Graduate Program in Political Science:  Requirements, Rules, and Regulations

 Current as of March 2005

 

1. Graduate Director

The Chair of the Political Science department will appoint a Graduate Director who will be a member, ex officio, of the Graduate Program Committee. The Graduate Director will be available to all graduate students for consultation about applicable rules and their interpretation and for any other matters pertaining to student progress in the Program. Students may appeal rulings of the Graduate Director to the Graduate Program Committee and from there to the Chair of the Political Science Department.

 

The Graduate Director will assign each graduate student a specific faculty advisor for consultative purposes, especially regarding the substance of the student’s program.  These assignments are provisional and can be changed at the student’s request.

2. Course Requirements

Prior to advancement to candidacy, each graduate student must complete a minimum of 18 graduate courses (72 units) of which at least 12 (48 units) must be in the Department of Political Science and up to 6 (24 units) may be in cognate disciplines.

 

All graduate students will be required to perform satisfactorily in a minimum of three courses (twelve units) each quarter for two years, for a total of eighteen courses (seventy-two units). If graduate students are Teaching Assistants, the requirement will be only two courses per quarter. Of these eighteen courses, a minimum of twelve must be approved as graduate courses in political science. The Graduate Director may certify some courses taught by other departments as “political science” for purposes of this requirement.  Any student who is unsure about whether a course counts as a “political science” course for the purposes of meeting this requirement should speak to the Graduate Director.

 

Of the three courses each quarter, two must be graduate level and one may be upper division undergraduate or SS 399 (which can be taken during quarters in which a student is appointed as a Teaching Assistant).

 

The above requirements are minimums. Students are free to take additional courses in any quarter.

 

Note: By University rule, a student must enroll in three upper-division or graduate courses each quarter to maintain satisfactory progress. Any graduate student serving as a Teaching Assistant may enroll in SS 399, University Teaching to meet this three course requirement for full-time enrollment. SS 399 does not count, however, towards meeting the Program requirement of eighteen graduate-level courses. Upper-division courses taken to fulfill workload requirements also do not count towards the Program requirement of eighteen graduate courses, unless specifically approved (see “100 level courses” below).

 

All graduate students are required to take a three-quarter sequence consisting of one quarter of “Foundations of Modern Political Science,” one quarter of “Micropolitics,” and one quarter of “Macropolitics.” The Graduate Director will indicate which specific courses constitute the sequence in a given year. This requirement must be satisfied during a student’s first year of residence.

 

Students are strongly encouraged to select their courses such that they have a major module and a minor module (the three modules being Micro Politics, Macro Politics, International Relations). In general, each course will be designated as belonging to one or another module.

 

Courses in the inter-disciplinary concentrations (Political Psychology, Public Choice, and Democratization) will be categorized as appropriate, in accord with the three modules. Some courses may be counted as both Micro and as Macro.

3. Colloquium

First-and second-year students are required to register for and attend the Colloquium - Research Seminar: Politics and Society (Political Science, 210A/B/C). This course does not count toward the requirement that students complete 18 graduate-level courses.

  

Each student will give a presentation to a colloquium on his/her dissertation research before obtaining the Ph.D. degree.

 

THIS REQUIREMENT DOES NOT APPLY TO STUDENTS ENTERING

THE PROGRAM IN 2006-07 OR 2007-08.

4. 299 Courses

A student may normally obtain credit for no more than two 299’s to be counted toward the 12 required courses in political science for the Ph.D. Any courses that are to be counted must be graded; to be graded, some written work must be completed, with its content to be agreed upon between the student and the faculty member sponsoring the course.

5. 100-level (upper-division) Courses

100-level (upper-division undergraduate) courses count toward full-time status, but (with the exception of statistics) cannot be counted toward the 48 units needed for the M.A. or the 72 units needed for the Ph.D. degrees.  A student seeking to take a course at the 100 level and wishing to obtain graduate credit should register for it as a 299 (directed study) and do work that the instructor will certify in writing is worthy of that done for graduate credit.

