History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada

Northeastern Univ.

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

global, public, gender, America, Europe

Program Description

The Doctoral Program in History, with a core focus on World History, trains research historians who plan to teach at the college and university levels. Emphasizing global approaches to historical study, the program encourages students to think beyond national boundaries, comparatively, and in terms of themes that span geographically dispersed areas of the world: trade, migration, disease, religion, state formation, colonialism, and post-colonialism. Studies include long-term historical processes, major global transformations, and interactions between states, and colonial societies. Candidates for the Ph.D. in History examine African, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, and American history in a world historical context. The Doctoral Program provides close mentoring of students in doctoral research and writing, and emphasizes experience in teaching. Systematic training in theory and methodology is a distinctive feature of the program.

Special Programs or Resources

The History Department maintains close ties with interdisciplinary programs at Northeastern such as Asian Studies; Latino, Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Law, Policy, and Society; and Women's Studies. Students may take courses in the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies based at MIT. In addition to using the holdings of Snell Library at Northeastern, Northeastern graduate students benefit from the resources of eight university libraries in the Boston area through the Boston Library Consortium, from selected libraries of Harvard University, and from the Research Division of the Boston Public Library, the Massachusetts State Archives, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Financial Aid

Doctoral students are eligible for five years of support through Stipended Graduate Assistantships (SGA), including up to 12 credits of tuition per year and a stipend. Once a Doctoral student reaches Ph.D. candidacy the SGA provides a tuition waiver for the period of dissertation research and writing. Doctoral students who have completed all requirements for the Ph.D. except the dissertation are also eligible for Senior Stipended Assistantships for a period of up to three years, during which they teach their own courses. Tuition-only awards are also available. Minority students are eligible for Martin Luther King Jr. Fellowships. A small number of select doctoral students are eligible for University Excellence Fellowships, which provide additional support for five years.

Degree Requirements

Doctoral students entering the program with a BA degree are required to take a minimum of 48 credit hours. The comprehensive qualifying examination consists of one exam in each of the student's three fields, one of which is world history. One examination is a two-hour written exam; two exams are conducted orally.

University Information:

University Type: Private, not-for-profit

Carnegie Institution Ranking: Doctoral/Research Universities—Extensive

Department Demographics:

First PhD conferred: 1999

History PhDs conferred to Date: 7

Relative Size Based on PhDs Conferred (2000–04): Small [Explain]

Faculty Mix:
	Full Professor	8
	Associate Professor	1
	Assistant Professor	5
	Instructor/Lecturer
	Joint Appointment	6
	Emeritus Faculty	3
	Part-time faculty

Relative Size based on Number of Full-time Faculty: Small [Explain]

Number of Graduate Students in Program (Fall 2005): 35
(Graduate student counts include those enrolled in terminal Master's degree program)

Proportion of Full-Time Graduate Students: 97%

New Graduate Students Entering Program, Fall 2004: 17

Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment (2002–04): Small [Explain]

 

Other Information

     Current Dissertations in Progress

     PhDs Conferred by Department