REQUIRED CREDIT HOURS

Students who have been offered regular admission are required to complete a minimum of 39 credit hours of graded course work (including core courses and electives) prior to achieving candidacy.

Specifically, students are required to take:

• 15 credit hours of core courses (including 4 credit hours related to the Research Practicum)

• 12 credit hours of letter graded courses in the major specialization area which can be elected courses offered by other units/departments on campus

• 9 credit hours of letter graded courses in the minor specialization area

• 3 credit hours of letter graded elective coursework

All students who anticipate working with quantitative or qualitative data manipulation are required to complete at least 3 credit hours of graded coursework in statistical analyses and/or advanced research methods (beyond the required core course).

Students must complete two consecutive terms of full-time graduate work in residence beginning in the fall term of their first year so that the core courses may be taken in the required sequence. Students who have been offered special admission may be required to complete additional course work. Rackham requires that graduate-level cognate courses of at least 4 credit hours be satisfactorily completed in a department or program other than the Doctoral Program in Architecture and the Architecture Program. These courses may be used to satisfy the major or minor requirement and must be approved by the student's major professor. These credit hours are not additional to the 39 required program hours. Upon satisfactorily completing all Ph.D. course work, a Ph.D. student is eligible to apply for and be awarded the Master of Science degree.

 

The University class schedule is a great resource to other interesting and benefical courses offered outside of architecture.

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CORE COURSE OFFERINGS
The core curriculum for the program consists of courses in the theoretical foundations of architecture, research methods, and seminars relating to the student's major and/or minor specialization areas. For detailed descriptions of these courses see the Course Descriptions section.

Course		Credit Hours
Arch 811/821 Orientation Seminar		2
Arch 812 Theory in Architectural Research		3
Arch 813 Research Design + Methods in Architecture Section 001-HT Section 002-BT,DS		3
Area Seminar (choose one of three options)		3
Arch 823 Area Seminar: Architectural History + Theory
Arch 824 Area Seminar: Design Studies
Arch 825 Area Seminar: Building + Environmental Technology
Arch 839 Research Practicum		4
Total		15

With approval from the Doctoral Program, a student may elect to take another 3 hour methods course in lieu of Arch 813.

Area Seminars
The Area Seminars each represent a Doctoral Program specialization area. The intention of the Area Seminar is to provide a substantive overview of the seminal literature and themes in each specialty area. This can be achieved using different combinations of substantive content and staffing. The intended substantive overview may entail either a selection of key topic areas, or an integrative theme whereby multiple perspectives/literatures are highlighted. Staffing may involve either multiple faculty from the specialty area or a single faculty member.

Every student is required to attend the one in his/her major specialization area. The student may, however, be required by the minor advisor to elect a second area seminar. In that case, the second seminar would count toward the required 9 credits in the student's minor area.

Research Practicum
The Practicum represents both an opportunity and a challenge for the student to conduct, on a limited scale, independent research at the level of quality expected for a dissertation; the research accomplishment should be comparable to that which results in a publishable article. Based on consultation with the major advisor, the practicum may take one of several forms, including but not limited to:

1. a self-contained paper or empirical study, of publishable quality, that may or may not be a component of the dissertation work
2. the development of a theoretical model upon which the dissertation will be based
3. a proposal for pilot research in the student's dissertation area that will include a focused literature review, research design and protocol

Each student must elect, with the approval of his/her major advisor, to take the Practicum in one of three ways:

1. as a 4 credit hour independent study with his/her major advisor, OR
2. as 1 credit hour of independent study with his/her major advisor taken in conjunction with a 600 or higher level course of at least 3 credit hours in his/her major area of specialization OR
3. as a 4 credit hour UP 835 with prior approval from his/her major advisor.

RACKHAM FEE TOTALS (RFTs)
Rackham Fee Totals (commonly know as RFTs) is a phrase used to designate the number of fee hours Rackham students earn when they register for course work. They are relevant to doctoral students ONLY. RFTs are not the same as credit toward program (CTP).

Rackham Fee Totals were implemented in an effort to bring some measure of equity to the cost of a UM doctoral education across all graduate programs. The creators of the RFT system took into account what they determined to be the minimum number of terms (during both Pre-Candidacy and Candidacy) doctoral students must enroll in order to complete their studies. This, in turn, helped to determine the number of required RFTs.

