Doctor of Philosophy

Introduction 

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was historically the first degree to be conferred by universities. It is granted in recognition of a candidate’s high level of scholarly competence and demonstrated ability to conduct and report significant research independently and effectively. “Doctor” is the Latin Word for “teacher.” “Philosophy” in its broadest definition means “all knowledge.” The modern sense of the title “Doctor of Philosophy” refers to one who comprehends all knowledge in his or her chosen field and has mastered an area of specialization. He or she has added in a significant way to that body of knowledge and has transmitted the new knowledge, thus teaching the world something new. A person who has received the doctorate has mastered appreciation of the ethical questions and has adhered to the highest ethical standards of the discipline. It is further expected that the future work of the candidate for the PhD. will maintain and uphold the same standards of scholarship demanded for the degree, so the title and its meaning continue to apply.

The three requirements for the PhD are assessed in the final defense of a dissertation.

• The dissertation should demonstrate significant original work.
• The final dissertation should be presented with clarity of thought and excellence of exposition that make it suitable for publication as a book or a series of papers in learned journals.
• The dissertation should demonstrate a breadth and depth of the candidate’s knowledge beyond the confines of his or her own research and is also critically assessed in the defense and at various examinations during the student’s studies.

Admission to the Graduate School does not automatically qualify a student as a candidate for the PhD. degree. Formal recommendation of advancement to candidacy for the PhD. degree must be made to the Graduate School by the program after a review of the student’s performance in courses, independent study, and program examinations. A candidate for the PhD. degree engages in research leading to a dissertation. Listed below are the minimal requirements mandated by the Graduate School. The individual programs may set additional requirements.

Courses and Grade Point Average

The student will follow an approved program of courses determined to meet his or her needs and to satisfy program requirements. A student must achieve a minimum 3.0 overall GPA in graduate courses taken at Stony Brook in order to receive a doctoral degree.

Calculation of the grade point average (GPA) includes all courses numbered 500 and above taken at Stony Brook. Temporary grades (I and NR), missing grades and those grades for which no numerical equivalents are defined (P, S, U, and R) are excluded from the computation.

Grading System: See Academic Regulations/ Grading System

A graduate student who has changed primary program may request a restart of GPA in considering possible waiver of academic probation. The GPA for the new program will be calculated from the beginning of the semester in which the change of program became effective. A graduate student who has graduated and is readmitted into a new degree or certificate program may request a restart of GPA. Program approval is necessary before any restart request is submitted to the Graduate School. Courses taken before the restart of GPA cannot be used towards a second degree or certificate.

Language Proficiency

Although the Graduate School itself does not require proficiency in a foreign language for the PhD. degree, programs oversee their own foreign language requirement and evaluation of proficiency. Students must comply with program requirements. The proficiency examination must usually be passed before permission is given to take the preliminary examination.

Preliminary Examination

The purpose of the preliminary examination is to ascertain the breadth and depth of the student’s preparation and to appraise readiness to undertake significant original investigation.

• At the discretion of the program, the preliminary examination may be oral, written, or both, and may consist of a series of examinations.
• The committee is appointed by the Graduate Program Director.
• The preliminary examining committee must include at least two faculty members from the program and may include one or more members from outside the University or program.
• Results of the preliminary examination will be communicated to the student as soon as possible and to the Graduate School within one week of the completion of the examination.
• A repetition of the preliminary examination, upon failure, may be scheduled at the discretion of the program. The dean of the Graduate School must approve a second repeat.

Advancement to Candidacy

Admission to the Graduate School does not automatically qualify a doctoral student as a candidate for the doctoral degree. Formal recommendation, executed by the Graduate Program Director, of advancement to candidacy for the doctoral degree must be made to the Graduate School after a review of the student’s performance in courses, independent study, and program examinations.

A candidate for the doctoral degree engages in research or scholarship leading to a dissertation. Advanced students may enroll in up to 3 credits per full academic semester (Fall/Spring) in courses that are directly related to the student’s dissertation or provide relevant professional development without prior approval. In addition, students who were approved to work concurrently towards a secondary degree program or advanced graduate certificate prior to advancement to candidacy can also register for courses to satisfy the approved secondary program/certificate. A student’s time limit to complete the primary degree program will not be extended due to enrollment in other courses leading to a secondary program/certificate or professional development.

Listed below are the minimal requirements for advancement to candidacy mandated by the Graduate School. The individual programs may set additional requirements.

