Students are required to complete a minimum of 60 units before taking the qualifying examination. No more than 12 units may be taken below the graduate level unless specifically approved by the PhD graduate program advisor (PGPA). 16 units must be taken from the core courses offered, and a further 12 units must be taken from courses offered by the PhD faculty. At least 4 units must consist of practice as research (either in an independent study or on an MFA course), working closely with a faculty member during the second year. Up to 12 units may be taken outside the Department of Theatre and Dance, unless the student has opted for a Designated Emphasis study in which case up to 16 units may be taken outside the Department.

Foreign Language Requirement

Particularly because of the intercultural and transcultural emphasis for study in the department, all students are required to have a fluent reading knowledge of a language other than English; ideally, this language should be one relevant to the field of dissertation research. Students may satisfy this requirement either by passing an upper-division or graduate course in the language with a grade of B or better, by passing the Graduate School Foreign Language Test with a score to be determined by the department, or by passing a reading test in the language arranged by the PhD Program Faculty. This requirement should be passed by the end of the second year of study, and must be passed before the student will be approved to take qualifying examination. Students passing the language requirement with course work taken at another institution must demonstrate that this course work is sufficiently recent to demonstrate a useful working knowledge of the language for scholarly purposes.

Teaching

As part of a funded program of study, students may be required to accept a teaching appointment for at least one year. This requirement may be waived in individual cases by petitioning the Advisor. Students are not required to accept teaching appointments if they are not receiving commensurate support in the form of a teaching assistantship or other funding. The University offers several courses to train Teaching Assistants. Students have to take one of these courses during the first term of their first year, and are encouraged to take on further training sessions throughout their PhD program.