General Requirements and
Regulations for Doctoral Degrees
Admission to the Graduate School of prospective doctoral candidates is the joint responsibility of the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School and the head of the program to which the student applies. Students must show sufficient and satisfactory undergraduate preparation in the field or fields in which the doctoral work is to be done. Students must also demonstrate superior ability to do advanced work at the doctoral level.
Candidates for doctoral degrees are subject to all applicable academic and other University regulations which govern candidates for the master's degrees unless otherwise indicated.
Advisory Committee and Degree Program
When a doctoral student is accepted into a program, the program's dean, director, or department chair appoints an academic advisor who is responsible for the student's program until an advisory committee is appointed. The name of the student's advisor will be included in the official letter of acceptance sent to the student by the Graduate School. The student will develop a degree plan with the advisor. The degree plan will be reviewed by a department committee which shall consist of not fewer than three members of the graduate faculty, with two being from the major department. This committee shall have authority to review the student's course work and to evaluate it through written and/or oral examinations with respect to the student's program. The student's advisor chairs the advisory committee and administers this authority. When a student presents a minor, a faculty member from the minor department must approve the proposed program through signature on the degree plan. It is the student's responsibility to work with his/her advisor to develop the degree plan, which must be forwarded through the department chair and the academic dean to the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School before completion of eighteen semester hours.
Course Requirements
Specific requirements are determined by the student's advisory committee, department chair, and academic dean. In general, however, work leading to the doctorate requires the completion of at least ninety graduate-level semester hours beyond the baccalaureate degree. In some cases a student may need to complete more than ninety semester hours in order to meet individual requirements determined by the advisory committee. The completion of a number of hours, however, is not in itself sufficient; the nature and quality of work are the major considerations.
Credit by Transfer
There is no automatic transfer of graduate credit, but the student's advisory committee has the prerogative to recommend to the Associate Vice President for Research and the Dean of the Graduate School the acceptance of transferable credits.
Only work completed at accredited institutions may be considered for transfer. A student may apply for consideration of transfer of credits after satisfactorily completing a minimum of nine hours of graduate credit at Texas Woman's University and upon filing the degree program. The rule governing the time limit for doctoral work also applies to transferable credits.
Only graduate courses in which a grade of B or better has been earned are acceptable for transfer. No credit toward a graduate degree may be obtained by correspondence; and no credit toward a graduate degree may be obtained by extension work from another institution.
At least fifty percent of the work counted toward a doctoral degree program must be composed of courses having residence status at Texas Woman's University.
Major and Minor
Specific requirements for the major and minor subjects are determined by the dean of the college or chair of the committee in consultation with the department in which the candidate seeks the minor. Detailed statements regarding majors and minors are in the departmental, school, and college sections of this catalog. At least half of the courses for the minor must be completed in residence at TWU.
Grade Requirements
No course with a grade below B is accepted toward a doctoral degree at the University.
The doctoral student is expected to maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least B. When a student's cumulative grade point average on graduate-level work falls below B during any one semester or full summer session of twelve weeks, or when a student receives a grade of D or F, the student is placed on academic probation and notified of this status. The student's next enrollment during a long semester or full summer session must restore the cumulative average to B or above. Failure to accomplish this results in dismissal from the Graduate School. The grade record at the Texas Woman's University cannot be improved by attendance at another university.
If a doctoral student earns grades below B in program courses, continuation in the degree program is reviewed by the student's advisory committee. A student is not allowed to continue in the doctoral program if there are two failing grades (F or WF) in the doctoral program.
Limit on Course Load
Normally nine or more graduate semester hours are considered a full course load, and a doctoral student's load may not exceed twelve hours in any one semester without the approval of the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School.
Tuition for Doctoral Hours Exceeding Legislated Limit
The Texas Legislature has amended the state's Education Code to limit funding of doctoral credits for any student at any institution to 99 hours. TWU doctoral students are charged at the out-of-state tuition rate for any doctoral work in excess of 99 semester hours. Doctoral students should, therefore, work closely with their advisors to plan a course of study that will prevent their inadvertently exceeding the limitation.
Time Limits
All requirements toward a doctoral degree, aside from a completed master's degree, must be completed within a period of ten consecutive calendar years from the date doctoral credit is first earned.