6. Additional Courses

Students may take more than 18 graduate level classes prior to advancement to candidacy.  Additional courses and/or independent study courses may be advisable in individual cases.

7. Research Skills Requirement

University rules require a student to pass a proficiency test in a foreign language. For the Ph.D. in Political Science, students may substitute mastery of an advanced quantitative skill or an advanced qualitative skill in place of a foreign language.

 

This requirement should be fulfilled before advancing to candidacy.  Students should select a skill whose mastery is necessary for preparation of the dissertation.

 

To acquire a quantitative skill (which could involve coursework in such disciplines as economics, mathematics and computer science, or statistics), students must complete at least one year of upper-level, undergraduate coursework in mathematics, economics, or computer science or one year in graduate-level statistics beyond the required minimum of two quarters of introductory statistics, and they must receive a grade of at least a "B" in each quarter.  For example, this requirement could be met by taking such courses as econometrics, linear algebra, advanced multivariate regression, or courses in computer science.

 

To acquire a qualitative skill, students must complete at least one year of graduate-level coursework in qualitative or interpretive research methods, and must receive a grade of at least a “B” in each quarter.

 

A student electing to meet the foreign language requirement should select a foreign language which is useful for research in his or her dissertation or in which there is a substantial body of scholarly literature.  The language exam will require the student to translate a professional article in the foreign language into English, in limited time, using a dictionary, with summarizing permitted for much of the material.  The language requirement need not be completed before advancing to candidacy, but must be completed before the Ph.D. is awarded.

8. Statistics Requirement

Students are expected to have taken, prior to enrollment, the equivalent of one year of undergraduate statistics. (That is, students need to know basic descriptive and inferential statistics, including the use and calculation of a mean, standard deviation, variance, proportion, correlation coefficient, regression coefficient, z-score, t-value, chi-square, and the construction and interpretation of a confidence interval and a hypothesis test. They should also know the meaning of "significance" and how to construct and interpret a contingency table.) Students who do not have this preparation must acquire the equivalent background during the first or second year in graduate school.

 

Undergraduate statistics courses are considered to be remedial, and thus will not count toward graduate course credit needed for the Ph.D. They can, however, count toward the 48 credits needed for an M.A. degree; they must be counted as non-political science classes for the M.A.

9. Student Progress Evaluation

At the end of each year a written evaluation of each student will be prepared by the faculty. Suggestions will then be made to the student about his or her program and progress. A copy of this evaluation will be given to the student and another copy placed in the student’s file. Evaluations are based upon a wide range of criteria, including GPA, TA evaluations, class performance, quality of written work, number of incompletes, number of qualifying papers completed, and outside activities, if any (conference paper presentations, fellowships awarded, and publications).

 

Each student will complete the three required qualifying papers and advance to candidacy at a different pace.  The faculty, however, has identified what it believes to be a normal level of progress for the completion of qualifying papers. Specifically, normal progress in the graduate program requires the completion of at least one qualifying paper by the end the student’s second year in the program, completion of a second qualifying paper by the end of the student’s third year in the program, and completion of the third qualifying paper and advancement to candidacy during the student’s fourth year in the program. 

 

Except under extraordinary circumstance to meet departmental needs, the Department will not normally appoint as Teaching Assistants students who do not complete one qualifying paper by the end of the third year in the program, three qualifying papers by the end of the fourth year in the program, or advance to candidacy by the end of the fifth year in the program.  School of Social Science rules require that graduate students advance to candidacy by the end of their fourth years in their graduate program.

 

A student will be asked to leave the program if s/he does not complete one qualifying paper by the end of his/her fourth year in the program, two qualifying papers by the end of the fifth year in the program, three qualifying papers by the end of the sixth year in the program, or advance to candidacy by the end of the seventh year in the program.

