Ph.D Program
DOCTORAL PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The main objectives of the Doctoral Program in Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island are for faculty to teach, guide, and mentor and students to learn, in a collaborative fashion, how to think, work, write, and teach as scholars. Specifically this means that faculty members have to teach and students have to learn how to be academic researchers and college teachers. In order to reach these objectives, our program is mentor based. Although you take formal class work in the first two years of the program, the majority of time you are working closely with one or more professors in you area of specialization upon research projects.
During the first two years of the program, you concentrate on course work and developing your research ideas into major papers. The course work consists of ten or more advanced courses beyond the master’s degree resulting in a minimum of 30 credits. In addition, there are two required one-credit courses, one on research in business and the other on pedagogy. Guided by one or more faculty members, you must write two major field papers of very high academic quality. Once your coursework is completed and your two field papers are accepted, you undertake written and oral comprehensive examinations in your specialization and research methodology early in your third year of study.
The third year of the program is devoted to studying for comprehensive written and oral examinations and developing the major papers and other research ideas into conference presentations, journal articles, and a dissertation proposal.
The fourth year continues the development of scholarly work with more conference and journal articles. Its focus, however, is on completing the dissertation. The Doctor of Philosophy degree is awarded upon successful completion of all requirements, including a public defense of your dissertation.
Below is a generic four-year timeline for a typical doctoral student.
GENERIC PH D PROGRAM TIMELINE
| Course Work | Summer | Benchmarks and Milestones | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall Semester | Spring Semester | |||
| Year 1 | Doctoral Seminar Research Methods Course Elective BUS 602 Doctoral Colloquium in Business Research | Doctoral Seminar Reserach Methods Course Elective BUS 601 Practicum in Business Teaching | Begin Writing your first field paper | |
| Year 2 | Doctoral Seminar Elective | Doctoral Seminar Elective | Being writing your second field paper Start studying for your comprehensive examinations | |
| Year 3 | BUS 603 Special Problems in Business Research | BUS 603 Special Problems in Business Research | Finish writing dissertation proposal Begin job search Write a journal article | |
| Year 4 | BUS 699 Dissertation Research | BUS 699 Dissertation Research | If not completed in Spring semester submit a final copy of your dissertation | |
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