This handbook is written to explain the requirements, policies, and procedures of the English Department graduate program. If you require this material in another format or need special accommodations due to a disability, please contact the English Department office at (805) 893-2639.

1. THE ENGLISH FACULTY

STEVEN ALLABACK, PhD, University of Washington, 1966
Novel; American literature; writing of fiction.

STEPHANIE BATISTE, PhD, George Washington University, 2003
African American studies; race and gender; performance theory and film; national identities and culture; transnationalism and diaspora; cultural theory; culture and imperialism.

SHERIDAN BLAU, PhD, Brandeis University, 1967
Seventeenth-century literature; rhetoric and composition; English education.

HEATHER BLURTON, PhD, Columbia University, 2003
Literature of the High Middle Ages; literary responses to the Norman Conquest; the intersections of romance, hagiography, and historiography; medieval antisemitisms.

MAURIZIA BOSCAGLI, PhD, Brown University, 1990
Gender studies and feminist theory; the body; theories of subjectivity; British and European Modernism; fin-de-siècle literature; critical and cultural theory; theories of mass culture.

JANIS CALDWELL, PhD, University of Washington, 1996
Victorian novel; non-fiction prose and poetry; history and philosophy of science; medicine, body and mind; literature and ethics.

JULIE CARLSON, PhD, University of Chicago, 1985
British Romanticism; feminist and queer theories; early nineteenth-century British theater.

ELIZABETH HECKENDORN COOK, PhD, Comparative Literature, Stanford University, 1990
Eighteenth-century British and French literature and cultural studies.

ENDA DUFFY PhD, Harvard University, 1990
Post-colonial literatures and cultures; modernism and postmodernism; Irish literature; cultural studies; Joyce.

ROBERT A. ERICKSON, PhD, Yale University, 1966
Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English literature, especially fiction, satire, and drama; literature and religion; literature and medicine.

L. ARANYE FRADENBURG, PhD, University of Virginia, 1982
Medieval English and Scottish literature; critical and historical theory.

PATRICIA FUMERTON, PhD, Stanford University, 1981
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture and literature; high and popular culture; vagrancy and lower-order mobility; broadside ballads; subjectivity; postmodernism.

BISHNUPRIYA GHOSH, PhD, Northwestern University, 1994
Postcolonial theory, literature, and film; gender and sexuality studies; 20th century novel; globalization and culture studies.

GILES B. GUNN, PhD, University of Chicago, 1967
American literature; literary theory and criticism; American cultural and religious studies; global literature and culture; literature and religion; literature and philosophy. Professor of English and of Global and International Studies.

CARL GUTIÉRREZ-JONES, PhD, Cornell University, 1990
American studies, Chicano studies; contemporary fiction; Pan-American studies; critical race studies.

KEN HILTNER, PhD Harvard University, 2006.
Renaissance literature; Milton and the metaphysical poets; ecological criticism; literary theory. Graduate Advisor, Department of English. 

YUNTE HUANG, PhD, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1999
American Modernism, Asian American literature; 20th Century American Poetry.

JAMES KEARNEY, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2001
Early modern drama, poetry, and prose; Reformation theology and hermeneutics; history of the book; colonial texts and postcolonial theory; bibliography and textual studies.

STEPHANIE LEMENAGER, PhD, Harvard University, 1999
Nineteenth and twentieth century American literature and cultural studies; imaginary geographies, space and setting, literature of the Old West, travel narrative, ethnographic fictions.

SHIRLEY GEOK-LIN LIM, PhD, Brandeis University, 1973
Asian American literature; post-colonial literature; ethnic and feminist writing.

ALAN LIU, PhD, Stanford University, 1980
English Romanticism; literature and technology; cultural studies; literary theory. Chair, Department of English

DAVID MARSHALL, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 1979
Eighteenth-century fiction and aesthetics; narrative theory; Shakespeare; lyric poetry; autobiography; philosophy and literature. Dean, College of Letters and Science.

MARK MASLAN, PhD, U.C. Berkeley, 1990
American literature; literary theory and theories of genders and sexualities.

CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD, PhD, Cornell University, 1988
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature; literary and social theory; business culture, California culture, gender, sexuality, and race.

MICHAEL O’CONNELL, PhD, Yale University, 1971
Renaissance literature (Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton); medieval and Renaissance drama.

CAROL BRAUN PASTERNACK, PhD, U.C. Los Angeles, 1983
Old and Middle English literature; history of the English language; oral and textual theory; gender in the Middle Ages. Undergraduate Advisor, Department of English.

RITA RALEY, PhD, U.C. Santa Barbara, 1998
Literature and new media, especially hypertext fiction and digital art; globalization and global culture; language theory and history; institutional criticism, especially university culture. 

MARK ROSE, PhD, Harvard University, 1967
Renaissance literature, dramatic and non-dramatic; Spenser; Shakespeare; Elizabethan-Jacobean drama; legal and literary history in the early modern period.

RUSSELL SAMOLSKY, PhD, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2003
Postcolonial discourse; South African literature; modernism; Jewish studies.

TERESA SHEWRY, PhD, Duke University, 2008
Ecocriticism and environmental studies; Pacific and Asia Pacific literatures; indigenous literatures; theories of hope, possibility, and utopia.

CANDACE WAID, PhD, Yale University, 1986
American literature and culture; gender studies; African-American literature; southern literature; regional literature.

WILLIAM B. WARNER, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 1977
Eighteenth century; the novel; literary and cultural theory; media studies; law and literature (free speech and censorship). 

KAY YOUNG, PhD, Harvard University, 1992
Victorian studies; the novel; Hollywood films of the 1930s and '40s; comedy; narrative theory (relations of narrative to philosophy, architecture, dance).

Affiliated Faculty
These faculty members from other departments are affiliated with the English Department. They occasionally teach courses of interest to English students as well as sit on their examination and dissertation committees.

SUSAN DERWIN, Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies Dept.
PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 1988
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and American novel; holocaust studies; critical theory, film studies.

JODY ENDERS, Dept. of Theater and Dance
PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1986
Medieval literature; theater history; history of rhetoric; performance theory; interpretations of law and literature.

JAMES LEE, Asian American Studies
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, 2000
Asian American literature and literary studies; comparative race studies; interdisciplinary approaches to Asian American Studies; modern social movements.

GEORGE LIPSITZ, Dept. of Black Studies
PhD, University of Wisconsin, 1987
Social movements; urban culture; inequality.

CONSTANCE PENLEY, Film Studies Dept.
PhD, U.C. Berkeley, 1983
Feminism; film theory; psychoanalytic theory; cultural studies; science and technology studies.

CHELA SANDOVAL, Chicano Studies Dept.
PhD, History of Consciousness, U.C. Santa Cruz, 1993
Critical and cultural theory; CyberCinema and semiotics; techno-science studies; the methodology of the oppressed: queer, feminist, ethnic, and post-colonial studies; women of color.

BARBARA TOMLINSON, Dept. of Feminist Studies
PhD, University of California, Riverside, 1980
Feminist theory; rhetoric and feminist politics, cultural studies.

2. GRADUATE STUDY IN ENGLISH AT UCSB

Students entering either the MA/PhD or the PhD program should be aware that they are undertaking not only to deepen their enjoyment and understanding of literary texts, modes, and movements but also to explore their potential as interpreters, scholars, and, in most cases, teachers of literature and language.  They are embarking on a systematic course of study designed to ensure an understanding of literary history in both its canonical and non-canonical aspects and to make them fully participating members of a community of scholars and critics.

