The request to revise the M.A. in History

Date: April 8, 2016
To: College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
From: Office of Academic Affairs
Approved On: March 21, 2016
Approved by: Graduate Council
Implementation Date: Spring 2017


Note: Deletions are strikethroughs. Insertions are underlined.


Catalog Copy

History

  • M.A. in History

Department of History

history.uncc.edu

publichistory.uncc.edu

Graduate Program Director

Dr. Christine Haynes

Public History Director

Dr. Aaron Shapiro

Graduate Faculty

Dr. Benny Andres, Associate Professor

Dr. Jurgen Buchenau, Professor and Chair

Dr. Christopher Cameron, Assistant Professor

Dr. Karen Cox, Professor

Dr. Daniel Dupre, Associate Professor

Dr. Erika Edwards, Assistant Professor

Dr. Maren Ehlers, Assistant Professor

Dr. Karen Flint, Associate Professor

Dr. David Goldfield, Robert Lee Bailey Professor

Dr. Christine Haynes, Associate Professor

Dr. Cheryl Hicks, Associate Professor

Dr. James Hogue, Associate Professor

Dr. David Johnson, Assistant Professor

Dr. Jill Massino, Assistant Professor

Dr. Gregory Mixon, Associate Professor

Dr. Heather Perry, Associate Professor

Dr. Amanda Pipkin, Associate Professor

Dr. Ritika Prasad, Assistant Professor

Dr. Sonya Ramsey, Associate Professor

Dr. Steven Sabol, Associate Professor

Dr. Aaron Shapiro, Associate Professor

Dr. John Smail, Professor and Dean of University College

Dr. John David Smith, Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor

Dr. Carmen Soliz, Assistant Professor

Dr. Peter Thorsheim, Associate Professor

Dr. Mark Wilson, Associate Professor

Master of Arts in History

The Master of Arts in History program at UNC Charlotte is designed to give motivated students an opportunity to pursue advanced studies in close collaboration with accomplished scholars. The program emphasizes the development of methodological, literary, and conceptual skills that graduates can employ as students in a doctoral program, as professionally oriented history teachers in secondary schools, as staff at museums or historic sites, or as citizens more acutely aware of the historical evolution of their society. Offering both day and evening courses, the Department of History attracts a diverse group of traditional and non-traditional students. Candidates may pursue the M.A. degree in History or Public History on either a full-time or part-time basis.

The Department offers courses in United States, European, and Latin American history, with particular expertise in the following areas:

  • African-American and Black Women’s History
  • American South, Old and New
  • Colonial and Modern Latin America
  • Comparative Slavery, Race and Race Relations, and the African Diaspora
  • Early Modern and Modern Europe
  • Environment, Labor and Business, Science, Medicine, and Technology
  • Military, War, and International Relations
  • Nationalism and Colonialism in World History
  • Urban History, Immigration, and Ethnicity
  • Women’s History, Gender and the Body

The Department also offers a concentration in the field of Public History. The program emphasizes museum studies, historic preservation, and the creation of new media projects such as websites, digital collections, and documentaries.

Admission Requirements

In addition to the general requirements for admission to the Graduate School, the following are ordinarily required for admission to the M.A. in History program:

  • A minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.0 in History or a related discipline
  • Acceptable performance on the verbal and math portions of the GRE
  • A personal statement outlining the candidate’s background, interest, and goals in History
  • Three letters of recommendation from former instructors and/or employers
  • A writing sample of at least 6-8 pages

Degree Requirements

The Master of Arts degree in History requires completion, with a GPA of 3.0 or above, of at least 30 hours in approved graduate courses. These courses must include at least 24 credit hours in History, of which at least 15 hours are in seminars or colloquia open only to graduate students, and no more than 6 hours in individually designed readings or research courses. Students taking the comprehensive examination may take 3 hours of exam preparation and students completing a thesis may take 6 hours of thesis preparation toward their 30 hours.

Students who pursue the concentration in Public History must complete 30 hours of required and elective coursework, 3 hours for an internship in some area of Public History, and 3 hours of thesis work, for a total of 36 hours.

