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Graduate Handbook Print

Table of Contents

Introduction

Congratulations on being admitted to the M.A. program in religious studies at UNC Charlotte. Each of you is here today because of the promise and abilities you displayed in your previous scholastic work, and the graduate faculty are looking forward to working with you and helping you to be successful in the M.A. program.

This handbook is designed to help you understand the major expectations of graduate study, the specific procedures for meeting these expectations, and the habits you will need to establish as you move from undergraduate to graduate study.

Formal graduate study bears only a superficial resemblance to its undergraduate precursor. While the institutional framework (departmental differentiation, faculty, courses, etc.) of academic culture remains roughly parallel, the sheer intensity of intellectual involvement, the heightened expectations placed upon graduate students by the faculty, and the heavy responsibilities which the students shoulder are very different. We presume as a matter of course that graduate students are serious academics who are independently and individually motivated to excel in their chosen field of study. Graduate students are continually evaluated against very exacting standards, and it is only those students who exhibit and maintain a serious commitment to their studies and who manifest a creative use of their intellectual talents who will successfully complete the program.

Upon or shortly after your initial arrival to campus, you should schedule appointments with those faculty whose primary interests most closely parallel your own. Graduate students should make themselves visible to everyone in the department. Introduce yourselves and describe your interests and intended plan for study. Solicit advice regarding preparation for specific courses, readings, and the ideal toolkit for pursuing a particular specialty or sub-discipline. The faculty are eager to assist you, and they can do this most effectively if you let them know about your specific goals and research interests.

Faculty expectations of graduate students

Faculty expect graduate students to attend every scheduled course meeting of those classes in which they are enrolled for credit. Unlike some undergraduate classes for which attendance policies can be ‘loose’ or even non-existent, most graduate classes are small seminars which rely upon a steadily evolving stream of dialogue conducted between the instructor and the students that is generated by the readings, presentations, and ongoing informal oral critique. This dialectical process is drastically disrupted when students who are enrolled in the class and who have accepted responsibility for certain tasks choose to absent themselves physically from the discussion.

Faculty expect graduate students to meet the announced deadlines for written assignments and seminar papers. Every graduate course requires frequent written assignments, sometimes as often as one paper per week. It is a fact that academics in the humanities disciplines spend much of their waking life producing writings (books, articles, reviews, grant proposals, conference papers, etc.), critiquing another’s writing(s), or thinking about what they should be writing. Do not therefore be surprised by the amount of writing assigned to you within a graduate course.

Not only do faculty expect all students to prepare for a class by performing the assigned readings, but they further expect graduate students to prepare thoroughly by going above and beyond what is merely required or stated by the course syllabus. On those syllabi which conveniently juxtapose both ‘required’ and ‘recommended’ readings, faculty expect graduate students to read the ‘recommended’ items in addition to what is ‘required.’ The bibliographies supplied on most course syllabi are not simply decorative: the items highlighted therein contribute an additional depth and texture to the assigned readings. Where no such explicit recommendations are provided, faculty nevertheless expect graduate students (insofar as they are able given the available library resources) to research the full cultural background of the assigned reading(s), including a history of its/their critical reception and the various dissensions it/they may have provoked within the discipline.

In addition to what may be required by individual courses, faculty expect graduate students to engage in a constant program of self-education that is keyed to the particular areas or sub-disciplines in which their primary interest(s) lie. Twenty-four hours of course-work provides a very uneven exposure to a field as broad as religious studies, even should you decide to concentrate most of your courses within a more narrow area (e.g., early Judaism; religion and gender). The faculty will provide reading lists keyed to certain subject areas or sub-disciplines which enumerate a series of titles or works whose mastery they consider crucial for serious students of that field. Faculty assume graduate students will approach them for such bibliographic advice, they expect them to study the items on the list(s), and they hope that the students will utilize the broader knowledge thus gained in their subsequent coursework and their comprehensive examinations.