3. THE M.A./PH.D. PROGRAM

The MA/PhD program requires 48 units of graduate coursework (12 courses at 4 units per course), all of which must be taken for a letter grade, and all of which must be completed in the student’s first two years before taking the first qualifying exam, which also serves as the Master’s examination for students in this program.  It is university policy that graduate students enroll for at least 12 units per quarter.  Since students in the MA/PhD program normally take only two courses per quarter to fulfill program requirements, additional units of Engl. 597, or 599, which require no formal work, must be added to bring units to 12 (see Sections. 5.6, 5.7).  Students should enroll in Engl. 597 until they have passed the second qualifying exam. Once advanced to candidacy, students should enroll in Engl. 599.  Students are, of course, welcome and encouraged to take more than the required twelve courses, whether for a letter grade or pass/no pass.

3.2.      Distribution Requirement

Students in the MA/PhD program are required to take one course in each of Areas I through V in their first two years (courses must be taken for a letter grade and may be chosen from either of the fields in each Area). 

3.3.      Normal Progress for the MA/PhD Program

The MA/PhD normally takes five years. Students in this program must take the first qualifying examination no later than their sixth quarter of residence and the second qualifying examination no later than their tenth quarter.  University policy mandates that all graduate students advance to candidacy by the close of their fourth year (see section 3.5 for more information). However, normal progress in the English program requires advancement at the beginning of the fourth year.  In addition, students must satisfy the foreign language requirement as set forth in Section 7.  It is the responsibility of students to ensure that they continue making normal progress in the program—i.e., to complete courses, satisfy language requirements, and pass the first and second qualifying exams in timely fashion.  Students should realize that satisfactory progress toward the degree is usually a precondition of assignment to teaching assistantships. 

3.4.      Incomplete Courses

Filing for an incomplete requires the signature of the course instructor on an Incomplete Petition, the return of the petition to the Registrar, and the deposit of a copy of the form with the Staff Graduate Advisor.  Students can carry no more than eight units of “Incomplete” courses at a time.  In keeping with the policy of Graduate Division to block further TA assignments when this number is exceeded, students carrying more than eight units of incompletes will lose their TAship until the quarter after they catch up.  For reasons of fairness, students with more than eight units of incompletes who are on fellowship rather than TAship should expect to lose a commensurate amount of TAship in the future. In addition, Incompletes taken prior to the first qualifying exam must be completed by the end of the quarter following passing the first qualifying examination. Failure to meet this condition will incur the same loss of TA assignment noted above.  Beyond these absolute rules governing incompletes, it should be pointed out that students who technically stay within the bounds of the eight-unit-incomplete rule but let their incompletes lag on more than a year or who regularly carry the maximum number of incompletes will in times of funding exigency—as an unavoidable circumstance of practice rather than of policy—have a lower priority for uninterrupted TAship support than students making normal progress (see statement on “normal progress in the program” in Section 3.3 above).  Students in such straits may thus want to avail themselves of the strategy of asking their instructor to change the grade-status of an incomplete course from letter-grade to “S/U” (assuming that work performed in the course prior to the final paper was “satisfactory”).  The advantage of such a strategy is that courses could be “completed” based on work already done; the disadvantage is that such courses would not count for credit toward the degree (see Section 3.1). In addition, of course, students with legitimate academic, personal, or medical reasons may petition the Graduate Committee for an exception to the rules.

Note: in general, the program has two reasons for linking incompletes to funding‑‑neither of which is punitive.  First, the program’s primary responsibility is to students as students rather than as teaching assistants; where it is evident that a student is unable to complete a significant number of courses, the program is compelled to relieve the student of extra teaching work until coursework is back on track.  Second, while the program tries to make its funding go as far as possible to as many students as possible, in a scarce-resources universe there must be some criteria for prioritizing funding; and the most ethical and rational criterion‑‑as well as the one that gives students the most self-determination‑‑is “normal progress.”  The timely completion of coursework is a crucial factor in making normal progress in the program.

3.5       Normative Time

Normative time is the number of quarters considered to be reasonable by the faculty of an individual department for completion of a doctorate by a full-time student in that program. Normative time (set by Graduate Division) should not be confused with Normal Progress (set by the English Department).  The Graduate Division has set our normative time to degree as 21 quarters for the MA/PhD program and 18 quarters for the PhD program.  Furthermore, students are required to advance to candidacy within 12 quarters (MA/PhD students) or 9 quarters (PhD students) of entering the program.  Only Fall, Winter & Spring count toward your quarter total; Summer does not.   Students beyond normative time lose priority for central and departmental funding, and can be denied funding and/or student employment (TAships) at the university.

When students must deal with emergencies that prevent them from pursuing their graduate studies for an extended period of time, they may usually extend their normative time by petitioning for a leave of absence. When students take an approved leave of absence for medical, family emergency, military service, or pregnancy/parenting reasons, Graduate Division will extend the student's normative period by one quarter at a time up to a maximum of three quarters of leave. More leaves or periods of withdrawal from classes will not stop the normative time clock; the deadline stands. Quarters of Research Leave and the Filing Fee Quarter of Leave count toward expiration of a student's normative time clock.

3.6       PhD Classification

Graduate students are classified by the registrar’s office in three categories based on their level of advancement and/or time in the program.  This classification is independent of departmental or university normative time.  Most students are either P1- graduate student (not ABD) or P2- graduate student advanced to candidacy.  Once you advance to candidacy, you have three years (9 quarters) to complete your degree.  If you do not file your dissertation at the end of the 9th quarter, you are converted to P3 status.  Students in P3 status are not eligible to apply for central funding, and students who will enter P3 in the middle of an academic year are not eligible to apply for yearlong central funding.

4. THE PH.D. PROGRAM

4.1      Course Requirements

4.2.      Distribution Requirement
           
Students in the PhD program have two years to fulfill an individually tailored version of the MA/PhD distribution requirement described in Section 3.2.  Courses taken for a grade at the student’s MA institution count toward the distribution requirement (but not toward the 30 units needed to complete the program) if the following arrangement is made: in an individual meeting with the Graduate Advisor during orientation week, students in the PhD program use their MA transcript to negotiate a “contract” for fulfilling the distribution requirement.  For example, a student who earned grades in graduate-level “Shakespeare” and “Wordsworth” courses at their MA institution could be excused from having to take courses in Areas I and II.  Such a student would then need to elect only three courses to complete the distribution requirement, one each in Areas III, IV, and V.  (However, all students must take a course from our faculty in Area V, even if they have taken theory previously.  It is advisable to take at least one such course as early as possible). 

4.3.      Normal Progress for the PhD Program

The PhD program is designed to take five years, though it may only take four years for some students.  Students in this program will take the first qualifying examination at the end of their sixth quarter of residence.  The second qualifying examination must then be taken no later than their tenth quarter.  University policy mandates that all PhD students advance to candidacy by the close of their fourth year (see section 3.5 for more information). However, normal progress in the English program requires advancement at the beginning of the fourth year for students entering with the MA. In addition, students must satisfy the foreign language requirement as set forth in Section 7.  It is the responsibility of students to ensure that they continue making normal progress in the program—i.e. to complete courses, fulfill language requirements, and pass the first and second qualifying exams in timely fashion.  Satisfactory progress toward the degree is usually a precondition of assignment to teaching assistantships, and summer research stipends and summer teaching priority may be offered to students who have remained on schedule.

4.4.      Incomplete Courses

(See Section 3.4 above.)

4.5.      Normative Time

(See Section 3.5 above.)

4.6.      PhD Classification

(See Section 3.6 above.)

5. INDEPENDENT STUDIES, COLLOQUIA, SPECIAL COURSES

Independent studies courses are designed to give students greater flexibility in planning their programs of study.  At the beginning of each quarter, petitions for these courses may be obtained from the Staff Graduate Advisor.  After the instructor’s approval has been obtained for the proposed course and a written description of the project has been approved by the student’s advisor, students may enroll in the class by following the prescribed registration procedures.

