Advising & Course Requirements
Students are accepted into the program both because they have an outstanding academic record and because a faculty member has identified common research interests from the student’s application material and agreed to be the student’s advisor. The letter offering acceptance into the program identifies a faculty member who has agreed to serve as advisor. Often the advisor already has a research grant on which the student is expected to work; otherwise, the advisor is prepared to develop a research project and/or grant application with the student.
Students should work closely with their advisor to choose courses, prepare for examinations, develop research proposals, and complete dissertation work. Both the student and advisor are responsible for arranging frequent meetings to accomplish these tasks. The PhD Program Coordinator is available to assist in advising.
It is recognized that upon meeting and working together a student and advisor may find they are incompatible in research style, personality, required research skills, or research interest. During PhD studies a student may develop new interests and choose a dissertation topic in which the original advisor has no interest or expertise. As long as the student is successfully completing his or her course work and assistantship obligations, the advisor will not drop the student. A student is free to approach any other member of the program faculty about becoming his/her advisor.
Course Requirements
Students are required to take 64 graduate hours of credit, usually 32 hours of courses and 32 hours of dissertation research. A student with a master’s degree in a closely related field, but not in planning, may be required to take more than 32 hours of coursework to fill gaps in preparation. Careful selection of additional courses may permit such students to also obtain a Master of Urban Planning degree en route to the PhD.
Faculty advisors and the PhD Program Coordinator provide guidance in selecting coherent sets of courses appropriate for individual students. There is one required course, UP 580 Advanced Planning Theory (4 hours). Students without previous course work in planning must take the masters core course in planning theory, UP 501 Cities, Society, and Planning, before taking the advanced course. Of the remaining courses, eight hours will typically be in research methods, four in research design, and sixteen in the substantive area, but there are no established categories of courses. A student and advisor should work closely together to design the sequence of courses that will best prepare the student for scholarly research in the chosen area of interest.
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