Admission to Candidacy
When a student applies for admission to candidacy, the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School appoints a research committee from a list of faculty members suggested by the student in consultation with the chair of the department and submitted by the dean of the college in which the student is enrolled. This committee evaluates the student's professional promise, plans for continued study, and progress with respect to the dissertation; the committee then arranges for the student's qualifying examination, and later passes finally upon the dissertation and sets the final examination of the candidate for the doctoral degree. Admission to candidacy requires the following:
Unconditional admission to the Graduate School;
Demonstration of professional promise;
Good academic standing;
Completion of research tools;
Satisfaction of the residence requirement, if required;
Successful completion of qualifying examination.
The qualifying examination consists of written and/or oral comprehensive examinations conducted by the candidate's committee and administered at least one academic year before the degree is expected to be conferred, ordinarily not earlier than during the last semester of the second full year of graduate study. In no case may a student be excused from the qualifying examination. (NOTE: The student must have met research tool and any residence requirements before taking the qualifying examination.)
Research Tools
Doctoral studies require skills and techniques (tools) that vary with the specific needs of the discipline. The degree-granting components determine the suitability of specific research tools for their programs. In general, such tools comprise coursework equivalent to a minimum of six credit hours for each tool. Equivalent competencies may, if acceptable to the component, be demonstrated by examination. The degree-granting component establishes whether the credits are included in the 90 hours required for the program or whether they are required in addition to the minimum hours needed for the degree.
Dissertation
Each doctoral candidate must write a dissertation based upon research which makes an original contribution to the literature and research of the student's discipline. The Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School appoints the dissertation director upon recommendation of the dean of the college or school of the doctoral major. In final form, the dissertation must be approved by the student's committee, specified administrators of the appropriate college or school, and the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School.
Before the student begins the formal research for the dissertation, the prospectus should be approved by both the Research Committee and the Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School.
To secure credit for work done on the dissertation, the student must register for this work. When "Dissertation" appears on the schedule, it is counted as from three to six semester hours in determining both load and tuition and fees. When the dissertation work is done in the summer school, the dissertation course must be elected for at least two summer terms.
Graduate students are urged to use the computer and research consultant services of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science in the preparation of their professional papers, theses, and dissertations. When these services are to be used, students must enroll in CSCI 5921 (Research Consultation Laboratory). The course may be repeated for additional credit as needed.
The grade of PR will be assigned to indicate progress on a dissertation. A student writing a dissertation for six hours' credit will be given CR (Credit) for the first enrollment and PR (Progress) for all subsequent enrollments until the last, for which CR will be given again. A student writing a dissertation for twelve hours' credit will be given CR for the first two enrollments and for the last two enrollments and PR for enrollments in between.
Only an officially registered student may hold conferences with faculty concerning the preparation of a dissertation. This rule applies both to the student in actual residence and to the student not in residence who is receiving aid or criticism through conferences or correspondence. This rule does not apply to preliminary conferences held before the dissertation subject has been selected. Registration for dissertation in one term is good for that term only and does not extend to the next term.
Two copies and the original of the approved dissertation must be delivered to the Graduate Office no later than the filing date listed in the Graduate School "Calendar of Deadlines." Bound at the expense of the student, one copy is placed in the University Library and the second in the files of the college of the major. These copies become the property of the University. Under certain conditions, usually related to special research fellowships or programs or to continuing university, college, foundation, or industrial research programs, it may be necessary for the student, by prior agreement with the dissertation director, to pay for and submit more than two copies. (NOTE: The University is establishing procedures for the electronic submission of dissertations. Students interested in electronic submission should contact the Graduate School.)
All dissertations are microfilmed by University Microfilms and included in Dissertation Abstracts International. The student pays for this microfilming at the time of filing the dissertation and abstract in the Graduate School. Copyrighting, which remains optional, may be secured through University Microfilms for an additional fee. Details concerning the abstracts, microfilming, copyrighting, and their fees are available in the Graduate Office. The student is urged to consult the Graduate School publication Guide to the Preparation and Processing of Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Papers for additional information.
Final Examinations
When the research committee has approved the candidate's dissertation and all other requirements for the degree have been met, the student stands a final examination before the committee. The final examination is oral, written, or both, and includes a defense of the dissertation and the research on which it is based, as well as questions concerning both the major and minor fields.
Formal notice of satisfactory completion of the final examination must be filed in the Graduate Office by the date specified for each session in the Graduate School "Calendar of Deadlines."