5.1       297 -- Graduate Tutorial with Required Attendance at an Undergraduate Course (4 units)

Undergraduate courses taken for degree credit by graduate students must be taken under the number 297 and will include such modifications as thought suitable by the instructor to satisfy graduate requirements.  Students in the MA/PhD program may take no more than 4 units of English 297, usually before the first qualifying examination.  English 297 is not available to students in the PhD program.  All students may audit undergraduate courses with the instructor’s permission.
                       
5.2       500 -- Directed Teaching (4 units)

Continuing instruction in the teaching of literature courses. Teaching Assistants must register for this course and will receive an S/U grade. The instructor is the TA Supervisor. Units earned in English 500 do not count toward degree requirements.

5.3       591 -- Doctoral Colloquium (1 unit per quarter)

A year-long course taught every other week, the Doctoral Colloquium provides support for graduate students in the crucial period after they have completed the first qualifying exam and are developing their dissertation ideas.  The colloquium, which all students take in their third year of the program, focuses step-by-step on familiarizing students with the nature and structure of dissertations, the dissertation prospectus, the second qualifying exam (“PhD orals”), and the dissertation-writing process—all within a broad framework of professionalization that also considers the relation between the dissertation and the book, publication, the nature of an academic career, etc.  At the end of the year, students will have in hand a draft of a dissertation prospectus and reading list that has been discussed with the colloquium instructor and other colloquium members (together with students’ individual faculty advisors).  The colloquium is taken following the first qualifying exam.  Units earned do not count toward degree requirements.

5.3.1    English 592 -- LCM Colloquium (1 unit)

The Literature and Culture of Media Colloquium gives students 1) an overview of central issues, questions, and debates in the fields of media studies and the digital humanities; 2) an introduction to the hardware and software used in advanced Web-building projects; 3) assistance with colloquia and conference organization.  Content and structure varies by term.  Units earned do not count toward degree requirements.

5.3.2    English 593 – Graduate Technology Colloquium (1 unit)

Course provides guidance, training, a forum, and a common center for the various technical research endeavors engaged in by student assistants.

5.3.3    English 594 – ACGC Colloquium (1 unit)

Course explores connections between theorizations of the nature and history of globalization and recent reconceptualizations of American literary and cultural studies with an eye to exploring issues for future research into potentially productive intersections.

5.3.4    English 595 – EMC Colloquium (1 unit)

The EMC Colloquium is an ongoing resource for graduate students and faculty with early modern interests, where they present work in progress, such as dissertation chapters and conference papers, as well as workshop field lists, prospectuses, job letters and talks, and so forth.

5.4       596 -- Directed Reading and Research (4 units)

Students wishing to work on an independent studies project under the supervision of a faculty member should meet with the instructor and work out a reading list for the quarter. A written proposal must be approved by the Graduate Advisor prior to enrollment. Courses must be taken for a letter grade and are usually restricted to the interval between the first and second qualifying exams.  596 courses should be directed toward helping to define the dissertation area.  Students may take no more than 8 units of 596.

5.5       597 -- Individual Study for Examination (1-12 units)

Students may take up to 12 units per quarter of 597.    A 597 course must be taken S/U and does not count toward a degree.  The instructor should be the student’s advisor.

5.6       599 -- Dissertation Research and Preparation (1-12 units)

Only students who have passed the second qualifying examination and been advanced to candidacy can register for a 599 course.  During the time students are in the Doctoral Candidacy Fee Offset Program (see 10.1 below) they must continue to remain registered for 12 units -- those who are TAs in 500 and 599; students who are not teaching in 12 units of 599.  The grading option is S/U and the instructor is the dissertation chair.

6. COURSEWORK IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS

With the approval of their faculty advisor and the Graduate Committee, students may count some graduate work done in other departments toward their degrees in English.  However, at least 40 units out of the required 48 units for the MA/PhD program (that is, 10 out of the required 12 courses) and at least 28 units out of the required 36 units for the PhD program (7 out of the required 9 courses) must be taken in the English Department.

Work completed outside the department should have a significant relation to the student’s major interests in English.  A student of English Renaissance literature might, for example, take a graduate course in sixteenth-century English history or in sixteenth-century French literature or in Renaissance art history.  Such interdisciplinary work may be done at any time in a student’s graduate career. In connection with coursework in other departments, note that, by petition to the Graduate Committee/Graduate Division and after consultation with the committee chair, a faculty member from another department may serve as the third member on the examining committee for the second qualifying exam and/or the dissertation committee.

7. FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT

Before taking the first qualifying exam at the end of the second year in the program, all students must demonstrate their working competence in one of the following foreign languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish, or Latin. Students are advised to select from this list a language having particular relevance to their individual areas of concentration. Other languages than these five may be substituted by petition in cases where the language has a clear relevance to the student’s intended program of study and where the department can find an appropriate examiner.

The department urges students to give early consideration to the language requirement and to confer with their advisor about the appropriateness of particular languages to their research and teaching interests.  Depending on their particular field of study, students are advised that additional language training may be helpful to their scholarly work and may even be expected by colleagues in their field. The language requirement for the PhD in English at UCSB should thus be considered as a bare minimum rather than as an indication of all the foreign language training that any particular student may need.

The requirement may be fulfilled in one of two ways:
           1. by passing a written translation exam or
           2. by passing with a grade of B+ or better either one graduate literature course or one upper-division literature course taught in the foreign language.

7.1       Method 1: Translation Exam

Language examinations are held once per year, early in the fall quarter. Students will translate into English foreign-language passages of the kind of material they will encounter in their professional lives.  This means the translation of two passages: one of non-fictional prose dealing with a literary topic, the other drawn directly from a literary work (or in the case of Latin, two passages from different authors). The passages together will normally have a combined total of about 600-700 words. Both passages must be translated in full within the two-hour exam time.  A high degree of accuracy will be required. The use of one dictionary is allowed.  Candidates wishing to take the examination must notify the Staff Graduate Advisor at least three weeks in advance of the posted date (since arrangements must often be made with faculty in other departments to create and grade exams in particular languages).

7.1.1    Preparing for the Language Exam

For students who wish to begin a language or review former language skills, the university sometimes offers introductory courses as well as accelerated sequences designed for graduate students.  French 11A and B and German 1G and 2G are directed toward the acquisition of reading knowledge, and enrollment is restricted to graduate students. No graduate credit is given for these courses, nor do they satisfy the coursework option of the English Department’s foreign language requirement.  The following texts have proved useful to students reviewing for examinations on their own:

            French for Reading (Sandberg and Tatham)
            German for Reading Knowledge (Jannach)
            Italian for You (Lennie and Grego)

Candidates must pass, with a grade of B+ or better, either one graduate literature course or one upper-division literature course taught in the foreign language.  Students choosing this option are required to submit a course syllabus, in advance of taking the course, to the graduate committee.  Foreign literature courses taught at another university and/or taken prior to entry into our program may be accepted at the graduate committee’s discretion, with the reservation that no course taken more than two years prior to entry will be accepted.

8. THE FIRST QUALIFYING EXAM

8.1.      Concept of the Exam

The first qualifying exam is designed to test the student’s familiarity with a range of literature at once various enough to encourage breadth of learning and focused enough to allow for the demonstration of intellectual grasp.  Students are expected to complement their knowledge of individual works with a sense of broader historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts as well as with the ability to apply the kinds of critical tools used by professional scholars today.  For the purposes of the exam, the spectrum of literature written in English is broken up into thirteen fields as specified in Section 3.2.  Each field has its own reading list, and is supervised by its own faculty group in consultation with student representatives (chosen from veterans of the exam).  Students choose three of these thirteen fields on which to be tested, and prepare for the exam by studying the appropriate reading lists along with supplementary historical, critical, or theoretical materials. It should be emphasized that students will be expected not only to be familiar with the significant details of the works but also to be able to think critically and coherently about them. The presumption of the department is that any student accepted into its graduate program should be able, with necessary preparation, to pass the first qualifying exam satisfactorily and move ahead to advanced stages of graduate study.

