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Northeastern University

Dept. of History
249 Meserve
360 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115

Phone 617.373.2660
Fax 617.373.2661
E-mail: b.knipfer@neu.edu

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

World, American, African, Atlantic, East Asian, European, Russian and Soviet, Middle Eastern Cultural, Gender, and Social History

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 Graduate Assistantships including up to 12 credits of tuition remission per year and a stipend; and Senior Graduate Assistantships. Once a Doctoral student reaches Ph.D. candidacy they may receive 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 Graduate Assistantships for a period of up to two 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 in addition to the Doctoral Dissertation. Students entering the program with an MA degree must take 24 credit hours at Northeastern. 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:

Information from Department of Education
(Includes information on the size, location, and general characteristics of faculty and student body)

Information from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
(Includes rating of the institution's rating of the graduate instructional program and size and setting)

 

Faculty Information (Fall 2011):

Full-time Faculty: 15

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

 

Student Demographics (Fall 2011):

Number of Doctoral Students in Program: 27

New Doctoral Students Entering Program: 6

Proportion of Doctoral Students Receiving Financial Aid: 94%

Number of Graduate Students Enrolled: 56

Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment: Medium [Explain]

 

Degree Information:

First PhD conferred: 1999

History PhDs conferred to Date: 25

Number of PhDs Conferred (2011–12): 2

Relative Size Based on PhDs Conferred: Small [Explain]

Current Dissertations in Progress

PhDs Conferred by Department

 

 

Last Updated: October 19, 2012