A student may be advanced to candidacy (G5 status) after completing all Graduate School and program requirements other than the dissertation or its equivalent, with the following restrictions:

• Students on academic probation cannot be advanced to candidacy.
• Students must be G4 at the time of request for advancement.
• Students must have grades assigned for all courses in all previous semesters of graduate study.
• Advancement to candidacy is granted by the Dean of the Graduate School upon recommendation of the Graduate Program Director.
• Students must be advanced to candidacy for one academic year and may defend their dissertation during their second semester of advancement. An academic year is defined as the Fall and Spring semesters, in either order, that immediately precede the semester of defense. Students in the DMA program may be advanced for one semester prior to their final recital and graduation semester. Summer and winter terms do not count as semesters for purposes of advancement to candidacy.
• Requests for advancement to candidacy must be received by the Graduate School from the program by day 5 of classes for the advancement to take effect that same semester. Advancements received by the Graduate School after the published deadline date will not take effect until the next semester or term.

Dissertation and Dissertation Defense

Dissertation Examining Committee

The dissertation must be approved by a committee appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School upon recommendation of the students graduate program director. The dissertation committee must be constituted such that it provides independent evaluation and expert advice on the dissertation. The overriding purpose for service on a dissertation committee is the development of the student and their dissertation project. Other professional interests that committee members may have in the dissertation work of students (including intellectual property or publication interests) must be secondary to the interests of the student.

The Graduate School recognizes that programs may have different needs depending on the size of the faculty, the interdisciplinarity of the field, among other factors. Thus, programs may maintain additional policies that extend the requirements listed here; however, these additional requirements must be publicly available.

The dissertation committee must consist of a minimum of four people and must include:

• a chairperson of the defense, who is internal to the student’s degree program;
• the dissertation advisor(s) (at least one who is internal to the student’s degree program);
• a member with no conflict of interest in relationship to the student (often, but not always, someone external to the program or university). 
• one additional member

The role of the chairperson is to ensure that the dissertation has been prepared according to the requirements of the student’s graduate program, and to manage the proceedings of the dissertation defense, ensuring that an appropriate opportunity for public questions and responses is allowed. In order to ensure that the chairperson of the dissertation committee is able to fulfill these roles, they must be a member of the student’s graduate program.

The role of the dissertation advisor(s) is to provide intellectual guidance to the student throughout the preparation of the dissertation. Students may have a single faculty advisor; a primary advisor and a secondary co-advisor; or co-advisors with equal responsibilities to the student. In order to ensure that the student is given guidance consistent with the expectations of their graduate program, at least one of the advisors must be a member of the students’ graduate program.

The role of the member with no conflict of interest in relationship to the student is to ensure an impartial assessment of the dissertation and they must be free from direct personal, financial, business, professional, or intellectual property relationships with the student. Programs may endorse a policy that requires that this member be external to the university.

The role of the additional member is to increase the breadth and/or depth of expertise of the committee evaluating the dissertation. 

All members of the dissertation examining committee must have demonstrated expertise relevant to the student’s dissertation so as to be able to understand, criticize, and contribute to the dissertation and the quality and significance of the work presented there-in. To avoid questions regarding objective evaluation of the dissertation, no member of the committee may have a family, romantic, business, or otherwise close personal relationship with the student.

Each program must maintain a consistent and published policy on the allowed roles of affiliate program faculty based on the degree to which affiliate faculty are integrated into the program. In the absence of a published program policy, affiliate program faculty may serve as a dissertation advisor, but cannot serve as the chairperson of the defense.

Faculty that leave the program and/or the institution may continue to sit on any committees to which they were already appointed; such members must still comply with the policies of Stony Brook University, including the requirement that their service on the dissertation committee serves the interests of the student. Should the departing faculty member be the dissertation advisor, they may continue in that role, but a co-advisor internal to the program must be appointed. Should the departing faculty member be the chair, a new committee chair must be appointed.

Since the dissertation defense is such a significant milestone in a student’s career, the Graduate School strongly prefers that all committee members attend in person. The student, the chairperson, and the primary dissertation advisor (as listed on the Defense Committee Appointment form) must be physically present at the defense. In the case when there are equal co-advisors, they all must be present. At the program’s discretion, the third and fourth committee members may participate in a dissertation defense remotely. A list of those members who will be attending remotely must be indicated on the Defense Committee Appointment form and sent to the Graduate School prior to the defense date.

Requests to appoint a Dissertation Committee must be submitted by the student’s graduate program (not by the student or members of the committee); the appointment request may be submitted any time after the student has advanced to candidacy, but must be received by the Graduate School no less than four weeks prior to the date of the defense. Any proposed changes to an approved committee must be submitted in writing by the program and must receive Graduate School approval before going into effect.