 8.2.     Scheduling of the Exam

The first qualifying exam is administered once a year during the spring quarter, usually during exam period.  Students in both the MA/PhD and the PhD programs must take the exam no later than the end of their sixth quarter after fulfilling course, distribution, and language requirements as specified in Sections 3.1 to 3.3 and 4.1 to 4.3.  By the end of the quarter before the exam (winter quarter of the second year), students must register with the Staff Graduate Advisor the three fields on which they wish to be examined.  No switches in fields will then be allowed.

8.3.      Format of the Exam

The first qualifying examination is an oral exam two hours in length (followed by post-exam consultation with faculty of 20-30 minutes). Students will be examined in three fields of their choice. Each field will be represented by one faculty member affiliated with that field. Each field is addressed for 40 minutes during the exam. The type of questioning will vary between questions designed to elicit a brief response and those inviting a longer discussion; the proportion is to be left to each committee's discretion, on the understanding that departmental policy mandates a combination of both for each field examiner. Fields will usually be examined sequentially, but the exam order should be decided between the student and the faculty examiner the student has designated as “Chair” of his or her exam.

8.4.      Preparing for the Exam

Candidates should be advised that the first qualifying examination is not simply the culmination of coursework but a separate challenge.  Graduate seminars will help to prepare students for the exam by developing their literary sophistication and their detailed knowledge of particular subjects, but seminars alone are unlikely to provide the necessary amplitude of coverage; nor should the student choose seminars simply with coverage in mind.  The process of independent reading for the first qualifying exam should be started as early as possible in a candidate’s career.

Exam preparation should include:

1. Study of the works on the appropriate reading lists.

2. A systematic survey of literary history and relevant aspects of intellectual, cultural, and social history with focus on the student’s intended exam fields but also with some attention to periods before, between, and after those fields (e.g., a review of the introductory sections of the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Norton Anthology of American Literature).

3. Considerable exposure to critical theory and practice of the last decades (e.g., perusal of 20th Century Literary Criticism, ed. David Lodge; Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies, 2nd edition, ed. Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer) as well as to major critical developments within the student’s intended fields (e.g., perusal of Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn).

4. Frequent consultation of reference works (e.g., the latest editions of A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams, the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, and A Handbook of Literature by Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard).

5. Students electing one or more of the non- or trans-period fields (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13) should be sure to pay some attention to the historical development(s) of the field as a whole in relation to other literary, intellectual, and cultural developments.

6. Questions about particular field-exams or field reading lists may be directed to the examiner of the relevant field group.  Appropriate questions, for example, might have to do with finding texts, clarifying ambiguities in the assigned readings, seeking advice on supplementary readings, etc.  (Of course, students are always free to consult individual faculty members about more substantive, intellectual matters.)  Inappropriate questions would be those that place faculty members in the position of predicting what materials or kinds of questions will be emphasized in that year’s exam.

7. In addition to the above steps, many students in the past have found it useful to form reading groups among themselves.

8.5.      Evaluation of the Exam

Immediately following the two hours of examination, the examiners will confer together (without the student) and assign a grade for the examination: Pass, Fail or Fail one or two out of three parts of the exam.  The student will then return and the exam committee will inform the student of the outcome. A paragraph of evaluation commenting on the student’s performance, including comments on specific strengths and weakness of the exam, will be composed by the examination chair and forwarded to the Graduate Committee. This paragraph will be made available to the student (usually within a week or two) as part of a letter from the Graduate Advisor.

8.6.      Invitation to Continue on to the PhD

The Graduate Committee will consider the seminar record together with the oral examination evaluation and decide whether the student will continue to the PhD, re-prepare one or more fields for re-examination, or be asked to leave the program (with or without the MA).

If a student is deemed to have failed the exam, he or she will have the opportunity to be re-examined on all or part of the material. This may, but need not, be delayed until the next exam period. The full examining committee will be convened for the retake.

Results of the exam and, where appropriate, an invitation to move on to the doctorate are reported to the student in a confidential letter from the Graduate Advisor.  Students who have questions about the results of their exam are welcome to consult the examining committee members and/or the Graduate Advisor.

9. THE SECOND QUALIFYING EXAM

9.1.      The Examination, Prospectus, Reading List, and First-Chapter Conference

At the appropriate time in their careers here—that is, no later than the tenth quarter—students will sit down with their dissertation committee for a ninety-minute conference on the dissertation project based on a four-to-five-page prospectus and a bibliography of at least fifty works to be constructed by the candidate in consultation with her/his committee and pre-approved by the Graduate Committee (see 9.2).  The prospectus should define the dissertation topic, its initial critical questions, and its relationship to existing scholarship and may also describe likely chapter divisions.  The readings lists will include works most immediately germane to the dissertation but will also represent the wider professional area within which the dissertation is likely to be received or in which it seeks to make an intervention. Depending on the nature of the project, this wider area may take the form of a literary period or genre (including, in both cases, secondary criticism), theoretical field, or other construct that reflects an existing or emergent professional field.  Whatever field the student chooses for the wider area, it should not simply be a list of works she or he would be reading anyway for the dissertation.  Rather, it should be a list of works that constitute a larger and distinct field within which the dissertation might be placed and interpreted.  (To facilitate review by both the examination committee and the Graduate Committee, students should identify with separate section headings the various parts of the bibliography – e.g., "primary works related directly to the dissertation," "secondary works related directly to the dissertation," "the wider area") The bulk of the dissertation conference will consist of a conversation about the dissertation in which faculty help the student to think through the concept of the project, probe problems with its structure or materials, and understand its relation to other issues and methods of current professional interest. The reading lists will be designed to help with this conversation.   Rather than pose questions designed to test "coverage" of the bibliography, faculty will use a portion of the conference to ask students to think about their dissertation topic or approach in relation to adjacent or contrasting works in their field.

The dissertation conference will not be primarily an event that a student "passes" or "fails," though its completion will mark official advancement to candidacy.  Instead, it will figure most importantly as the beginning of an ongoing process of supervising the development of the dissertation.  In some cases, the conversation at the conference will lead to suggestions for a revised prospectus or additional readings that are significant enough to warrant a second dissertation conference sometime later.  Whether there is a follow-up conference or not, all students will subsequently be expected to meet for a "first-chapter" conference with their dissertation committee.  This is a conference that will occur after a first chapter (any chapter) in the dissertation is written.  The purpose of the "first-chapter" conference is to provide a means for the faculty and student to focus on how the project is actually taking shape and any difficulties that have emerged.

9.2.      Steps Leading Up to the Exam

1. After the first qualifying exam, students should enroll in Engl. 591, the Doctoral Colloquium (see 5.3), and begin thinking about their dissertation topic and the areas of specialization appropriate to it. Early in the quarter after passing the first qualifying exam the student should meet with his or her advisor to discuss these plans, what courses would facilitate defining more precisely the dissertation topic, and what professors might offer most helpful guidance as chair and committee members of the student’s second qualifying examination. Students might look over the department’s library of representative past prospectuses and bibliographies before preparing their own materials. In consultation with the Graduate Advisor, the student chooses the three members (including chair) of the examining committee, who are selected on the basis of the student’s areas of specialization.  (A fourth member may be added when beneficial). The orals committee usually serves as the subsequent dissertation committee, which requires at least three faculty members, though changes can be made as the dissertation evolves. At the student’s request, the committee may include one faculty member from another UCSB department or from another UC campus, though not as chair.  If the third committee member is from outside the UC system, attach a short request memo to the PhD Form I. The memo should be addressed to the Chair of the Graduate Council and include the Graduate Advisor’s endorsement. Affiliated faculty are considered to be in the department. A faculty person from outside the UC system may be included without petition on the dissertation committee as an extra, fourth member. Arrangements for a non-UCSB faculty member’s attendance at the oral exam are the student’s responsibility.

