Good Standing

Good Standing in the Program 

To advance to degree and retain funding during the course of their career at Duke, students must remain in good standing. To do so, students must fulfill the basic requirements of the program, competently perform compensatory service when required, successfully complete milestones by their respective deadlines, and make positive progress toward their degree as assessed by the DGS, their primary advisor(s), and relevant committees. When the conditions for good standing are not met, the DGS may, at their discretion, place the student on departmental probation. The terms of probation are decided on a case-by-case basis, and may include forfeit of non-compensatory (fellowship) stipend support.

Maintaining good standing requires, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Maintaining a GPA of B or higher in coursework.
  • Successfully passing any field-specific qualifying examinations in the time frame expected by the faculty of that field.
  • Successfully passing the Preliminary Examination at the end of the 2nd  year.
  • Successfully defending a dissertation prospectus by the end of the spring semester in the 3rd year.
  • Submitting a version of the Preliminary Examination paper to an acceptable journal by the end of the 3rd year.
  • Providing evidence of continuing progress towards completion of the dissertation in years 4 and 5.

Separation From the PhD Program

Failure to complete milestones and/or to remain in good standing in the department may result in separation from the PhD program. Recommendations to consider separation are made by the DGS, at their discretion, to the Graduate Affairs Committee (GAC), but GAC may consider a student for separation without such a recommendation. Six votes, at a meeting with all eight GAC faculty members present, are required to begin the separation process for a particular student. The student’s primary advisor(s) can appeal a GAC decision to the full faculty. In such cases, a full DGS report for the student will be provided to the faculty at least one week in advance of a vote to be taken at the next possible tenure-track faculty meeting with a quorum. Two-thirds of tenure-track faculty present in this meeting are required to overturn GAC’s decision.

Students receiving a vote to separate from the PhD program may seek to transfer instead to a terminal MA degree. In many cases, especially for 2nd year students and above, they will have already met the requirements for this degree. This should be discussed as soon as possible, following the departmental vote to separate, with the DGS and DGSA.