Students must complete all degree requirements, including the comprehensive examination or thesis defense, within six calendar years of first enrollment in the program.

All students in the program are expected to maintain an overall B (3.0) average. Students who do not meet this expectation will be subject to suspension on recommendation of the Graduate Committee of the Department of History.

Core Courses

Required courses for the M.A. in History are as follows:

  • 3 different HIST colloquia (choose from U.S. I, U.S. II, 19th Century Europe, 20th Century Europe, and/or Colonial or Modern Latin America HIST 6001, 6002, 6101, 6102, 6201, 6202)
  • HIST 6693 History and Methodology (to be taken in the Spring, after completion of at least six credit hours)
  • HIST 6694 Seminar in Historical Writing (to be taken in the Fall of the second year, after completion of HIST 6693)
  • HIST 6698 (Comprehensive Exam, 3 hours) or HIST 6999 (Thesis, 6 hours)

Candidates pursuing the concentration in Public History must complete only 2 different HIST colloquia. In addition, however, they also must complete the following core courses:

HIST 6310 Museum Studies

HIST 6320 Historic Preservation

HIST 6330 History in the Digital Age

HIST 6400 Internship

HIST 6999 Thesis (3 hours)

Consult the department website at history.uncc.edu for a more detailed description of program requirements and suggested courses of study.

Electives

Among courses in History, the following qualify as electives: HIST 5000, HIST 5001, HIST 5002, HIST 6000, HIST 6694, HIST 6901, HIST 6997. In addition, all other History courses at the 6000 level may count as an elective, including the colloquia, if they additional credit hours beyond the already completed requirements. For example, if a student takes four colloquia, the fourth counts as an elective.

Students may also elect to take up to 6 or 9 hours of graduate-level coursework in disciplines other than History, depending on whether they pursue the thesis or comprehensive exam, respectively. Candidates seeking graduate-level teacher certification may use the elective option to take courses in professional education selected in consultation with the College of Education. If a student needs more than that number of elective hours to satisfy certification requirements, those hours will be added to the total required for the M.A. in History.

Admission to Candidacy Requirements

An Admission to Candidacy form must be submitted during the semester preceding the one in which the student plans to complete the degree requirements, either by defending a thesis or taking a comprehensive examination.

Assistantships

The Department of History currently supports eight students with teaching assistantships, two students with editorial assistantships, and occasionally provides support for other students via administrative assistantships. Assistantships are currently funded at $9,000 per academic year. From time to time, the department also provides students with other employment opportunities.

See the section Financial Assistance below for additional information on resources available to graduate students in the Department of History.

Internships

Internships are available to all students and required for those in the Public History program. Some are available within the department; others with a variety of local historical museums and sites.

Advising

Students may not register for graduate-level courses without the permission of the Department of History. Consequently, students must be advised by the Director of Graduate Studies, either in person or by phone or email, prior to registering for courses each semester, as well as prior to filing their admission to candidacy form and application for degree.

Transfer Credit

No more than six transferred hours may be approved for application to the requirements for the degree.

Language Requirement

Although students are not required to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language, they are expected to be able to use whatever languages they need to pursue their research interests.

Thesis/Comprehensive Examination

After completing the required courses, students must either prepare a Master’s thesis based on original primary research or take three comprehensive written examinations based on reading lists compiled in consultation with faculty members. Students intending to write theses must first write and then defend a thesis proposal. M.A. candidates completing either the thesis or exam must then pass an oral defense of their written work.

An Examining Committee, consisting of two graduate faculty members from the Department of History and a third member selected from History or another department, oversees the student’s thesis work or conducts the comprehensive written and oral examinations.

Financial Aid/Financial Assistance

Students may obtain limited financial support from paid internships, summer or adjunct teaching in the department, archival work in the library’s Special Collections, and teaching opportunities at local community colleges. Students doing thesis research or presenting papers at professional conferences may receive modest travel grants from the department or from the Graduate and Professional Student Government.

Information on non-departmental forms of financial assistance is available from the Office of Student Financial Aid.