2. The dissertation prospectus and reading list must first be approved by the examining committee, and then be submitted to the Graduate Committee for approval. Under normal circumstances, prospectuses will not be read during very late spring or summer. The prospectus and bibliography must be accompanied by an approval form bearing the signatures of the examining committee.  These materials should be transmitted to the Graduate Committee via the Staff Graduate Advisor, and they should be submitted by the end of ninth quarter (third year) in the program.

3. Consideration of the prospectus and bibliography by the Graduate Committee usually takes one to two weeks. The primary function of the Graduate Committee in this circumstance is to ensure that a student’s prospectus and list fall within certain, flexible norms making them at once intellectually sound and generally comparable to those of other students.  Besides asking for any required revisions, the Committee may also suggest other elaborations in a non-binding way.  The Graduate Advisor will communicate the Committee’s decision and suggestions to the student as soon as possible and the student may request a meeting with the Advisor for further discussion.

4. Exam times are made public. (According to University policies, interested faculty not on the examining committee may attend but normally will not question.)  Students are advised to consult in advance with the members of their examining committee to gain a feel for the nature and structure of a PhD oral exam.

10. ADVANCEMENT TO CANDIDACY

After the student has passed the second qualifying examination, an advancement to candidacy fee must be paid to the cashier.  The receipt, when recorded at the Graduate Division, entitles the student to faculty privileges at the library and makes the student eligible for the Doctoral Candidacy Fee Offset for the following quarter. 

10.1.    Doctoral Candidacy Fee Offset (DCFO)

The status of the Doctoral Candidacy Fee Offset is at present uncertain.  In the past, Graduate Division offset the quarterly educational fee for students who had advanced to candidacy and who had been in the program no more than six years.  After normative time expired, fees reverted to the full amount.  The Doctoral Candidacy Fee Offset is no longer an entitlement, though the Graduate Division has to date partially funded the program on a year-to-year basis.  Students who have advanced to doctoral candidacy or expect to advance the subsequent quarter may apply for the DCFO by submitting the same application used for Graduate Student Fee Fellowships (see Section

11. THE DISSERTATION

The dissertation should be an original contribution to criticism or scholarship.  Dissertations in English are usually between 200 and 300 pages long.  Copies of all dissertations written at UCSB may be seen in The Special Collections Department of the library.  Students may also wish to check Dissertation Abstracts in the Reference Department.

11.1.    Filing the Dissertation

For information on filing and the precise format for the dissertation (paper, margins, pagination, footnotes, etc.) consult the booklet “Guide to Filing Theses and Dissertations at UCSB” available from the English Department Staff Graduate Advisor or from the Graduate Division, or online at http://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/pubs/filing_guide/. Students should submit a Doctoral Degree Form III-a: Waiver of Final Examinations for the Degree for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy approved by the student’s dissertation committee and the Department Chair to the Graduate Division. When filing the dissertation, students must also submit two approval pages (or signature sheets) and include original faculty signatures on both in permanent black or blue ink. The signatures must correspond to the names of committee members listed on the title page. The Committee Chair and the Department Chair sign on the bottom line.

CONGRATULATIONS!

12. REGISTRATION

Every graduate student must enroll each quarter in a minimum of 12.0 units, according to deadlines published in the Schedule of Classes.  The enrollment process includes telephone (RBT) or online (via GOLD) registration for courses and payment of fees and all other outstanding financial obligations.  Each step must be completed at a specific time or a $50 to $100 late fee will be assessed.  Complete details of registration procedures are included in the registration packet.  Before registering each quarter, continuing students should fill out progress reports, including their schedules for the next quarter, and meet with their advisors to discuss progress to date and future plans, and to obtain their advisor’s approval.  These reports go to the Staff Graduate Advisor.

12.1.    Schedule Adjustment

After enrollment, students may adjust class schedules, up to certain deadlines, by adding and/or dropping classes and changing grading options. Changes are made through Registration by Telephone (RBT) or Gaucho On-Line Data (GOLD). During the first week of classes, students are allowed to adjust their schedule without paying a fee.  After this week, $3 is charged for each change.

13. LEAVES OF ABSENCE

Continuous registration is expected of all graduate students.  Under special circumstances, leaves of absence may be requested from the Dean of the Graduate Division.  Petitions for leaves of absence may be obtained from the Graduate Division or the Staff Graduate Advisor and must be signed by the Faculty Graduate Advisor and the Graduate Division.  A $20 fee is charged for leave petitions.

14. DEADLINES

The Schedule of Classes includes the official calendar for each quarter.  Consult it for the exact dates of all quarterly deadlines. Consult the Calendar of Graduate Program Events prepared by the Staff Graduate Advisor for other departmental events and important deadlines such as exam sign-up dates:

Changing grading option:  Last day of instruction
Dropping a course:  Last day of instruction
Fee payment: $50 fee assessed if fees are not paid on time.
Incomplete petitions (or extensions of incompletes):  Last day of exams
Leaves of Absence:  Petition must be filed before the quarter begins.
Registration: Must be completed during RBT appointment times on or before the deadline published in the Schedule of Classes or a $50 late fee will be assessed. At the end of the first week of classes, a student who hasn’t registered lapses status.

15. THE JOB SEARCH AND JOB PLACEMENT COMMITTE

Each year, faculty members appointed to the department’s Job Placement Committee assist students with the current academic job search. Each student seeking a job is assigned to an individual placement supervisor from the committee who will oversee the student’s search.

Early in the fall quarter of each year, before the Modern Language Association job list is published with its announcement of academic openings for the following year, and again in the spring quarter, the Placement Committee will call a meeting of all interested students, those completing the PhD as well as those looking ahead to the time when they will be entering the scholarly marketplace. Subjects for discussion will include the drafting of a curriculum vitae and cover letter (what to include? what to stress?), the preparation of a dossier (when to begin? from whom to seek letters of recommendation?), strategies for job interviews (what questions to expect? common pitfalls?), how to determine what samples of work to send upon request (dissertation chapter? published offprint?), and how to make use of possible faculty contacts at other universities.  Advice about the preparation and circulation of manuscripts will be shared at these meetings as well as advice about the submission of papers to be read at scholarly conferences.

In the spring quarter, students expecting to be on the job market in the following year should begin soliciting letters of recommendation from faculty in the English Department and the Writing Program.  Also, a class visit by the student’s thesis supervisor (or another person in their field) should be arranged, so that the supervisor can write a detailed account about the student’s ability to teach material as close to his/her area of specialization as possible. The dossier should include three or more letters from specialists in their academic discipline and one or more letters discussing the applicant’s pedagogy and teaching experience  

Several meetings are held in the fall quarter to cover application materials and interview techniques; students also have the opportunity to participate in a mock interview with faculty prior to the MLA convention.

15.1.    Counseling and Career Services

Enrolled graduate students at UCSB are eligible for a wide variety of personal and career-related services at the Counseling and Career Services Center (Bldg. 599).  Personal appointments may be scheduled with counselors at the Center to discuss topics such as vita writing, interviewing, job search strategies, and alternative careers for PhD’s. Graduate students may also establish an “educational reference file” or placement file at the Center or stop by to review the job vacancy listings, employer directories and career literature available in the Resources Room.

