

A student must earn at least 24 credits in Philosophy or other approved subjects beyond the M.A. (48 credits beyond the B.A) with a minimum grade average of B. Approval for courses in other departments must come from the student’s committee. Except with the permission of the Graduate Director, students who enter with an M.A. from another philosophy program must take at least 21 of their first 24 credits in the UConn program within the department.

 

IV.B.3. A Ph.D. plan of study on file in the Graduate School.

By the end of the first semester after the M.A., the student should have a 3-person Ph.D. committee and a plan of study for the Ph.D. that has been approved by that committee. Ph.D. plan of study forms can be obtained from the Departmental Secretary, the Graduate Director, or the Graduate school. The completed forms are returned to the Graduate School for approval.

 

IV.B.4. The Language Requirement

The language requirement can be satisfied in several ways:

1) Demonstrated reading competence in two philosophically useful foreign languages.

2) Demonstrated competence in one foreign language and 6 credits of graduate work in a philosophically useful area outside of philosophy. The 6 credits must be in addition to the

required 48 credits of work for the Ph.D.

3) Demonstrated reading competence in one foreign language and 6 credits of advanced logic beyond the Phil. 307 level with minimum grades of B- (in addition to the required 48 credits for the Ph.D.). Suitable logic courses are to be determined by the Director of Graduate Studies, and include Phil. 311, Math. 335, and Math. 336. These requirements should normally be at least partially met before taking the Ph.D. General exams.

 

IV.B.5. Ph.D. General exams

The Ph.D. General exams are supposed to establish whether a student has achieved competence in a number of the important areas of philosophy. It is expected that students taking the exam will demonstrate that they have accurate "text-book" knowledge and basic understanding of standard philosophical problems. The exams are NOT supposed to be a filter that eliminates people from the Ph.D. program. That filtering is typically done at the time of the M.A. Exam or M.A. Review, described above. A typical good placement with a Ph.D. is a small liberal arts college, where one is expected to be able to teach a wide variety of undergraduate courses. The Ph.D. General Examination is designed to insure that our students will be equipped to prepare themselves to teach the courses of a colleague who goes on sabbatical.

 

IV.B.6.a. When to take the exams

Students must take the Ph.D. exams after 6 semesters of full-time study, or normally during August after the student’s third year. The student should have completed coursework for the Ph.D. (excluding the language requirement). The exams are offered every August, with retakes given in January. The three exams typically take place on successive Mondays.

 

IV.B.6.b. Eligibility to PASS the Ph.D. General Exams

A student must have completed coursework for the Ph.D. before passing the PhD General Exams. That is, the student must have 48 credits completed, with grades turned in by instructors, before the Ph.D. General Exams can be regarded as passed. This policy, combined with the policy that a student must take the General Exams in the August following the third year of study, requires that a student finish work on any incompletes in a timely manner. In a case where a student has not completed coursework by August of the third year, the student must take the examination, but the examination will not be graded and reported to the graduate school as “passed” until the required coursework is completed. The practical consequence of this policy is that the pay-level for someone who has taken the generals but has not completed coursework will remain at the MA level rather than the ABD level until the coursework that constitutes “all but dissertation” has been completed.

 

IV.B.6.b. Retake Policy

A student who fails any of the exams the first time must retake the failed exams in January of the next year. Any student who fails an exam twice is normally asked to leave the program.

 

IV.B.6.c. Nature of the exams

1. A student must pass all three Ph.D. exams: Metaphysics & Epistemology [M&E], Ethics & Social/Political Philosophy [ESP], and History of Philosophy [HP]. For each exam, the student must answer three questions from the given set. Students are allowed four hours per exam, with more time allowed for students whose first language is not English or who can convince the Graduate Committee that more time is justified in their case. "Four hours" is strictly interpreted to mean four hours. Students are encouraged to consult with faculty during their preparation for the General Examinations. Such discussion can include discussion of particular philosophical issues and discussion of the positions of figures in the history of philosophy. See the Departmental Secretary for a reading list and for sample questions.