Faculty expect graduate students to keep abreast of current developments and new publications in the field. This can be accomplished by joining professional societies such as the American Academy of Religion and attending regional, national, or international conferences; by perusing the latest issues of leading journals and newsletters; and by establishing and maintaining contacts with students and faculty at other institutions.

Finally, faculty expect graduate students to attend (insofar as their schedules permit) most of the public activities of the department. Among such activities are the two annual endowed lecture series (Witherspoon, Tate), other announced public lectures (Phillips), and especially the departmentally sponsored colloquia wherein departmental faculty and invited guests make presentations or informally discuss their current research.

Advising, course selection, and registration

Courses eligible for graduate credit (5000-level or higher) are as a rule available only in the fall and spring semesters. Those courses which the department anticipates offering during the upcoming semester are usually decided upon at least one to two semesters in advance of their actual appearance on the course schedule. Once the roster for the next semester’s courses has been finalized, it is posted on the departmental website and paper copies are concurrently made available for distribution among the currently enrolled students. This advertisement usually takes place about the midpoint of each semester.

All graduate students must have their course schedules approved by the graduate director, who serves in effect as their curricular advisor. Students however should also meet informally with those faculty members and even other veteran graduate students whose research agendas are most compatible with their own in order to obtain advice about their course needs and selections. Once students have decided upon a tentative course schedule for the upcoming semester, they should make an appointment with the graduate director in order to present their plans and to discuss their progress and their goals. A historically convenient time for such appointments has been during the official university pre-registration periods, usually around the first week of November (for spring) and first week of April (for fall). After your consultation with the graduate director, the ‘flags’ will be removed from your academic record, the requisite permits will be issued, and you will be able to enroll yourself in the approved courses through the web. If for some reason you want or need to alter your pre-registration, you should contact the graduate director for assistance.

The UNC Charlotte Graduate School defines a full course load for a graduate student as nine (9) hours. However, a nine-hour load assumes that you have no other major responsibilities such as full-time employment. Those attempting to hold down full-time jobs and simultaneously engage in graduate study should limit themselves to no more than six (6) hours of graduate course work per semester, although this load (i.e., 6 hours) is better suited for those students who have only part-time jobs. Requisite weekly preparation for a typical graduate course features heavy reading and writing assignments and often an oral presentation. You must also schedule time each week for the preparation and writing of final seminar papers. Note too that the foregoing does not take into account your need to maintain an ongoing tutelage in interaction with the major works of your discipline, your preparatory study for comprehensive exams, or your initial thesis research.

Grades and continued enrollment

Graduate school employs a less calibrated grading system than that typically found in undergraduate studies. The range of grades used in graduate courses is A (commendable), B (satisfactory), C (marginal), and U (unsatisfactory). In addition, the grade of I (incomplete) can be assigned at the discretion of the instructor when a student otherwise passing has not completed, due to special circumstances, all the required work for a course. This latter grade, if left unchanged, will automatically transmute to U upon the expiry of the following semester.

The grade of A signifies that you have distinguished yourself among your peers by your exhaustive preparation and superior performance in every aspect of the coursework. Those students whose graduate transcripts bear all or mostly As can be confident that they are performing at the highest level of academic achievement. A grade of B represents the satisfactory completion of the course and its requirements. The department requires a B average (3.0) or higher in all course work in order to qualify for the master’s degree; moreover, it also mandates a grade of B or higher in the sole required course; namely, RELS 6101 Approaches to the Study of Religion.

Grades of C and U signal trouble and indicate that your performance falls below the threshold typically expected of graduate students (see the above section on faculty expectations). The receipt of U (unsatisfactory) in any single graduate course while at UNC Charlotte results in an immediate academic suspension from the Graduate School of UNC Charlotte, a termination of enrollment which effectively ends your graduate career at this institution. A grade of C (marginal) on a graduate transcript is equivalent to a D or even an F on the undergraduate scale. One C automatically generates an individual written warning from the Dean of the Graduate School and also necessitates a required conference with the graduate director before further coursework is permitted; a second C is sufficient grounds for your permanent dismissal from the program. Please note that this latter regulation is more stringent than what is stated in the academic regulations for the Graduate School as a whole.