16. FINANCIAL SUPPORT

As suggested below, financial support comes in many forms.  In whatever form, support is linked to a student’s progress toward the completion of the program in which he or she is enrolled.  Normally, departmental support will not be continued beyond the fifth year for students in both the MA/PhD program and the PhD program.

For up-to-date, extra-departmental financial support information, consult the Graduate Division’s Web site for financial support, www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/financial.  Here you can find links to national fellowship competition announcements, campus competitions and deadlines, links to funding sources and databases, access to the IRIS database, including search capability.

16.1.    Out of State Tuition

Some campus fellowships pay out-of-state tuition during a student’s entering year, and the English department can also occasionally fund a very limited number of partial tuition fellowships for first-year students.  Incoming students are expected to take immediate steps to establish residency so that they will not be required to pay tuition after the first year.  New residency laws stipulate not only continuous residence in California for a period of one year, but also financial independence from parents.  Students wishing to establish residency are urged to see the Campus Residency Deputy in the Registrar’s Office as soon as possible.

16.2.    Departmental Fellowships

Because departmental funds for fellowships are extremely limited, awards tend to be offered to incoming students of unusual promise. Applications for fellowships are reviewed by the Graduate Committee, whose recommendations are then sent to the Department Chair for final acceptance.  Fellowship applications are evaluated on the basis of the student’s past academic record, Graduate Record Examination results, the writing sample, letters of support, and professional promise.  In addition to fellowships awarded by the department, a number of other fellowships administered centrally by Graduate Division are available to incoming students on a competitive basis and on the nomination of the department.  These include the Chancellor’s Fellowship; Humanities Special Fellowship, the Regents Special Fellowship, Doctoral Scholars Fellowship, Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, and Graduate Opportunity Fellowships. The last three named are diversity fellowships.  All applicants for admission are automatically reviewed as possible candidates for these awards; no special application is required.

• Graduate Student Fee Fellowship

This fellowship is awarded to continuing students based on both merit and financial need, and provides up to three quarters of fee payment in an academic year for eligible students. International students may also apply for this fellowship (for in-state fees only).  A special financial need determination form is required of international students who apply for this fellowship. Apply in spring of the previous year for a three-quarter fellowship. The English Department administers these fellowships.

16.3     UCSB Graduate Division Fellowships for Continuing Students

Graduate Division fellowships are only available to those within what the Graduate Division defines as normative time—6 years for those who entered the English Department with the MA, and 7 years for those who entered with the BA.  For more details and application forms for the following fellowships, please regularly monitor the Graduate Division web site for funding, www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/financial.  Applications for the majority of the following fellowships are due to Graduate Division in late March or early April of the previous year; many are applied for through the English Department. See the Staff Graduate Advisor for more information on how to apply.

• Graduate Opportunity Fellowships

These fellowships are awarded to new and continuing underrepresented doctoral students following departmental nomination of candidates to Graduate Division.  Students may receive this award, an annual stipend ($16,000 in 2008) and payment of fees and health insurance, twice during their graduate careers.

• Dean’s Fellowship

This fellowship is also awarded to continuing doctoral students following department nomination of candidates to Graduate Division.  Students may receive this award twice during their graduate career. Annual stipend of approximately $16,000, plus payment of fees and health insurance for all awardees.  The call for applications is issued in the winter of the previous year.

• President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship

This one-year diversity fellowship pays approximately $16,000 as well as in-state fees and health insurance for students in their dissertation year.  In addition, the fellowship provides research support funds in the amount of $500.  President’s Fellows must also present their research at another campus of the University of California. 

• Humanities Research Assistantship

This fellowship provides one-year research grants for domestic doctoral students in the humanities.  Students may receive this award twice during their graduate career.  The award provides a $16,000 stipend plus in-state fees and health insurance for one year. 

• Graduate Research Mentorship Program (GRMP)

This diversity fellowship provides one-year research grants of $16,000 plus in-state fees and health insurance for doctoral candidates for one year.  Students may receive this award twice during their graduate career. 

• Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship

Awarded to advanced graduate students in final stages of writing the dissertation, this quarter-long fellowship pays in-state fees plus $6,000.

• Humanities/Social Science Research Grant Program

This grant provides funds of up to $2,000 for research-related expenses, and may be used in conjunction with other graduate student support. MA and PhD students in the humanities and social sciences are eligible, as are international students. To apply, students propose an original research project and list direct expenses that will require funding.

• General Affiliates Dissertation Fellowships

These $3,000 awards are given to doctoral candidates to support final stages of dissertation preparation, and defray travel, printing, photocopying or living expenses. Merit will be assessed in terms of quality of the proposed topic and the candidate’s academic credentials.  Fees and insurance are not covered by this award.

• Kline Fund for International Studies Award

This award is granted for a project or program of study which promotes international understanding and world peace. This UC-wide competition provides an award between $500 and $3,000. Matching funds are provided by Graduate Division.

• Graduate Council Travel Grants

These awards provide travel funds for doctoral graduate students (advanced to candidacy) who have been invited to present papers at a prestigious national meeting or to give performances.  International students may apply for this grant. Only registered graduate students who have advanced to candidacy or are about to advance to candidacy (or candidates on approved leave of absence) are eligible to apply. Money is available for transportation only (no lodging or per diem). Maximum funding is as follows:  $350 California; $685 All other U.S. locations, Mexico, and Canada; $1,030 Puerto Rico and Europe; $1,200 Central or South America; $1,400 Asia, Africa, Middle East, and South Pacific.  An abstract of the paper, a copy of the formal invitation to participate (or other verification of participation), and a letter of support or endorsement from the thesis advisor must accompany the application.  The application, which is submitted to the Graduate Division, must be signed by the applicant, the Graduate Advisor, and the Department Chair. See http://graddiv.ucsb.edu/pubs/#fn for applications.

• Brython Davis Endowment Graduate Fellowship

Recipients of this award must be children of regular members of the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps.  The fellowship provides a $6,000 stipend and fee support for doctoral research.

16.4     Other UCSB Fellowships

• College of Letters and Science Pre-ABD Research Grant

This grant provides support for travel, archival work and other research needs that lead to the formulation of a dissertation topic. Students must be at the prospectus stage and have excellent records. Applications will consist of a three-page research plan and separate budget, with letter from the academic advisor attesting to the applicant’s general academic potential, the appropriateness of the specific research proposed, the quality of the proposed dissertation topic.  Dates of application will be announced each year.

• The Dean’s Prize Teaching Fellowship

This fellowship is designed to reward excellence in teaching and to encourage curricular design.  Award recipients develop and teach a one-quarter seminar as a Teaching Associate and are paid a $2,000 stipend and a $500 research account in addition to their usual TA salary. 

• The Consortium in Literature, Theory and Culture Dissertation Stipends

These awards, between $5,000 and $15,000, are intended to help doctoral students in the humanities make substantial progress toward completing their dissertations.  Nominees for the Dissertation Stipend should be advanced to candidacy, and working on a dissertation topic compatible with the Consortium's goal of advancing collaborative research in literary studies and encouraging interdisciplinary and theoretical reflections on literature and culture.  The stipends are intended to provide support for advanced graduate students working on their dissertations, and may also be used for purposes such as travel and research expenses.

• Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

This is a single-quarter, $4,500 award plus payment of fees and health insurance, to promote research projects with an interdisciplinary focus. For students advanced to candidacy for the doctorate in an arts or humanities field or advanced MFA students. The call for applications comes in early fall and spring quarters.