 

2. The Metaphysics and Epistemology exam consists of two parts.

Part one includes only general M&E questions, while part two includes two questions each from philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mathematics. Students must answer at least one question from each part. The questions on both the M&E exam and the ESP exam are primarily issue-oriented rather than people-oriented. That is, while some knowledge of the views of particular philosophers will be called for, the primary focus is not historical scholarship but competence with the issues.

 

IV.B.6.d. Grading Procedures

Each Ph.D. exam is graded by a committee of at least three persons appointed by the Graduate Director. The committee must meet to discuss areas of disagreement, and can ask other faculty members to read and evaluate the exam. After a committee has reached a decision, it will report that decision to the Director of Graduate Studies, who will notify the student of the results.

 

IV.B.7. An acceptable dissertation

When the General Examination has been successfully completed, the student is ready to write a dissertation. By the time a student is taking the General Exams, the student should already have generated some ideas for dissertation topics and begun to research the literature surrounding a few such topics. Ph.D. candidates must prepare a dissertation prospectus under the guidance of their dissertation committee. The prospectus is an outline of what will be done in the dissertation, with a description of the relevant literature, arguments, hoped-for results, etc. Some of the things hoped for in the prospectus may not work and some unanticipated new lines of research or thought may develop during the actual writing. The student should view the prospectus as a tool for getting a dissertation underway. A prospectus must be completed within the first year after passing the General Examination. Sometime during that year,

a student must present a brown bag on the issues or theses presented in the prospectus. This prospectus must be approved by the department. The mechanism for departmental evaluation is the following: The prospectus is turned in to the Department Head. The Department Head appoints a committee, none of whose members are on the student's PhD Committee, to report back on the acceptability of the prospectus. Departmental evaluation should be a very quick process.

 

IV.C. Target Timetable for the Ph.D. {Timetable for students with outside M.A.’s}

 

Year 1.

   7         Course work for the M.A.

   7         take Phil 301, 307

 

Year 2. {Year 1 for outside M.A.’s}

   7         Fall: Course work for the MA {Ph.D.}

   7         Spring: Ph.D. course work; turn in Masters Exam {Master’s Review} at end of semester

 

Year 3. {Year 2}

   7         Complete Ph D. course work. Take the Ph.D. exams in August. Work on language /related field requirements

 

Year 4. {Year 3}

   7         Fall: Research for Dissertation, write prospectus.

   7         Spring: get prospectus approved, start dissertation, finish language/related field requirements.

 

Year 5, 6. {Year 4,5}

   7         Finish dissertation, take final public oral. Submit articles for publication. Get a job.

 

Many of the above steps require forms to be filed. Forms with instructions are available on the Graduate School web page. Click the link for “FORMS” under “CURRENT STUDENTS.” Make sure you or the appropriate professors have filed forms in a timely manner. Often they affect the level of pay for a GA.

 

IV.D. Getting a Job:

 

A Ph.D. in Philosophy trains a person to do research and teaching in Philosophy. The vast majority of such jobs are faculty positions at colleges and universities. There are many more people with Ph.D.'s in Philosophy than there are jobs, a situation that has been with us for more than a quarter of a century. In this grim situation, the University of Connecticut Philosophy department has been very successful in placing its students in tenure-track positions. The students who have gotten such jobs have almost always had publications accepted or in print by the time they are on the job market. We strongly urge graduate students to submit work for publication. If you have gotten an A on a paper which was more than merely expository, ask the professor who gave it an A whether it has potential as a journal article and what further work might need to be done. If the professor encourages you, try to get the article done and submitted as soon as possible. It is never too early to have papers in the publication pipeline. The department has an active placement subcommittee to advise and assist students in getting a job.

 

V. POLICIES and RESOLUTIONS of the Philosophy Department that are relevant to Graduate Students

 

V.A. Policies on Financial Aid:

 

V.A.1. Awards are made on the basis of merit, with priority given to continuing students who were recruited with financial aid packages, assuming satisfactory performance.

