Graduate Student Forms

Graduate Student Travel
Travel reimbursement grants are available to doctoral or master's degree candidates who have had an accepted paper presentation of their research at a conference or professional meeting. Smaller grants are available for graduate students who are not presenting their work but attending professional meetings or for specific research trips.

Requests for travel funding must be made at least two weeks in advance of travel and require the approval of the department chair. Awards are limited and made on a first-come, first-served basis and given only once per student per academic year (July-June). Funds for these grants are provided by the Office of Graduate Studies and the Graduate Student Council and they are administered through the Office of Graduate Studies (Ballou Hall, 617-627-3106). A limited amount of travel funding is also available form the Department of English, if you are presenting a paper at a conference.

Application and documentation are required for all grants. You may pick up a Graduate Student Travel Reimbursement Request form and detailed guidelines from the English office or you may download the form through this link to the Office of Graduate Studies website.

Teaching Leave
Graduate students in English at Tufts have full responsibility for course design and implementation as teachers in the First Year Writing Program (FYWP). Most graduate student lecturers (i.e. graduate students who are teaching in the FYWP) teach one section of English 1 in the fall semester and one section of English 2 in the spring semester. Unique to the Department of English is a process by which you can request a leave from teaching for a semester if circumstances arise that may hinder your ability to teach. A leave from teaching is granted for no more than one year and must have the written support of the Director of Graduate Studies and the First-Year Writing Program Director. Please discuss your plans with the DGS. Submit a Request for Leave of Teaching form to the DGS and the FYWP Director.

PhD Comprehensive Oral Examination
By the end of Year 3, students take a two-hour comprehensive oral examination. No standardized list of texts is issued for this exam. Instead, students construct their own reading lists in consultation with faculty. Students are examined in six fields for twenty minutes each. The examination is conducted by a committee of three professors. Each committee member is responsible for testing the student on two of the six lists. By the Fall of your 3rd year you should choose a professor to be the chair of your Orals, discuss your thoughts about choosing six fields of study, and begin constructing your six reading lists. Please print the PhD Orals Approval and instruction form when you are ready to begin preparing for your oral examination.

PhD Dissertation Prospectus
By the end of the fall of Year 4, following the completion of the PhD Oral examination, you should meet with your Orals chair to discuss your exam performance as well as your ideas for your dissertation prospectus. The prospectus is a 20-30 page document that includes your dissertation argument, abstracts for each chapter, and a working bibliography. This step is designed to give you a map for your dissertation writing. Once your prospectus is approved by your advisor students will be required to submit a Prospectus Approval form along with a copy of the prospectus to the English office.

MA and PhD Degree Sheets
These forms, necessary if you want to receive you MA or PhD, are available through the Office of Graduate Studies website Once you have completed the requirements for the MA you should complete the Recommendation for Award of Master's Degree (Degree Sheet). Before you have scheduled your PhD dissertation defense you should complete the Recommendation for Award of Ph.D. Degree (Degree Sheet).

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