General Requirements for the PhD

Course Work

The Ph.D. requires a minimum of 72 semester units of graduate course work. Up to 24 semester units of graduate-level work in religion may be accepted from another institution as transfer credit; in most cases, therefore, a student entering CGU with a prior master’s degree or significant graduate work in religion will need only 48 units to earn the Ph.D. This typically consists of two years of full-time study in advanced seminars (doctoral seminars are numbered in the 400s). Part-time students will take longer to complete course work, as will students with no transfer credit. Within the general course and residence requirements of Claremont Graduate University, each student will plan his or her individual curriculum in consultation with a faculty advisor or advisory committee. All CGU religion students will take REL 363, Major Interpreters in the Study of Religion. Students whose native language is not English will be required to take the English Skills Placement Test upon entrance, and may then be required to take the "English for Graduate Studies" course during their first semester at CGU.

Breadth Requirements

Each Ph.D. student will need to validate (on the basis of transcripts from previous institutions, breadth examinations taken upon entrance, or additional CGU course work), some competence in three areas of the study of religion other than the major field, one of which must be a religious tradition outside of the student’s own.

Modern Languages

All Ph.D. students are required to have a reading knowledge of German and French, and such other languages as necessary for their field of study. Students are encouraged to acquire knowledge of German and French before beginning the Ph.D. program, and are required to attempt an examination in one language before beginning the last 48 units of doctoral studies. CGU offers non-credit intensive courses in French and German during the summer session.

Qualifying Examinations

Upon successful completion of all course and language requirements, Ph.D. students may apply to take qualifying examinations in their field of specialization. Each specialization has particular qualifying examinations, described in the following pages, which assess the student’s knowledge of the field.

The Dissertation

Upon satisfactory completion of the examinations and approval of the dissertation proposal, the student is advanced to candidacy by approval of the dean. The dissertation is an original piece of research and a serious, scholarly contribution to the discipline as a whole. The student defends his or her dissertation during a final oral examination before the dissertation committee, which may include outside examiners.