The Graduate School requires all students who are enrolled in a graduate program to ‘maintain satisfactory progress toward the degree’ (Graduate Catalog 2005-2007, p. 29). The Department of Religious Studies defines such progress for students engaged in course work as the successful completion of at least one (1) RELS graduate level course every semester. Any exceptions to this benchmark must be approved by the director of graduate studies prior to the semester during which the student will not be enrolled. If a student violates this standard, or fails to gain the director’s approval for a temporary hiatus in enrollment, he/she will be informed by the director in writing of their unsatisfactory progress and immediately placed on probationary status for the current and the following semester. Failure to complete successfully at least one (1) RELS graduate level course during the final probationary semester will result in a recommendation for the student’s termination from the program.

Moreover, RELS 6101 Approaches to the Study of Religion must be successfully completed within the first three semesters of a student’s initial enrollment within the program. Failure to comply with this requirement will result in a recommendation for the student’s termination from the program.

Students engaged in the research and writing of a thesis must also, in the judgment of their primary thesis advisor or committee, ‘maintain satisfactory progress toward the degree.’ At the end of each semester, the director will ask each thesis advisor whether the student is making satisfactory progress. Should the answer be negative, the student will be informed by the director in writing of their unsatisfactory progress and placed on probationary status during the following semester. A second negative response at the end of the probationary semester will result in a recommendation for the student’s termination from the program.

Additional information about suspension and/or termination.

Transfer credits

Up to six (6) hours of graduate credit may be earned outside of the program. If applied to the course requirements for the degree, these hours must be formally approved by the director of graduate study and the Dean of the Graduate School. In order to be eligible for consideration, such course work must be properly accredited, must be (or have been) conducted at the graduate level of instruction, must not have been used to fulfill the requirements for a previously awarded degree or certificate, and must parallel graduate course work that is actually or potentially available within the curriculum of the department. No correspondence, distance learning, or web-based courses will receive consideration for transfer credits.

Financial assistance

Financial support.  The Graduate School website (http://graduateschool.uncc.edu/funding.html) contains information (including applications) for university-wide and external funding.  The Department of Religious Studies does not currently administer any financial aid.  A limited number of graduate assistantships are available (see below).

Tuition reduction for out-of-state students.  The M.A. program in religious studies has recently won admittance to the Academic Common Market (ACM), a cooperative tuition-reduction agreement among sixteen states that participate in the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB): Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.  Under this agreement, qualified students from states outside North Carolina may apply through their home state's ACM coordinator for reduced tuition rates at UNC Charlotte while pursuing the M.A. program.  Qualified students are considered "in-state" residents during the time they are pursuing the degree, therefore making them eligible for lower tuition rates and other opportunities afforded residents who attend the school.

Graduate assistantships.  The department at present has three graduate assistantships to award its students. These assistantships are normally assessed and awarded by the graduate faculty on an annual basis, and they are awarded strictly upon merit. They are normally awarded to students who have spent at least one semester in the program and who have a proven record of academic prowess and success. Students who do not receive one of these three assistantships can often locate other funding options that are made available through the Graduate School (see above).  Beginning July 1, 2012, graduate assistantships can be held by the same student for a maximum period of two academic years.

There are also occasional limited opportunities for part-time employment as a teaching or research assistant for individual faculty members of the department. Such appointments again are made strictly upon merit and are contingent upon the availability of funding from the department’s annual budget.

Historically the department has subsidized the travel expenses for those students who present papers at regional or national meetings of recognized professional societies and associations, but this perquisite is again contingent upon the availability of funding. You should consult the chair of the department prior to the date of the conference to learn whether assistance with travel expenses will be possible.

