Three of our students received previous degrees from Ivy League institutions, three completed degrees at other private institutions in the northeast, and eight obtained degrees from public institutions from Maine to Wisconsin to Texas. The doctoral students take courses along with MA and MAT candidates, of whom a growing proportion focus on world history. Doctoral students take a course in global historiography, as well as introductory and advanced courses in methodology, and at least two of the seminars we offer are on global political, social, and cultural history. A course on borderlands, rather than on the Soviet Union, emphasizes regional linkages. Even explicitly regional courses, as on the Caribbean and modern China, include global dimensions.
Doctoral students select a major professor immediately and a committee of three as soon as possible.
One committee member may be from outside the department or outside the university. Candidates are required to take a teaching tutorial, a mentored practicum, and then to teach their own courses. Students take three comprehensive exams, two written and one oral. A second exam focuses on the candidate's regional specialization and the third focuses on the candidate's methodological and thematic specialization. The dissertation proposal must be approved before the candidate takes comprehensive exams.