Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Residence

In order to receive the Ph.D. the student must complete a total of 60 units of graduate work at USC and other institutions. Ph.D. students may be authorized to transfer into the Ph.D. program a maximum of 30 graduate units completed at other universities. A minimum of 24 graduate units completed in residence on the University Park Campus in Los Angeles is required. Usually the school and the student's guidance committee insist on a clear and mutually understood commitment of time and energy by the student to ensure full-time involvement in the doctoral learning experience.

Guidance and Dissertation Committee

In concert with the Ph.D. student the school recommends to the Graduate School for approval a five-member guidance committee, one member of which must be from outside the school; when the guidance committee recommends the student for candidacy and a dissertation topic is approved, the guidance committee is replaced by a three-member dissertation committee, one member of which must be from outside the school.

The guidance committee is to be established by the beginning of the second year and prior to starting course work in the area of concentration. The chair should have recognized expertise in the qualifying area and should be a regular participant in the qualifying examination committee for that area.

The majority of the members of the guidance committee (typically at least three of the five) should be experts in the area in which the student is qualifying and should be regular participants in that qualifying examination committee. The remaining members will have a clear interest in this area.

Students will formalize their relationship with their committees through the development of a contract which specifies all courses completed, date of screening decision, the area of concentration, and which courses will be taken and when, in order to prepare for the area section of the qualifying examination. This contract will be signed by the student, the members of the guidance committee and the faculty doctoral advisor. It will be filed in the doctoral office.

Course Requirements

Doctoral students are required to complete a minimum of 60 acceptable graduate units before receiving the Ph.D. These 60 units may include a maximum of eight dissertation units, PUAD 794 Doctoral Dissertation. The 60 units must include at least 32 units of course work at the 600 level or above, allowing a maximum of eight units of PUAD 790 Research but excluding 794. Ph.D. students are required to complete 32 units of 600 level or above course work (PUAD 700ab, 791ab, 675, 685, 691 and 695 plus three courses [12 units] for an area of concentration) prior to the qualifying examination. In addition, students are required to complete four units of course work in the statistics course PUAD 692 Multivariate Statistical Analysis.

Students will be expected to meet the requirements for their qualifying area during their second year in the program (including the summer subsequent to their second year). An area will be constituted by three or more doctoral level courses (seminars, either within the School of Public Administration or elsewhere at USC, and PUAD 790). A research apprenticeship in the area of specialization will also be required in addition to course work. The faculty has specified a fixed set of areas in which students can qualify.

Time Limit

See the Requirements for Graduation section of this catalogue for the time limit for completing all requirements for the Ph.D.

Preliminary Requirements

Statistics and Research Methodology

Ph.D. students must demonstrate competence in statistics and research methodology by successfully passing PPMT 404 Statistics in Public Policy and Management or its equivalent, PUAD 691 Seminar in Research Methods and PUAD 692 Multivariate Statistical Analysis. A student’s guidance committee may also require additional course work in this area. This requirement must be satisfied prior to the qualifying examination.

Foreign Language

The purpose of the foreign language requirement is to provide students with language tools needed for scholarly research. Each Ph.D. student is required to demonstrate a reading knowledge of one language other than English. Any foreign language for which the USC Testing Bureau provides a standardized examination, as well as a number of other languages, is acceptable. A minimum score of 500 is required.

In cases of nonstandardized language examinations, the student’s guidance committee will give specific approval for the language and for the method of testing. The testing method approved by the guidance committee must approximate the level of attainment required for successful completion of GSFLT examinations.

Other Preliminary Requirements

One Year Research Apprenticeship

Students will be required to complete a research apprenticeship during their first year. The apprenticeship will be with a member of the school’s faculty.

The apprenticeship requirement will be a minimum of one academic year of work involving a minimum of three hours per week. Since students will enter the program with varying experience and skills in research, the apprenticeship will be broadly construed to include library research, data entry, assistance with grant proposal preparation and work on publications in progress. Students will be required to keep a log of their work with full entries concerning the type and amount of work accomplished each week.

Evidence of successful completion of the research requirement will consist of a descriptive and evaluative statement of the student’s research responsibilities and activities, signed by both student and advisor, and the work log.

One Year Teaching Apprenticeship

Students will be required to complete a teaching apprenticeship during their second year. The apprenticeship will be with a member of the School of Public Administration full-time tenure track faculty.The requirement will be a minimum of one academic year of work involving a minimum of three hours per week. Students will be expected to sit in on some, but not all, sessions of a specific class taught by the faculty member with whom they are working. They should also meet regularly with this faculty member to discuss how he or she developed the design for the course, the preparation of lectures and teaching plans, the grading process and other elements of the teaching process. The faculty member may assign the student responsibility for one or two class sessions, or portions of sessions, with an evaluative discussion to follow. The student may also be assigned to assist with the preparation for specific classroom exercises. Students will be required to keep a log of their work with full entries concerning the type and amount of work accomplished each week.