General procedures for the written comprehensive examination

Every graduate student in religious studies must satisfactorily complete a comprehensive written examination upon the conclusion of their coursework. This examination is normally taken at the end of one’s fourth or fifth semesters (if a full-time student). Students who elect to write a thesis are eligible for the comprehensive examination after completing twenty-four (24) hours of course work; all others become eligible after completing thirty (30) hours of course work. Students must be enrolled during the semester in which they take the comprehensive examination, although they should enroll for no more than three (3) hours of coursework so that they can devote adequate time to their exam preparation.

Students will normally inform the graduate director of their intention to take the exam at least one (1) semester prior to the one during which the exam will be administered. This insures that the student will have a sufficient period of time (at least one full semester) in order to prepare for the examination. After completing the aforementioned course work, students should begin to study for their exam. Their exam will be based on a customized reading list which is generated during the student’s consultation with three separate graduate faculty members. One of these faculty must be that student’s RELS 6101 (Approaches) instructor, whereas the other two are individually invited to join the exam committee by the student. The choice of exam committee members will be governed largely by the student’s completed course work and general research interests. If languages comprise a significant component of a student’s course work and research program, one may request that one or more passages for translation and discussion be included as an option for the examination. In such cases and with the consent of the examining instructor, certain lexical and/or grammatical aids may be permitted for use during that portion of the examination (e.g., Whitney’s Sanskrit Grammar; Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum). Using the reading list and basic parameters agreed upon by the student and the participating faculty, each of the examining professors will prepare two questions (thus six in all) which will form the content of the exam. These will be placed in three sealed envelopes each bearing the name of one of the exam committee members. At the scheduled time(s) for the examination, the student will choose one (1) envelope, read the two questions within, and choose one (1) question from each examiner to answer (thus three in all).

The comprehensive exam should demonstrate competence over the material that comprises the reading lists.  It should demonstrate both expository proficiency and analytical skill.  It should extend and advance work done in the student’s courses. 

The exam should take the form of an academic paper.  It should have a clear thesis/main point around which it is organized.  It should be well organized and articulated clearly and cogently.  It should respond to the question(s) posed in the exam prompt.  Just as examiners will take into consideration the time constraints under which the exam was written when evaluating it, the student should also remember these constraints when preparing an answer.  One key to a successful exam answer is determining what can be managed well in a seven-hour period.  For these reasons, the student is encouraged to devote sufficient time during the exam period to planning the response before beginning to write.

Examiners will consider the following when evaluating the exam:  Does it have a clear thesis/main point?  Is it clear and well organized?  Does it provide a cogent and complete response to the questions in the exam prompt?  Does it accurately characterize the ideas, authors, texts, events, practices, and phenomena it discusses?  Does it adequately engage the relevant materials from the examinee's reading lists?  Does it include evidence of the examinee's thinking beyond mere summary of others' ideas or repetition of ideas from the examinee's course work?  Students are strongly encouraged to consult with their individual exam committee members about the specific expectations for a successful examination. 

The comprehensive examination is formally administered by the director of graduate studies. It takes place on a fixed date each fall and spring, usually during the university final examination week. It consists of three separate parts which are taken over a maximum period of three days, a scenario which permits an allocation of one answered question (or examiner) per test day. The three exam days may be but need not be consecutive. The student is free to answer two examiners or even all three examiners on the first day, or one on the first and two on the second day, etc. However, once a question has been selected and read, it must be immediately answered; i.e., no questions will be ‘carried over’ for further elaboration on the next exam day. During the time when the exam is being taken (i.e., 9:00-4:00 during the scheduled days), the student will be permitted to leave the test area briefly in order to get water or attend to personal needs, but an extended period of absence of, say 25-30 minutes or more without the approval of the director of graduate studies will result in the termination of exam procedures for that day.

