Registration Policies & Procedures
Registration
Continuing student registration takes place online (via OneStart) in October for the spring semester and in April for the fall semester. Students are required to consult the graduate advisor prior to registering for the fall and spring semesters. For summer registration (in March), students are not required to meet with an advisor, but this step is still highly recommended. Students who have passed the Ph.D. qualifying exam are required to enroll each semester (excluding summer sessions) until the dissertation is submitted.
Leave of Absence
A leave of absence for one semester or, more rarely, for one academic year, with the possibility of automatically resuming the same instructorship the following year, will be granted to Associate Instructors only in exceptional cases and at the discretion of the faculty and Chair. Students wishing to take a leave of absence should speak with the graduate advisor immediately, and if at all possible by February 1 of the year preceding the academic year of the desired leave.
Continuing Enrollment
Graduate students who are ABD (“All But Dissertation”) are still required to be continually enrolled in thesis credit hours until they have submitted their successfully defended and revised dissertation to the Graduate School. Failure to meet this requirement will automatically terminate the student's enrollment in the degree program. French graduates need to enroll in F875 and Italian graduates in M875 until they finish all their Ph.D. requirements. When they complete 90 credit hours (65 credit hours + 25 thesis hours) and all Ph.D. requirements (language + minor), they are eligible to enroll in G901 for a flat fee of $150 per semester. Students need to request permission to enroll in G901 from the graduate advisor. Enrollment in G901 is limited to a total of six semesters.
This continual enrollment is generally just for the academic year and not the summer. However, if the Ph.D. candidate plans to graduate during the summer, he/she must be enrolled in the summer session during which the graduation will take place. According to the Graduate Bulletin, “A candidate who will be graduated in June, July, or August of any year must enroll in a minimum of 1 hour of credit… in either the current or the immediately preceding summer session.” If the student only defends in the summer, he/she does not need to be enrolled during the respective summer session.
ABD students who fail to comply with the policy of continuing enrollment will be compelled to enroll retroactively, and the fees for retroactive registration are substantial.
Thesis Credits
All students who intend to pursue the Ph.D. may begin accumulating F875/M875 thesis credits starting from their first year in the M.A. program. A student must obtain 25 of these credits to complete the degree. F875/M875 credits correlate with preparation for the Ph.D. dissertation, but they may not reflect actual time spent on research and other preparation during a given semester. They should be considered as a whole as time spent reading supplementary texts, consulting with faculty, and doing preliminary research and planning over the course of a student’s first two or three years in the graduate program. Thereafter, these credits should have a more direct correlation with the amount of time spent preparing the dissertation.
Once students have accumulated a total of 90 credit hours toward the Ph.D. degree (65 course work + 25 thesis hours F875/M875), they may enroll in six semesters of G901, which is six credit hours but only costs a flat fee of $150 per semester. If they have exhausted G901 and are still working on the dissertation thereafter, they must enroll in a minimum of one credit hour of F875/M875 each semester. ABD students who still have one or more semesters of financial support remaining may choose to “save” their G901 semesters for later and enroll in F875/M875 while they still receive a fee remission.
Address change
It is vitally important for you to keep both the departmental graduate secretary and the Office of the Registrar informed of any change of permanent, local, or e-mail address. The Department needs an accurate address for important communications relating to registration, requirements, funding, and other issues. The Office of the Registrar is the main record-keeping body of the University, where address changes must be made. Your address with the Registrar must be current for the obvious reasons of registration and billing, as well as any correspondence from the Graduate School or College Graduate Division.