Evidence of successful completion of the teaching requirement will consist of a descriptive and evaluative statement of the student’s work and activities, signed by both student and advisor, and the work log.

Qualifying Examination

The objective of the qualifying examination is to evaluate the student’s knowledge and to serve as an instrument to demonstrate competence in the core areas of public administration and the student’s chosen field of concentration in preparation for candidacy. The qualifying examination consists of written and oral segments which the student takes when the guidance committee is satisfied with the student’s preparation in the examination area. Qualifying examinations are scheduled once each year during September. The oral phase of the examination must be completed within 60 days following the written segment. Students will be required to pass a qualifying examination that consists of two distinct parts on which they can separately pass or fail. They can pass both, fail both, or pass one and fail the other. Ultimately, both parts of the examination must be passed in order to qualify. Failure on one of the two parts of the examination does not require retaking both parts. Only the part failed (core or area examination) must be redone.

The first part is the core examination. This examination will be collaboratively designed by the instructors of the four core courses and oriented toward testing students’ ability to integrate material from these courses. With PUAD 691 Seminar in Research Methods as part of the core, a portion of this examination will focus on methodological issues. The examination will be administered during two full-day sessions.

The second part is the area examination. Each of the six area examinations will be collaboratively designed by the relevant qualifying area committee to test the student’s competence in his or her qualifying area (depth, breadth, integrative and analytical capabilities). The examination will be administered during one full-day session.

The qualifying examination will be held in September or October, with the expectation that students will take it at the beginning of their third year in the program. The two components of the examination must be taken concurrently. The student must be adequately prepared to take both components, rather than taking the core examination one year and the area examination the next year. Both examinations will be administered during a one-week period.

Since the results of the examination will not be known before the deadline to register for classes in August, students should register for PUAD 794a Doctoral Dissertation. Any student not passing the examination would then drop PUAD 794a and prepare to retake the examination.

The process of grading examinations will be accomplished in two ways. For the core section examination, the process will be centralized by having the grading done by a committee comprising the four core course instructors plus the doctoral advisor. For the area examinations, responsibility for the grading will stay with the guidance committee. Oral examinations will be required only for the area examination. The core section of the examination will be evaluated entirely on the written work. Upon passing both the core and area portions of the examination, the student will be expected to reduce the guidance committee to a dissertation committee. See General Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree.

Dissertation

The candidate must research and write a dissertation. Working with a faculty director and with other members of the dissertation committee, the candidate must register for PUAD 794 Doctoral Dissertation for at least two semesters after admission to candidacy. University policy requires these registrations to be during either the fall or spring semesters. A candidate who is actually working on a dissertation with faculty assistance during a summer will be allowed to register one time only for two units of PUAD 794 that summer. See the Graduate School section of this catalogue.

Defense of the Dissertation Design

After the successful completion of the qualifying examination, the Ph.D. student will be required to present and formally defend a complete research design for the dissertation. The design will be circulated for review and evaluation by the dissertation committee. Following faculty evaluation, students will be required to have a formal defense of a dissertation proposal with their dissertation committee. This proposal should include the methodology, research design, literature review and instrumentation (if applicable). The proposal defense will be conducted with the entire dissertation committee present and will thoroughly examine the feasibility, significance and originality of the proposed research. After this step has been completed, further work leading to the completion of the dissertation is authorized.

Format for Dissertation

See the Graduate School section of this catalogue.

Oral Defense of the Dissertation

After the dissertation committee has approved the dissertation in substance, the candidate must defend it before the committee and other interested doctoral program faculty and colleagues. Successful completion of the oral defense marks the ultimate step for the candidate within the School of Public Administration. The candidate must be certain that the dissertation also meets specific university requirements before acceptance by the Graduate School. See the Graduate School section of this catalogue.

Areas of Concentration

There will be four areas from which students may select a specialization in which to qualify: public policy, public management and organization, health policy and management, and comparative and international development.

The specification of required courses to fulfill each of these areas of specialization will be the responsibility of each qualifying area committee of the faculty. These may include seminars offered within the School of Public Administration if there is a sufficient number of students specializing in a given area to make such a course viable. Otherwise, courses may be identified in other departments of the university which would be appropriate, and PUAD 790 may be designed to serve this purpose.