Advising

The department is committed to providing academic advising supporting each graduate student’s scholarly and professional development. The advising relationship should entail collaborative engagement between the advisor and the advisee. Faculty advisors guide students in critical areas such as selecting courses, designing and conducting research, navigating degree requirements, exploring academic and professional opportunities, and preparing for their post-PhD careers. Graduate students are active contributors to the advising relationship, proactively seeking academic and professional guidance and taking responsibility for informing themselves of policies and degree requirements for the doctoral program. An essential part of the advisee-adviser relationship is that students learn to advocate for themselves; this includes discussing expectations for the advisor-advisee relationship with the advisor and revisiting these expectations periodically to ensure mutual understanding.

Advisors and Advising Meetings

A department faculty member is the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS). Typically, the DGS keeps track of the general degree progress of all doctoral students, offers advice on meeting department and university milestones, coordinates departmental advising and TA assignments, and approves special petitions. Each student also has an individual advisor, usually chosen based on shared research interests, who advises on coursework, training in research methodologies, research projects, and professional development. Students are expected to meet regularly with their advisor; in addition, twice a year these meetings take the form of a holistic, structured discussion of the student's recent progress, short-term plans, and longer-term academic and professional goals. Additional details on advising can be found in the Department of Linguistics PhD Handbook.

Additional resources

The Department of Linguistics PhD Handbook opens in a new tab provides additional information on advising expectations in the program.