The examination is assessed by the three examining faculty using the rubrics high pass, pass, or fail. This committee is vested with the authority to determine the grade for the examination and to decide whether or under what circumstances the student can remain in the program in the event that one or more parts of the exam earn a failing grade. Input affecting this decision can be solicited from the departmental graduate advisory council. The committee’s final assessment will be communicated to the student in writing by the director of graduate study no later than one month after the final examination date. The student may meet with the examination committee after receiving the grade in order to review the exam and receive feedback on it. The examination itself will not be released to the student.

General procedures for the thesis

As you are engaged in formal course work and even while studying for the comprehensive examination, you should be thinking about your thesis. All students planning to pursue doctoral study should write a thesis. The thesis is not simply a lengthy seminar paper or an anthologized catalog of previous research: it is a sustained original piece of research which aims at making an informed contribution to ongoing discussions within the discipline. Seminar papers or presentations delivered at professional conferences can often serve as the core for a thesis-length investigation, which depending on the topic chosen and methodology(s) employed, can extend for one hundred pages or more.

The steps to follow upon reaching the thesis stage of your graduate tenure are these:

  1. Secure the formal cooperation of a principal reader/advisor for your thesis from the graduate faculty of the Department of Religious Studies. This is done by contacting the faculty member whose expertise and interests most closely match the topic which you would like to develop and discussing your ideas with her/him. It is very likely that some reformulation and adjustments of the initial idea will be necessary before mutual agreement can be reached on a suitable thesis topic. This faculty member functions as the primary director of your thesis by providing supplementary methodological and bibliographic guidance and critiquing each draft of a chapter or section of the thesis as it is produced.
  2. With the guidance of your principal reader, prepare the thesis proposal in accordance with the departmental template. Examples of successful thesis proposals are on file and available for inspection in the graduate director’s office. Every thesis proposal consists of a title page bearing a tentative title for the thesis, your name, department, and date; a body of text (approximately three-five pages) which briefly presents the proposed topic and addresses issues such as what you will be doing, how you will be doing it, and why it needs to be done; and a preliminary bibliography of source materials. Although not required within the proposal, some students also include an envisioned table of contents between the body and the bibliography.
  3. Once your principal reader has approved the proposal, there must be two more faculty members to complete the thesis committee. The principal reader will suggest appropriate candidates for inclusion. These additional faculty are not as directly involved in the actual production of the thesis, but officiate in an advisory capacity. You can of course consult them for advice regarding certain aspects of your research. They may be shown drafts of the thesis-in-progress with the approval of the principal reader, but at some point in the editorial process (usually the penultimate draft) they will read and comment upon the entire thesis. One of these additional faculty may be from outside the department or even from another university. The final draft of a completed thesis must bear the signatures of all three committee members.
  4. Once the thesis committee is complete, communicate the results of the deliberations to the director of graduate studies. Upon the director’s approval, the student then files a Petition for Topic Approval with the Graduate School. When the Petition has been accepted by the Graduate School, students are required to maintain continuous registration (fall and spring) until the thesis is completed. Should the six credit hours of RELS 6999 prove insufficient for this purpose, continuous registration can be maintained by enrolling in RELS 7999 Graduate Residency, a one-hour course available during both the fall and spring semesters.

Students engaged in the research and writing of a thesis must, in the judgment of their primary thesis advisor or committee, ‘maintain satisfactory progress toward the degree.’ At the end of each semester, the director will ask each thesis advisor whether the student is making satisfactory progress. Should the answer be negative, the student will be informed by the director in writing of their unsatisfactory progress and placed on probationary status during the following semester. Another negative response at the end of the probationary semester will result in a recommendation for the student’s termination from the program.

The physical format of the thesis (title page, pagination, margins, line spacing, et al.) is governed by a template mandated by the Graduate School. Students are responsible for insuring that their thesis conforms to all the guidelines spelled out in this document. The Graduate School employs special copy editors with whom you should schedule periodic appointments to show them sample pages of your work. On the other hand, all of the bibliographic conventions (format for footnotes, abbreviations, bibliography, et al.) of your thesis must conform to the rules contained in the style manual entitled ‘Writing Guidelines for Religious Studies’ developed within the department. If your printed thesis does not conform to departmental or university specifications, you will not be permitted to graduate on time. Students are individually responsible for familiarizing themselves with and meeting the various deadlines set by the program and the Graduate School.

