Advising and Evaluation

Advising and Evaluation

Each student is advised by a member of the Committee on Graduate Studies until the student has selected an adviser (usually during the first year of the program). At the end of the first year, student course work will be evaluated by the department, and the student will be advised of his or her prospects for success. Students who receive a negative evaluation of their work will be placed on probation and, if there is no substantial improvement, may be asked to leave the program at the end of their second year, rather than proceeding to the qualifying examination. All students will be eligible to receive an M.A. upon successful completion of course work and approval of a paper of publishable quailty.

Relations with Faculty and Advisors

As a scholarly community, the politics graduate faculty maintains an inviting milieu for interchange with students, both informally and in more structured venues. Advising figures initially into each student¹s experience and occurs in a variety of forms, from individual discussions with formal advisers and members of the qualifying and dissertation committee(s) to reviews and evaluations of the student's progress rendered by the Politics graduate faculty. Close advising also plays an important role in the work of teaching assistants, whose work in that capacity is regarded as an apprenticeship. Here, advising enters through informal discussion with related faculty and, more formally, by means of TA seminars that concern pedagogy as well as substantive matters related to the courses themselves.