History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada

Graduate Center, CUNY

Department Web Site

Areas of Specialization:

America, Latin America, Europe, women, Jewish, ancient, Middle East, East Asia

Program Description

The Ph.D. Program in history at The Graduate Center, CUNY is a major doctoral program, with a world-renowned faculty and a diverse group of students from around the country and abroad. Drawing on faculty members from throughout the City University of New York (CUNY), the program provides students with the opportunity to take classes from and work closely with an unusually broad group of scholars with an extraordinary range of expertise. Our courses are exclusively for graduate students, and small in size. Typically between twenty and thirty new students enter the program each year. Some have M.A. degrees, but most do not. While most students enter our program after having recently completed an undergraduate degree, others come after professional experience, including as teachers, lawyers, journalists, museum curators, and librarians.

Special Programs or Resources

New York City has unrivalled resources for historical research, including the Research Division of the New York Public Library (a five minute walk from our campus) and many specialized libraries and archives. Through a consortium of research universities, Graduate Center students can take courses at the other major doctoral institutions in the New York area (and use their libraries). The Graduate Center itself has many interdisciplinary research and instructional centers, including in Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, Latin American Studies, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Studies, Jewish Studies, and Women’s Studies. It also houses the Center for Media and Learning/American Social History Project, which works closely with the History Program.

Financial Aid

We provide a variety of financial aid and teaching opportunities. Nearly half of our incoming students are awarded multi-year fellowship packages. Typically these provide tuition and stipends for five years; in years two, three, and four students teach at one of the CUNY colleges. We also give, on a competitive basis, one-year renewable fellowships to both incoming and returning students, and offer MAGNET and other grants specifically for minority students.
Through the Graduate Centers affiliation with the CUNY undergraduate colleges, doctoral students have the opportunity for extensive teaching experience while completing their degrees. Some students teach as part of their fellowships, others as adjunct instructors. Unlike at most universities, our graduate students usually teach their own courses, rather than run discussion and grading sections of large lecture courses.

Degree Requirements

Students must complete sixty credits, and fulfill course requirements of a major and minor field. Up to thirty credits may be transferred (with the approval of the program) from a MA program. Students must pass a written examination in their major field before completing forty-five credits and an oral examination in their major and minor fields after completing all their courses. They also must complete a language requirement, which varies by major field of study.

University Information:

University Type: Public

Carnegie Institution Ranking: Doctoral/Research Universities—Extensive

Department Demographics:

First PhD conferred: 1967

History PhDs conferred to Date: 227

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

Faculty Mix:
	Full Professor	53
	Associate Professor	22
	Assistant Professor	2
	Instructor/Lecturer
	Joint Appointment
	Emeritus Faculty	7
	Part-time faculty

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

Number of Graduate Students in Program (Fall 2005): 134
(Graduate student counts include those enrolled in terminal Master's degree program)

Proportion of Full-Time Graduate Students: 96%

New Graduate Students Entering Program, Fall 2004: 25

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

 

Other Information

     Current Dissertations in Progress

     PhDs Conferred by Department