Once a finished thesis has been approved by the principal reader and the other members of the thesis committee, and after this decision has been communicated by the principal reader to the graduate director, the latter will schedule an oral defense date. This defense takes place no less than three weeks after the graduate director receives approval notification from the student’s thesis committee. The defense takes the form of an oral presentation by the student wherein the topic of the thesis is introduced, outlined, and expounded before an audience consisting of the departmental faculty, other graduate students in the program, interested undergraduate or graduate students or other faculty from the UNC Charlotte campus, and invited guests (e.g., faculty from area institutions). The presentation concludes with a lengthy question-and-answer period.

Following the oral defense, you may make some minor corrections or changes to the thesis based on the feedback received from the audience. When all such changes have been cleared with your principal reader and the physical format of the thesis has been granted final approval by the Graduate School, you are responsible for preparing and submitting at least three unbound error-free copies of the approved thesis to the Graduate School no later than the official filing date specified in the University Calendar. Students are individually responsible for all expenses incurred in reproducing, registering, and binding copies of the thesis.

General procedures for the portfolio

Students who do not write a thesis spend typically a semester in the preparation of a portfolio whose purpose is to provide a tangible demonstration of their growth as a scholar of religious studies during their graduate tenure of study at UNC-Charlotte.  At least thirty (30) hours of approved graduate course work – fifteen of which must be at the 6000-level or higher – with a minimum GPA of 3.0 must have been successfully completed before a student can graduate using the portfolio option.  Neither RELS 6999 or 7999 can comprise any part of that required thirty hours, although RELS 7999 can be used if the thirty-hour threshold has already been reached prior to the semester of graduation.

The steps to follow for portfolio preparation are these:

(1) Invite a faculty member – presumably one with whom you have engaged in a significant amount of course work – to serve as your portfolio advisor.

(2) Select approximately 4-6 substantial papers which you have written during the course of your graduate career, and with your advisor’s input, identify and analyze some of the common threads, themes,  or trajectories which emerge from your work.  Or, if you prefer, you may isolate, analyze, and reflect upon the differences.  Why did you decide to study religion at the graduate level?  What are the sorts of issues which energize you as a scholar of religion?  Do you detect maturation in your papers when they are read diachronically?  Or, for that matter, synchronically?  To what factors do you attribute your growth as a scholar?  Are there certain theorists or methods to which you keep returning?  Or ignoring?  Finally, where do you see yourself in the grand scheme of things (academically, professionally, and/or socially) now that you are poised to complete the program?

(3) Assign your project a descriptive title.

(4) Prepare a written transcript that outlines and summarizes the main themes and points that result from your careful attention to the questions posed in paragraph (2) and any other analogous concerns or ideas that may surface during your intensive analysis and reflection.  Share this transcript with your advisor and revise, if necessary, in light of their comment and critique.  Although you are not required – as part of the portfolio project – to submit formally any written materials to your advisor, the graduate director, or the Graduate School, you will discover that generating a written formulation of your ideas will prove helpful for structuring your thoughts and sharpening your presentation.

(5) Once you and your advisor have decided that your analytical and reflective preparations are complete, inform the graduate director and schedule your oral presentation.  As in preparing your written transcript, you will discover that working on the genre of the public presentation with your advisor will improve its effectiveness.  The presentation will occupy a one and a half hour block of time, of which 35-45 minutes will be devoted to your remarks and the remainder of the time to questions, comments, and observations from an audience consisting of faculty, fellow graduate students, and invited guests.  After the presentation, the graduate director will notify the Graduate School of your successful completion of this requirement.