 

Several other circumstances will normally result in the loss of TA eligibility.  No student with an incomplete in a core course that is more than one year old (from the beginning of the quarter in which the core course began) will receive a TAship.  No student, prior to advancement to candidacy, may have an incomplete for more than two years and receive a TA appointment.  No student with three or more incompletes received in the space of three consecutive quarters will receive a TAship until the total number of incompletes in the most recent three quarter period is reduced to two or fewer.  No student with four or more incompletes will receive a TAship until the total number of incompletes is reduced to three or fewer. All students must complete the undergraduate statistics requirement (or be exempted from it) by the end of the second year in the program in order to maintain TA eligibility.

 

Exceptions to these rules can only be made under extraordinary circumstances.

10. Master’s Degree

Students will be admitted only to study for the Ph.D. However, upon a student’s request, a faculty committee may award the Master’s degree. This committee will be composed of the student’s advisor, the Graduate Director, and the principal faculty member for whom the required qualifying paper (see below) is written. (If two or more of these would be the same person, other readers of the paper will be appointed to constitute a committee of three.) The committee will normally grant the M.A. to a student who meets the following requirements:

• Completion of 48 units of graduate course work, not counting 299's, with a grade of B or better in each course.  No more than 12 of these units may be from work at other institutions, and at least 24 must be from courses taught within the Department.  The courses providing these units must include credit for the first year sequence required of all graduate students.

• Completion of the Department's undergraduate statistics requirement or exemption from it at the time of admission.

• Completion of the Department's Colloquium requirement.

• Completion and acceptance of one qualifying paper, written within the department and judged by the committee to be of sufficient quality.

NOTE: A university requirement for the M.A. degree is that a student be "advanced to candidacy for the M.A." in the quarter before the degree is granted.

11. Qualifying Papers for Candidacy

In addition to completing at least 18 graduate-level courses prior to advancement to candidacy, graduate students must complete three qualifying papers.  These papers will be proposed by the student and each will require consultation with two faculty members. Each paper will be accepted as meeting the requirement when approved by both members of the supervisory committee. One of the two faculty supervising each paper must be from within the Department of Political Science. Only under exceptional circumstances, approved by the Graduate Director, can one faculty member read more than two papers. Two of the three papers must each be in a different one of the three modules (micro, macro, or IR); the third may be in the area of the third module, could be in an area that is not related to these categories, or, instead, could be in the same module as one of the other two papers. One of these papers will deal with a critical review of the literature in a specified field. The remaining two papers will deal with substantive matters.

 

In choosing their topics students will be expected to pursue wide-ranging methodological skills and to develop knowledge about diverse political systems and cultures in different geographic areas.

12. General Qualifying Examination

Students who have completed their coursework and paper requirements should consult with the Graduate Director on the procedure for advancement to candidacy.

 

A student ready to qualify for candidacy will meet with faculty members twice. The first time, the student will meet with his/her candidacy (or “advancement”) committee for an oral qualifying exam. At this exam, the student will be examined on two modules of his/her choice, in accord with that student’s qualifying papers and coursework (his/her major and minor modules). Passing this exam constitutes advancement to candidacy. The second time, within six months following the advancement exam, the student will meet with his/her dissertation committee for a dissertation prospectus review. In the second, the student would be queried about the dissertation prospectus, which he/she would distribute to the committee ahead of time.

 

Well before the first exam (the one which advances the student to candidacy), the student is expected to consult with each member of the committee, in order to reach an understanding of the kinds of knowledge, literature, and information that examiners will expect the student to be able to discuss. At the exam, the student will be expected to be conversant with the material covered in courses in the two modules s/he has chosen, be conversant with material in reading lists that committee members may give to him/her; and be prepared to discuss the general topics covered in her/his three papers. He/she will be expected to be conversant with the principles, theories, broad concerns and themes, major works, and methodologies pertinent both to the papers and to the modules within which they lie (as covered in relevant course syllabi or as suggested in reading lists prepared by the committee members).

 

For the second meeting, the thesis prospectus defense, the student should supply the members of the thesis committee (see article 15 below) with a 15-30 page proposal, specifying the intellectual issue to be addressed, the methodology to be employed, and an overview of the pertinent literature and types of data to be consulted/utilized. The session will entail discussion of these matters and will aim to reach agreement between the committee members and the student as to how to proceed.