 

V.A.2. It is to the advantage of graduate students to finish their studies in a timely fashion without unnecessary distraction caused by teaching duties. For that reason we try to keep to a reasonable level the amount of independent teaching by graduate students, while also ensuring that Ph.D. candidates will get enough classroom experience.

 

V.A.3. The department is not committed to funding students beyond their 6th year of Graduate Study, or past their 5th year when they come with an M.A. from another institution.

However, when a student has not completed the Ph.D. and is past the 6th year of study, and has some prospect of finishing, the department will assist the student in finding adjunct positions in colleges around Connecticut.

      The Department is responsible for staffing courses at branches of the University at Hartford, Avery Point, Waterbury, Stamford, and Torrington. Qualified students who have exceeded the 6 year limit and are close to getting their Ph.D. or who have completed their Ph.D. at an awkward time and need temporary support while searching for a permanent job are favored candidates for such part-time positions, when the positions are not needed for funding less advanced students. When possible, such positions will be funded as Graduate Assistantships.

 

V.A.4. GRADES OF INCOMPLETE

      Graduate school rules allow a student to take an incomplete in a course, at the Professor's discretion. In theory, the work for a course in which a student has taken an incomplete must be made up in a year, at most. In past practice, such incompletes have been extended indefinitely. Such extended incompletes bleed the intellectual energy from student souls, seriously delaying progress toward a degree. Incompletes are strongly discouraged, except when they are completed before the beginning of the next semester. The Graduate School does not allow students with more than 3 incompletes to receive financial aid. The Graduate Committee counts an incomplete as a B-, the lowest acceptable grade, in deciding on financial aid and on being allowed to continue on in the Ph.D. program.

      It is department policy that incompletes cannot be extended beyond one year except by written appeal to the Graduate Committee. A likely outcome of such appeal, except for very extraordinary cases, is that the incomplete will become permanent and the student will be required to take another course to satisfy the coursework requirements for the degree. To illustrate: the absolute deadline for making up Spring semester, 1995 incompletes was the end of Spring semester, 1996.

 

V.B. Policy on Graduate Assistant performance

 

Graduate Assistants who have been assigned teaching responsibilities have important obligations which take precedence over most matters of personal convenience, paper deadlines, entertainment opportunities, and the like. You are responsible for part of the education of students at the best public university in Connecticut. We take this work very seriously. The following policy adds some details to the general concern that teaching be taken seriously:

 

1) Section meetings:

a) When a GA is responsible for meeting a section, and finds it necessary to miss the section meeting, the instructor of record, if it is other than the student, will be notified in advance.

Section meetings may be canceled only for extreme emergencies or the physical impossibility of getting to class. Sudden hospitalizations, car wrecks, etc., are appropriate reasons.

Otherwise, the Graduate Assistant will make arrangements with the instructor of record or the department head to have the section meeting covered.

b) If a GA misses one section meeting without adequate excuse, the instructor of record or the department head will send the GA a letter of warning. After a second missed meeting, the GA may be replaced, and removed from the payroll.

 

2) Other duties:

a) An instructor of record or the department head may require reasonable performance from a GA for that GA's performance to qualify as "satisfactory". Reasonable performance includes grading in a proper and timely manner, reporting to the instructor of record, keeping office hours, being adequately prepared for section-meetings, and other reasonable assignments made by the instructor of record or other supervisor. In cases where a student is having difficulty doing effective instruction, reasonable performance may include taking advantage of the resources of the Teaching Institute. Reasonable performance always entails observing university policies on harassment, student confidentiality, etc. Every teaching assistant will be

given copies of these policies.

 

b) If a GA appears to be performing in an unsatisfactory way other than by missing section meetings, the instructor of record or the department head will first talk to the GA, then give a warning letter, and then recommend appropriate action to the department head.

 

3) Future assignments:

Unsatisfactory performance in a given semester will be noted in making awards and assignments for future semesters.