Ph. D. in Anthropology

Study and Course Requirements

We particularly encourage potential graduate students to enter this program who would like to use the scientific and scholarly traditions within the subdisciplines to address problems within the above three areas of concentration. Applicants to the M.A.A. and Ph.D. programs will be expected to indicate an interest in pursuing study related to one of these areas of concentration. Most faculty members maintain interests that intersect with one or more of the areas of concentration. Students seeking to pursue interests outside these areas may do so with departmental permission and the cooperation of a faculty advisor.

As part of the discipline of diversity, all faculty members in the department are committed to training minority members at the M.A.A. and Ph.D. levels and recognize such prospective graduate students in their quest for admission by identifying the strong need to expand their numbers in anthropology.

Masters Study

The Master of Applied Anthropology (M.A.A.) program is designed both for students interested in an anthropology career outside of academia and for those who plan on continuing to a Ph.D. The program’s graduates have successfully secured employment or pursued doctoral work in a variety of fields related to applied anthropology, including medical and health practice, urban and regional planning and development, community development, conservation and heritage resource development, cultural resource management, heritage resource management, and anthropological genetic and ancestry reconstruction. The focus of the M.A.A. program has been to participate in the building of an anthropological practice.

The program requires 42 credit hours of coursework, including a core sequence (18 credit hours), an internship sequence (12 semester hours), and a sequence of individually approved courses that are related to a chosen domain of application (12 semester hours).

M.A.A. students must satisfactorily complete an internship proposal review with their advisory committee before beginning the internship, which is normally completed during the summer term between the first and second years of the program. Students are also required to present the results of their internship in a departmental colloquium prior to graduation. There is no thesis requirement.

Doctoral Study in Anthropology

The doctoral program builds upon the department’s successful Master of Applied Anthropology (M.A.A.) degree. In our doctoral program, biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural and social anthropology, and anthropological linguistics work together to produce fertile training environments for graduate students and to facilitate powerfully integrated research projects. The department’s faculty encourages applicants for our doctoral program who are outstanding undergraduates, master’s level students in anthropology and related disciplines, and young professionals in anthropology or in fields for which a doctorate in anthropology would be an ideal complement or final degree. We seek doctoral students who have proven a commitment to cultural and social anthropology, archaeology, anthropological linguistics, or biological anthropology and who have shown an understanding of how to use their professional knowledge in applying anthropological research to practical and applied circumstances. We seek to train professionals who come here in order to improve both their research and applications skills in the uses of anthropological knowledge.

One focus of the Ph.D. program is to direct research scholarship and to encourage theoretical and methodological advancement in such a way as to reflect upon the specific practices of applied and practicing anthropology. The aim of the Ph.D. is to improve those practices and thereby increase the value and usefulness of the discipline. Ph.D. students are typically prepared for research and development careers outside of academic settings, and for academic careers in anthropology departments, and other disciplinary settings.

Students entering the Ph.D. from a Bachelor’s degree must normally complete all the requirements for the M.A.A. degree indicated above, although the internship sequence can be substituted with additional coursework under approved circumstances. An additional minimum of 30 credit hours of advanced coursework is required, to include at least 12 credit hours of dissertation research.

For students entering the Ph.D. program from the M.A.A., an additional minimum of 30 credit hours of advanced coursework is required, to include at least 12 credit hours of dissertation research.

Students entering the Ph.D. program with a master’s degree from another institution are minimally required to complete the 18 credit hour core sequence of the M.A.A. program and an additional minimum of 30 credit hours of advanced coursework, to include at least 12 credit hours of dissertation research. These students are not normally required to complete the internship sequence, although in some cases their doctoral committee may decide an internship may be appropriate to enhance a student’s professional experience prior to graduation.

Additional supportive coursework may be required on a case-by-case basis depending on the qualifications of the student. In such cases, these expectations will be specified upon admission to the Ph.D. program. Substitutions for courses in the M.A.A. core sequence are rarely permitted and must be approved by the Graduate Committee and the Department Chair. Students admitted to the Ph.D. program advance to candidacy upon completion of a written comprehensive examination and an oral defense of their dissertation proposal. An oral defense upon completion of the dissertation is also required.