Each doctoral student enrolled in the Rackham Graduate School must accumulate a minimum number of RFTs to be recommended for Candidacy and to receive the doctoral degree.

Calculating RFTs
RFTs are calculated according to the number of credit hours you elect as well as the number of credit hours you pay for. It is important to remember that tuition is not charged for more than 9 credit hours per full term (5 for a half term). This means that even if you enroll for more than 9 hours in a full term (including Spring/Summer term), you are assessed for only 9 credit hours and you cannot, therefore, accumulate more than 9 fee hours for that enrollment.

Note: For Doctoral Pre-Candidates, 9 credit hours of enrollment in a full term (or 5 in a half term) are considered to be a full-time enrollment.

RFT calculation sample

Term: Hours Enrolled		RFTs
Fall term year 1 : Pre-Candidate Student enrolls for 12 hours		9
Winter term year 1 : Pre-Candidate Student enrolls for 6 hours		6
Spring half term : Pre-Candidate Student enrolls for 6 hours		6
Summer half term : Pre-Candidate Student enrolls for 3 hours		3
Fall term year 2 : Candidate Student enrolls for 12 hours		8
Winter term year 2 : Candidate Student enrolls for 12 hours		8
Total RFTs		40

All Rackham elections will count toward your RFTs. This includes:

1. Regular graduate-level courses
2. Undergraduate courses
3. Courses taken as an official "visit" (VI)
4. Credits taken by doctoral students to earn a master's degree in Rackham

Relevant Master's Degree and its effect on RFTs
Your RFT requirements can be reduced from the required 68 to 50 if you have earned a master's degree from an accredited institution that is relevant to the doctoral degree you are pursuing here. There by reducing the required number of RFTs to advance to candidacy from 36 to 18.

To be given credit for a relevant master's, an official final transcript from the institution which granted the degree must accompany a supporting memo from the program chair. The 18 hour posting and reduction in RFTs will be made once the material has been reviewed and approved by the Graduate School.

Insufficient RFTs
Occasionally a student will still lack the required RFTs needed to Advance to Candidacy or to receive the degree. In such cases, it is possible to make up the deficit amount by paying for the remaining RFTs at the student's current tuition rate per credit hour. It is not necessary to enroll for the missing RFTs. For further Rackham Fee Total information view the Rackham Student Handbook Policies & Procedures.

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ANNUAL PROGRAM OF STUDY REPORT

At the end of the each year of study, students are required to submit to the Doctoral Program Advisory Committee an Annual Program of Study Report identifying:

(a) a major area of study

(b) a minor area of study

(c) all course work completed and proposed

(d) review of current year

(e) detailed plans and timeline for upcoming year

The Doctoral Program Advisory Committee reviews each report in consultation with the student's major and minor professors and makes recommendations for any modifications deemed necessary prior to the student's entering his/her year of study. Once approved, the coursework/report must be fulfilled to meet graduation requirements. If changes are found necessary or desirable, a revised report must be submitted to the Advisory Committee for approval.

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FOREIGN LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT

There is no overall foreign language requirement for Ph.D. students. However, it is recognized that work in some areas of specialization (e.g., architectural history and theory) and on certain research/dissertation topics may require a reading knowledge of one or more foreign languages The Program Advisory Committee, in consultation with faculty members in the student's proposed major area of specialization, will determine whether his/her proposed program of study requires knowledge of one or more foreign languages and, if so, stipulate the language(s). Students are not permitted to take the qualifying examinations until the stipulated language requirement has been met.

English Language Proficiency Requirement
Prior to taking the qualifying examinations, students are required to demonstrate writing skills in the English language of the sort required to produce a well-written doctoral dissertation. Typically, such writing skills will be demonstrated in the process of completing written assignments in the core courses. Students having difficulty doing so are encouraged to take writing courses at the English Language Institute and/or other University units. Subsequently, they are required to take a Program English Proficiency Examination prior to taking the qualifying examinations. In the Program English Proficiency Examination, a student is given two hours to write an essay of about 800 words without assistance. The essay is evaluated by a committee of two Program faculty members selected by the Program Advisory Committee.

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