 

In accordance with University requirements, the advancement examining committee (Candidacy Committee) for the qualifying exam must consist of five members. At least two members in addition to the Chair must hold either a primary or joint appointment in the student’s department or academic unit. There can also be as many as three (besides the chair) from the department. There must be one member from outside the department but from UCI. It is desirable that this individual be familiar with the student’s research field. If the student wishes to include a member who is not a faculty member at UCI, s/he should speak to the graduate director well in advance of the advancement exam.  The inclusion of a non-UCI faculty member as an advancement committee member must be approved by the Department and the Office of Graduate Studies.

 

The Dean of Graduate Studies retains sole authority to grant these exceptions, which must be submitted in writing by the chair of the academic unit at least two weeks prior to the scheduling exam, and must be accompanied by a c.v. of the individual for whom the exception is being requested. The Graduate Director will consult with the student when nominating this committee. The actual appointment of Committee members is made by the Dean of Graduate Studies.

 

The student should prepare copies of all three qualifying papers for each member of the committee. If one of the papers is in the same area as the proposed dissertation, the student should indicate that to committee members. If none of the papers is related to the dissertation, the student should indicate that to committee members.

13. Credit for Master’s Degree

A student who has a Master’s degree from some other institution or unit of the University and who has written a substantial paper in fulfillment of the requirement for this degree may submit that paper to the Graduate Director for approval in lieu of one of the three required papers. The master’s paper so submitted will be assessed by at least two faculty members for possible approval as a substitute for a qualifying paper.

14. Credit for Courses Taken Elsewhere

Where a student has an M.A., Ph.D., or coursework from a creditable institution, we will allow a transfer of credits for up to six courses. No more than three of these will count toward the requirement to take twelve graduate-level courses in political science.

 

Students can obtain credit for courses only after admission to the Program and only after written petition to the Graduate Director for credit. The Graduate Director will make a recommendation to the Department based on this petition.

15. Doctoral Thesis Committee

The Doctoral Committee supervises the final phase of the student’s graduate study and approval of the dissertation. It ordinarily consists of three members. The Chair must be a member of the Department of Political Science. At least half of the members of the committee must be from the Department of  Political Science; the total number of members on the committee is variable, with three as minimum. The Doctoral Committee is nominated by the Candidacy Committee at the time of the qualifying examination with the concurrence of the student, the Doctoral Committee chair, and the Graduate Director.

 

If necessary, changes may be made at a later date by submitting a memo to the Office of Graduate Studies. This should be done by the chair of the committee. Ordinarily, members of the Candidacy Committee continue as members of the Doctoral Committee, but others may be nominated. The Dean of Graduate Studies appoints members of the Doctoral Committee based on the nominations.

16. Oral Defense of the Dissertation

Students will be examined orally on the dissertation. They may also expect this examination to cover the field in which the dissertation was written. All members of the doctoral committee must attend this meeting.

17. Concentrations in Public Choice and Political Psychology

Students can earn the Ph.D. in political science with a concentration in public choice or in political psychology. All of the program rules above apply. Additionally, students in each concentration are expected to take the concentration's core course sequence among their 18 graduate courses, and to write a dissertation on a topic related to the concentration. The public choice core sequence is 3-quarters long; the political psychology sequence is 2-quarters long. The political psychology concentration requires three additional courses selected from a specific list of courses.

18. Policy regarding termination of graduate students on grounds of excessive time in program

Students who have not advanced to candidacy after 7 years or who have not completed the Ph.D. within 6 years after advancement to candidacy should expect to be asked to leave the program on the grounds of excessive time. These times do not include formal leaves of absence during which the student was absent from scholarly work.

The Graduate Director will implement this rule in consultation with the Graduate Committee and the Department as a whole. In implementation, they may consider whether:

• At least two faculty members in the department are willing to advise the student.

• There is evidence of potential for completion of the degree.

Any student who exceeds the time limits will normally lose eligibility for further financial support from the department.