Teaching

All doctoral students at Stony Brook University must complete at least one semester of practicum in teaching under supervision. Some departments also require at least one semester of practicum in teaching under supervision for master’s students. The form this practicum takes may differ by discipline. The experience might include making seminar or class presentations, assisting in laboratories, or leading discussion sessions. Grading experience by itself will not be considered sufficient for satisfaction of this requirement. Faculty are responsible for providing informal feedback and formal evaluation.

Following (or in some cases, concurrent with) proper training through a teaching practicum and after having fulfilled other requirements forteaching (e.g., demonstration of spoken English proficiency for non-native speakers of English), a graduate student may serve as a teaching assistant (TA) in courses at Stony Brook University, where the instructor of record is a faculty member.

An advanced graduate student may act as the instructor of record for an undergraduate course offered at Stony Brook University only if he or she is appointed to an adjunct faculty position as a lecturer. No student shall be appointed to such a position until he or she has been advanced to candidacy in a doctoral degree program. It is not required that such students be enrolled in full time status, although this is recommended. Appointment procedures follow the same process as regular faculty appointments.

Graduate students at G4 level or below cannot be designated as the Instructor of Record for any course offered at Stony Brook University. They will be appointed as Teaching Assistants. In addition, there must be a designated faculty supervisor who serves as the Instructor of Record for the course. In the absence of any other faculty Instructor of Record for a course, this designation shall revert to the department Chair.

Residence Requirements

At least two consecutive semesters of full-time graduate study at Stony Brook University in the program granting the degree are required. The purpose of the residence requirement is to ensure that the graduate student participates in the professional life of the program beyond class attendance. Some program residence requirements may vary from the Graduate School norm and are described in the individual program requirements for the degree. Unless specified, however, the Graduate School regulation takes precedence.

Research for the dissertation will normally be conducted at Stony Brook under the direct guidance of the faculty of the student’s PhD program. Facilities at Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, regional hospitals, other institutions on Long Island, or the libraries of New York City are all considered to be on-campus for the purposes of dissertation work. For on-campus dissertation research, Students should register for ### 699 (where ### refers to their program designator).

When a student’s research would be facilitated at an off-campus location not covered under the preceding paragraph, he or she must obtain approval from the dissertation advisor, Graduate Program Director, and the Dean of the Graduate School. When a major portion of a student’s research will take place off-campus but in the United States and/or U.S. territories they should register for ### 700 for the relevant semesters. When a major portion of their research will take place outside of the United States and/or U.S. territories they should register for ### 701. Other information and requirements regarding these courses may be obtained from the Graduate School.

Degree Application

The student must apply for graduation online at the Graduate School Web site in accordance with published deadlines. This includes doctoral students who intend to receive a master’s degree during the course of their doctoral career. If degree requirements are not met, students must reapply for any subsequent awarding periods using the Change of Graduation Date form found on the Graduate School web site.

Registration

Degree candidates must be registered in the semester they intend to graduate. Students who intend to graduate in the spring or fall must register for at least one graduate credit. Students who intend to graduate in the summer or winter can register for zero credits, but it still must be a graduate-level course.

Program Recommendation

When all program requirements are completed, the graduate program director may recommend to the dean of the Graduate School that the PhD. degree be granted.

Time Limit

• The time limit for a doctoral degree is seven years for a student who has a previous graduate degree or 24 credits of graduate study in such a degree program.
• For all other students, the time limit for a doctoral degree is seven years after completion of 24 graduate level credits at Stony Brook University.

In exceptional cases where the program cannot be completed within these periods, students may petition for an extension of the time limit. The Request for Waiver of Graduate Time Limit form can be found by selecting the forms link from the Graduate School Web site. These petitions require the approval of the student’s advisor and graduate program director.

Requests for a time limit extension must be filed before the limit is exceeded and must contain a significant justification. The final decision rests with the dean of the Graduate School, who may impose additional requirements.

The Master of Philosophy Degree

The degree of Master of Philosophy is intended as a formal recognition of what is informally known as “ABD” status. This degree is normally reserved for students who have advanced to candidacy in a Ph.D. program but are unable to complete the remaining requirements. The degree implies educational achievements well beyond those required for a regular master’s degree.

The Master of Philosophy degree is available in every program that awards the PhD. Requirements for the M. Phil. are identical to those for the PhD., except that the submission and defense of the dissertation are not required.

Students must be advanced to candidacy for one full year before receiving a Master of Philosophy degree.