Applicable only to students admitted during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Chicana and Chicano Studies

College of Letters and Science

Graduate Degrees

The Cesar E. Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies offers the Master of Arts (M.A.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in Chicana and Chicano Studies.

Admissions Requirements 

Master’s Degree

The M.A. degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies is not intended to be a stand-alone, terminal degree, but is, rather, a requirement for the Ph.D.  Students admitted to the Ph.D. program without an M.A. degree will follow Plan A, as described below. Students entering the Ph.D. program with an approved M.A. thesis should follow Plan B (see under Doctoral Degree).

Advising

The Director of Graduate Studies is assigned as provisional adviser to all incoming M.A. students until a permanent faculty adviser is selected in the second year. The faculty adviser assists students with planning their program of study. Students are expected to meet with their faculty adviser at least once a quarter, usually at the beginning of the quarter to have their enrollment plan approved. The student affairs officer provides assistance with policy and procedure.

Areas of Study

The Chicana and Chicano Studies curriculum is organized into four interdisciplinary areas of study from among the following: 1) Border and transnational studies; 2) Expressive arts; 3) History, culture, and language of the Americas; and 4) Labor, law, and policy studies. M.A. students will be expected to take courses in each of the four areas.

Foreign Language Requirement

See under Doctoral Degree.

Course Requirements

Plan A

Students must successfully complete a total of 40 units (normally ten courses), completed while in graduate status and taken for a letter grade with a minimum 3.0 grade-point average. Of the 40 units, at least 32 must be completed at the graduate level. Up to 8 units of upper division undergraduate courses may be applied to the 40-unit requirement. One 500-series course (up to four units) may be applied toward the 40-unit requirement.

Required courses:

Chicana/o Studies 200, 201, and 202 (12 units) are required and should be taken within the first two years.

One course in each area of study for a total of four courses (16 units), one of which must be a methodology course. Genders and sexualities, power and inequalities, and the colonial/decolonial/postcolonial are transversals that intersect the four areas.

Two elective courses (8 units) of which both may be upper division courses or taken outside the department.

Four units of Chicana/o Studies 598 (master’s thesis research) or 596 (Directed Individual Studies or Research) in lieu of one elective.

Students may take up to a maximum of 12 units of Chicana/o Studies 598, and up to a maximum of 12 units of Chicana/o Studies 596 in a single Academic Year.  However, students may not take more than one Chicana/o Studies 596 per quarter before the M.A. degree requirements are completed.

The minimum course load is 12 units per quarter. Students must be continuously registered and enrolled unless they are on an approved leave of absence.

Teaching Experience

New Teaching assistants must enroll in Chicana/o Studies 495 when they receive their first teaching appointment. In the following quarters, Teaching assistants may enroll in Chicana/o Studies 375 to fulfill unit requirements. Neither of these courses may be counted toward the degree requirements.

Field Experience

Not required.

Comprehensive Examination Plan

None.

Thesis Plan

Every master’s degree thesis plan requires the completion of an approved thesis that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform original, independent research.

Students will complete the M.A. degree by writing an original interdisciplinary research paper, critical reflection, or creative portfolio that integrates knowledge learned in their graduate coursework. The M.A. thesis should be submitted by Spring quarter of their second year, but no later than the seventh quarter (normally Fall quarter of the third year). Students must enroll in Chicana/o Studies 598 (M.A Thesis Research) under the guidance of their faculty advisor to produce the thesis. The thesis is evaluated on a pass/no pass basis.

The thesis committee consisting of the student’s faculty advisor, another ladder-ranked faculty from the list of core or jointly-appointed faculty in the department, and an outside reader must be nominated by the department and appointed by the Graduate Division no later than Fall Quarter of the student’s second year.

Time-to-degree

The normative time-to-degree for full-time students is two years (six quarters) and the maximum time-to-degree is seven quarters.

Doctoral Degree

Students who already have a Master’s degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies or in a related field must submit their Master’s thesis once admitted to the program. The Department’s Graduate Committee will evaluate the submitted material to determine whether or not it fulfills the M.A. requirements of the program.  If the Master’s thesis is deemed satisfactory, the student will be allowed to enter the Ph.D. program under Plan B (see Doctoral Degree requirements below).

Advising

The Director of Graduate Studies is primarily responsible for academic advising in the first year. A permanent faculty advisor is selected in the second year. After completing coursework for the Ph.D., but before taking the University Oral Qualifying Examination, the student submits a four-person doctoral committee that requires approval of the department’s Graduate Committee and appointment by the Graduate Division. The doctoral committee is responsible for supervision, review, and approval of the doctoral dissertation. The student affairs officer provides assistance with policy and procedure.

Major Fields or Subdisciplines

None.

Foreign Language Requirement

Students are required, at minimum, reading fluency in Spanish.  Students may satisfy the language requirement in one of the following ways: 1) satisfactory completion of two years of coursework at the University level; or 2) passing a language proficiency examination deemed appropriate by the department.  The foreign language requirement is typically completed in the first year of graduate study, but must be completed before the University Oral Qualifying Examination and advancement to candidacy.