• Pacific Rim Research Program

Pacific Rim Research Program promotes the study of the Pacific Rim as a distinctive region. For the purposes of this Program, the term: “Pacific Rim" encompasses all states and nations that border the Pacific Ocean, including all of Southeast Asia. Recognizing that the interaction of peoples and states in the region has generated new issues of common concern, the Program places priority on research that is new, specific to the region, and collaborative-reaching across national boundaries and bridging academic disciplines. Web: http://www.ucop.edu/research/pacrim/   Applications may be obtained on campus from Carla Whitacre, Research Development, Office of Research, 805/893-3925, and the annual deadline is usually early in January of the previous year.

16.5.    Tutorships

The Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS) offers positions as tutors of writing and other skills whenever possible.  The position of tutor requires a commitment of 4 to 10 hours per week to assist composition instructors in writing workshops and provide one-to-one tutorial assistance for students needing supplementary instruction.  Unless stated otherwise, tutorships are awarded with the expectation that the appointment will continue for the entire academic year, but appointees may be dismissed with appropriate notice at any time for poor tutorial performance or unsatisfactory academic progress.  Students wishing to apply for a tutorship should submit an application to CLAS.

16.6.    Teaching Assistantships

A Teaching Assistantship is the most common form of financial aid for graduate students. TA appointments may involve teaching literature courses or courses in the Writing Program and include a required program of training in the teaching of composition and literature.  The position of Teaching Assistant is crucial to the English Department, representing the place where graduate training, the undergraduate curriculum, and faculty teaching responsibilities intersect.

16.6.1  Teaching Assistant Duties and Workload

A TAship at the University of California is usually a half-time position. The University’s contract with the ASE/UAW defines this as meaning a workload of up to 220 hours per quarter. The contract further specifies: “Workload is not measured strictly by actual hours worked. Rather, it is measured by how many hours the University could reasonably expect it to take a TA to satisfactorily complete the work assigned.” Actual tasks may vary among courses, depending on whether they are upper- or lower-division and on the pedagogical decisions of the individual supervising faculty, but in no case may the number of hours and the distribution of those hours exceed the limits laid out in the contract, which can be found online at http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/employees/policies/systemwide_contracts/uaw/index.html.  TAs in the English Department are assigned to large lecture courses. Duties include preparing for and attending all lectures for the course, leading two discussion sections per week of twenty-five students each, doing the required grading for the students in those sections, holding weekly office hours, and meeting regularly with the faculty instructor and other TAs. TAs may also be asked to participate in formulating exam and paper topics, give plenary lectures or contribute in other ways to lectures, conduct review sections, or support the course in other ways.  If questions arise that can’t be resolved by consultation with the supervising faculty member, TAs should consult the departmental TA Advisor.

Specific duties of TAs appointed by the Writing Program are determined by that program.

16.6.2. Terms of Employment and Length of Service

Teaching Assistantships may be made for one, two, or three quarters per academic year.  The total length of service will usually not exceed four years for entering BAs, three years for entering MAs.  In order to hold a TAship, a student must be regularly enrolled and maintain a 3.0 GPA, and have no more than 8 units of Incomplete coursework.  The University of California sets a limit of 50% time on graduate student employment.  TAs will not ordinarily be exempted from this limit.  In some cases, however, it may be acceptable for a TA, in addition to the teaching assignment, to take on a relatively minor secondary assignment as a research assistant or grader or to perform some other limited function. In such cases, the Graduate Advisor may, in consultation with members of the Graduate Committee, recommend to the Department Chair that an exception to the 50% rule be granted.  Such exceptions will only be recommended when it is evident that the additional work will not jeopardize the student’s timely progress toward the degree.  Exemptions will not be granted for students to undertake teaching duties in addition to their English Department TAships.  A student who wishes to accept such an additional teaching assignment will have to resign the English Department TAship in order to do so.

16.6.3. Selection of Teaching Assistantships

Potential openings for Teaching Assistant positions for the subsequent academic year will be posted in late winter or spring.

Initial TA appointments are based on the applicant’s academic record and letters of recommendation.  Added consideration is given to students with previous teaching and graduate school experience. Reappointment depends on satisfactory progress toward the degree (see Sections 3 and 4) and evaluations by the graduate faculty, teaching supervisors, and students.  Graduate students with incomplete grades may be disadvantaged in the competition for TAships (see 3.4). Students interested in a TAship should file an application with the Staff Graduate Advisor.  In all cases, after considering applications, the Graduate Committee sends recommendations to the Department Chair, who makes the appointments. If a vacancy occurs during the academic year, the files of all eligible students will be considered in filling the position.

16.6.4  Teaching Assistantships in Other Departments on Campus

There are teaching assistant opportunities in other departments on campus.  They can be found in departments or programs that don’t have a graduate program or graduate students such as Asian-American Studies, Black Studies, Chicano Studies, the Law and Society Program, and the Global Studies Program.  These departments and programs usually put out a call each quarter for teaching assistants to teach in their large lecture courses and more information can be found on the departmental websites or through a call to the departmental Business Officer.

16.7.    Summer Associateships

Applications are filed during fall quarter of the previous year; deadlines will be posted each year.

For students who have received the MA and passed the first qualifying exam, a limited number of summer Associateships are sometimes available. Appointments are recommended to the Summer Sessions administration by the Department Chair, in consultation with the Graduate Committee. Writing Program assignments are made by that department. The following factors will be considered in the selection process: quality of the candidate’s teaching record, area of programmatic need, progress toward the
degree, seniority, and fairness.

16.8     Employment on Faculty or Project Grants

Faculty members or the department’s various centers and projects who have grants may employ students as research or clerical assistants. Students who are interested should give their names to the department’s Financial Assistant and the Staff Graduate Advisor.

17. ADMINISTRATION OF THE GRADUATE PROGRAM

17.1.    The Graduate Council

The Graduate Council is an Academic Senate committee with jurisdiction over graduate education.  It is composed of ten faculty members, the Graduate Dean (ex officio), and two members of the Graduate Student Association.  Among other duties, the Graduate Council has responsibility for setting admissions criteria, approving and administering interdisciplinary degrees, reviewing requests for new graduate programs, approving graduate courses, and setting standards for graduate students who wish to be TAs, Teaching Fellows, or recipients of university fellowships. Petitions requesting waivers of requirements, leaves of absence, and extensions of time for degrees must be reviewed by the Council.

17.2.    The Graduate Division

Supervised by the Graduate Dean, the Graduate Division carries out the directives of the Graduate Council.  The Graduate Division is divided into three sections that serve graduate students:

• Graduate Outreach, Admission and Retention answers inquiries from prospective students, assists departments in screening applicants, evaluates foreign transcripts, and maintains statistics.
• Graduate Financial Support administers fellowships, grants, and fee waivers; handles on-campus employment forms for graduate students; and counsels students on preparation of grant applications and sources of extramural funds.
• Academic Services maintains active student files, processes petitions, conducts degree checks, and interprets academic requirements and policies.

17.3.    The Graduate Advisor

The Faculty Graduate Advisor is an official deputy of the Graduate Dean in matters affecting graduate students or graduate programs in the department.  The Graduate Advisor’s signature is the only departmental signature, other than that of the Chair, recognized as official on Graduate Division petitions presented by graduate students.  For 2008-2009, the English Department Graduate Advisor is Associate Professor Ken Hiltner.

17.4.    The Graduate Committee

The Graduate Advisor chairs a committee composed of faculty members appointed by the Department Chair, plus two elected graduate student representatives who participate in policy discussions not related to personnel cases.  The committee meets regularly to review all matters concerned with the admission, financial support, teaching assignments, and academic progress of graduate students, as well as to consider any policy issues of concern to the department faculty, the student body, or the Graduate Division.  The Graduate Committee is advisory to the Department Chair and to the English faculty as a whole on curricular matters.  The committee reviews student reading lists and petitions concerning language requirements, course credits, examinations, and other such matters. 