Course Requirements

Plan A

For students under Plan A, who have completed all the course requirements for the M.A. as described above, 32 additional units (normally eight graduate courses) will be required to complete the Ph.D. These 32 units should provide more depth to the student’s preparation in the field and research agenda.

Plan B

Students entering the Ph.D. program with an approved M.A. thesis are expected to take a minimum of 44 units (regularly 11 courses) as follows:

Chicana/o Studies 200, 201, and 202 (12 units) are required and should be taken within the first two years.

One course in each area of study (16 units), one of which must be a methodology course.

Four elective courses (16 units), up to two may be taken outside the department, and only one of which may be an upper division course.

Units taken in the 500-series—Chicana/o Studies 596 (Directed Individual Studies or Research), Chicana/o Studies 597 (Preparation for Qualifying Exams) or Chicana/o Studies 599 (doctoral dissertation research) )—may not be applied toward course requirements for the Ph.D. degree.

Students may take up to a maximum of 12 units of Chicana/o Studies 597, and up to a maximum of 12 units of Chicana/o Studies 596 per academic year.

The minimum course load is 12 units per quarter. Students must be continuously registered and enrolled unless they are on an approved leave of absence.

Teaching Experience

All doctoral students are expected to fulfill at least one year of teaching experience as teaching assistants in the department.

New Teaching Assistants must enroll in Chicana/o Studies 495 when they receive their first teaching appointment.  In the following quarters, Teaching Assistants may enroll in Chicana/o Studies 375 to fulfill unit requirement. Neither of these courses may be counted toward the degree requirements.

Written and Oral Qualifying Examinations

Academic Senate regulations require all doctoral students to complete and pass University written and oral qualifying examinations prior to doctoral advancement to candidacy. Also, under Senate regulations the University oral qualifying examination is open only to the student and appointed members of the doctoral committee. In addition to University requirements, some graduate programs have other pre-candidacy examination requirements. What follows in this section is how students are required to fulfill all of these requirements for this doctoral program.

The Written Qualifying Examination is a two-part exam based on the student’s coursework, research interests, and familiarity with the field. Part One will be a literature review based on a reading list of 40-50 texts drawn up by the student in consultation with his/her dissertation advisor. Part Two will be a paper in response to a question related to the student’s dissertation research; it will require a theoretical grounding in the student’s areas of specialization, an ability to define and apply interdisciplinary methodology, and a well-supported argument. Students will have two weeks to complete their written qualifying exam.

Students may enroll in up to 12 units of Chicana/o Studies 597 (examination preparation) to help prepare for the exam. Students who fail to pass either part of the written qualifying examination may retake it once without petition, as early as the following quarter. Students who fail the written qualifying examination a second time will not advance to doctoral candidacy and will be dismissed from the Program.

Students are required to take the University Oral Qualifying Examination in the term following completion of the Written Qualifying Examination. The oral examination is approximately two hours in length and is focused on the student’s dissertation proposal. The University Oral Qualifying Examination is open only to the members of the doctoral committee and the student.

Both the Written and the Oral Qualifying Examinations will be evaluated on a pass/no pass basis.

Advancement to Candidacy

Students are advanced to candidacy and awarded the Candidate in Philosophy degree (C.Phil.) upon successful completion of the written and oral qualifying examinations.

Doctoral Dissertation

Every doctoral degree program requires the completion of an approved dissertation that demonstrates the student’s ability to perform original, independent research and constitutes a distinct contribution to knowledge in the student’s principal fields of study.

Final Oral Examination (Defense of Dissertation)

No public defense of the dissertation is required, but the doctoral committee, in conjunction with the student, may opt to voluntarily hold a defense of the dissertation.

Time-to-Degree

Full-time graduate students should normally complete the requirements for the Ph.D. degree within five years of completion of the requirements for the master’s degree, with the total time from admission to graduate status until completion of the Ph.D. being seven years.

Termination of Graduate Study and Appeal of Termination

University policy

A student who fails to meet the above requirements may be recommended for termination of graduate study. A graduate student may be disqualified from continuing in the graduate program for a variety of reasons. The most common is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.00) required by the Academic Senate to remain in good standing (some programs require a higher grade point average). Other examples include failure of examinations, lack of timely progress toward the degree and poor performance in core courses. Probationary students (those with cumulative grade point averages below 3.00) are subject to immediate dismissal upon the recommendation of their department. University guidelines governing termination of graduate students, including the appeal procedure, are outlined in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.

Special departmental or program policy

A recommendation for termination is made by the Director of Graduate Studies after a vote of the department’s faculty. Before the recommendation is sent to Graduate Division, a student is notified in writing and given two weeks to respond in writing to the Chair. An appeal is reviewed by the department’s faculty, which makes the final departmental recommendation to Graduate Division.