17.5.    Individual Faculty Advisors

1. The selection of advisors.  Incoming students will be assigned advisors whose interests appear to match theirs.  Both students and advisors may request a change of assignment at any time.  This advisor remains in place as a source of advice until the student has found a chair for the second qualifying exam and the dissertation committee.  No faculty member should be expected to serve as an advisor to more than five students (including those whose dissertations he or she directs).  Advisors on leave for more than one quarter should make arrangements for a temporary substitute.

2. The functions of advisors.  Advisors must approve their advisees’ course schedules each quarter and must also approve any later modifications (drop/add or grading option change).  Advisors should also be consulted about plans for satisfying the language requirements, for selecting a dissertation area and possible committee members, and for scheduling first and second qualifying exams.  At the beginning of the fall and spring quarters, students will submit a progress report signed by their individual advisors.  This report will be based on a review of the student’s file, on a conference with him or her, and, should both the student and the advisor wish, on a statement of progress written by the student.  In any event, the advisor’s report will be made available to the student along with additional comments (if any) by the Graduate Committee.  Whether authored by one or more than one person, the report should not exceed one page (a single paragraph will normally be sufficient).

17.6     Problems and Dispute Resolution

Some problems students face can be addressed outside of the English Department. There are numerous campus organizations that can be of help. These are listed in the Graduate Division's "Helping Hands" section of the Student Life and Services web page: http://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/prospectivestudents/essentials/.

Sometimes students experience real problems in their academic work or in academic appointments. Resolutions to these problems should first be sought within the department by using the resources of the Faculty Graduate Advisor, Staff Graduate Advisor and the Department Chair.

The Graduate Division also stands willing to help mediate disputes that cannot be resolved at the departmental level. Call (805) 893-2277 for assistance. There is an established Student Grievance Procedure that can be followed in cases where resolutions are otherwise not possible. These procedures can be found at the Kiosk website: http://www.kiosk.ucsb.edu/StudentGrievances/index.aspx.

Disputes with the Dissertation Committee
From time to time disagreements about decisions, deadlines, policies, procedures, and issues of academic judgment may arise between a student and members of their dissertation committee. As in all such disputes, involved parties should, in the spirit of collegiality, attempt to resolve these issues internally.  

A student should, therefore, first meet with the chair of the committee (usually her or his advisor) in an effort to resolve the dispute. If the student feels that she or he is unable to do this or if areas of disagreement still remain after this meeting, a written appeal describing the situation and requesting involvement should be addressed within 14 days to the Department Chair. If the Chair is a member of the committee, appeal should be made to the Graduate Advisor, or, if a conflict of interest is also present there, to the department's Graduate Committee as a whole.

The department will act to resolve the issue, or declare it irresolvable, and inform the student in writing within 30 days.  If the dispute cannot be resolved within the department, or if the student finds the department’s resolution unacceptable, the student may appeal to the Graduate Dean, who will attempt further resolution. This appeal must be made in writing within 14 days of the department’s decision.

If the Graduate Dean is unable to resolve the dispute to the parties’ satisfaction within 30 days, the graduate student has 14 days to submit a written appeal to the Graduate Council. The Graduate Council must inform the student of its decision within 30 days. In this area, decisions of the Graduate Council are final.

18. DEPARTMENTAL OFFICE STAFF

Business Officer
Joni Schwartz                                    893-3237
Manages all areas in the department, including instructional and research support. Responsible for management of fiscal resources, equipment and space resources, and academic and staff personnel actions.  Provides management support for the centers, research units, projects, and grants located in the Department.  With the Chair, develops strategic plans for department resources, including staffing, financial resources and physical space.

Academic Personnel Coordinator
Shayna Ingram               x 3479
Works closely with the Business Officer to coordinate all functions of the Office of the Chair.  Maintains a working relationship with the departmental Graduate and Undergraduate programs.  Academic personnel advisor for department’s faculty, visiting faculty and lecturers. 

Staff Graduate Advisor
Chelsea Houdyshell                              x 2639
Responsible for the operation and management of the English Department graduate program, including recruitment and outreach efforts.  Monitors academic progress of all English graduate students, interpreting and applying system wide and campus policies in matters concerning their academic, professional and personal welfare in the program. Serves as academic administrator in overseeing the assignments of course TA’s, graduate student employment, including management of annual TA allocation, graduate recruitment funds and department controlled graduate fellowship funds.  Responsible for assuring compliance with relevant collective bargaining unit contracts pertaining to graduate students.

Staff Undergraduate Advisor
Anne Wainwright                                  x 4710
Responsible for coordinating all aspects of the undergraduate program for the Department of English.  This includes advising students and faculty on all matters concerning undergraduate affairs.  Serves as staff liaison to the department's faculty undergraduate committee and works collaboratively with faculty and other campus representatives on all matters concerning English undergraduate courses and policies. Provides undergraduates with progress checks and graduation information, oversees the English Minor; and manages undergraduate departmental honors, research assistantships and independent studies.  Handles grade disputes and course questions.

Staff Support Specialist
Gretchen Henry                                    x 4710
In conjunction with the Undergraduate and Graduate Advisors, and the Instructional Program Assistant, answers questions and provides general advice to students, faculty and the general public on the department's policies, courses, and major and minor requirements. Provides referrals to faculty, staff, and other campus units as necessary. Provides general administrative support for office maintenance of equipment, back-up for supply order and inventory, and mail distribution. Responsible for key distribution and inventory maintenance, and for distributing, collecting, and tallying course evaluations. Maintains evaluation files and data.  Coordinates and oversees department student related events such as Transfer Student advising, Spring Insight, various forums (Graduate School Planning, Career Planning, Careers in Teaching, etc.). Offers support for Transfer Student and EAP advising. Plans events related to the English Club and Alumni Speakers, new student Orientations, Summer Session, Step Fair, Major Fair, etc.

Instructional Program Assistant
Nick Alward                                    x 8711
Acts as department instructional program assistant, independently answering questions from students and the public regarding English Department programs, policies and courses.  Serves as initial contact and provides information to students and faculty regarding the operation of the department and its policies and makes appropriate referrals to other department staff and university offices.  Primary contact for faculty for their day-to-day needs, such as copying, supplies, mail, and messages.  Backs up the Graduate and Undergraduate Advisors on a daily basis.  Maintains the English Department web site and responds to or refers all web site inquiries.

Computer Systems Specialist
Brian Reynolds                                    x 4135
Serves as the network and systems administrator for the department and its related instructional and research initiatives.  Determines and implements technical solutions to the department’s goals and expanding IT needs.  The English Department has a sophisticated web presence based on SQL, Access, and Filemaker database-driven websites.  Responsible for the security and integrity of the web server as well as the various databases architectures.  Manages the ongoing integration of these architectures into one unified (SQL) database architecture.  Responsible for helpdesk functions in support of all users of the Department network.  Responsible for software license compliance and software/hardware purchasing.  Manages part-time assistants in network administration, helpdesk functions, and/or web application development.

Financial Assistant
Raphaëlla Nau                                      x 3475
Responsible for all departmental financial services and monitoring all department accounts.  Designs and updates department financial systems for research, student aid, instructional and donation accounts. Assists in preparation of grant submission for English Faculty.  Responsible for arrangements of all financial aspects of conferences.

19. READING LISTS FOR THE FIRST QUALIFYING EXAMINATION

The reading lists for the first qualifying examination will change in minor ways from year to year in response to changes in what is being taught and discussed in the profession at large.  The lists printed here are in force for the academic year 2009-2010. Each student is encouraged to pursue his or her own further reading program.  Material not specified on the reading list can be used, where appropriate, in responding to examination questions.