M&O Policy

Revised 6/11/25

The M&O Department‘s doctoral program is a five year program, and the Smeal College and M&O Department provide the funding (i.e., graduate assistantship stipends; tuition) for five years as long as the student is in good standing in the program and has met all relevant milestones (i.e., successfully completes required coursework, successfully passes the candidacy and comprehensive exams, defends dissertation proposal, successfully finds a dissertation advisor and committee) in the requisite time frames. The normative expectation in our department is that students “go on the job market” during their fifth year of the PhD program, and that they defend their dissertations by the end of their fifth year.

We recognize that there are a host of reasons that could lead a student to decide to stay in the M&O doctoral program for a sixth year. In such cases, the student may seek a sixth year of funding (i.e., graduate assistantship stipends; tuition) from the department; all such requests must include a formal letter from the M&O members of the student’s dissertation committee showing their support of funding the sixth year. To evaluate the request, the M&O department chair will convene a faculty meeting to hold an informational discussion of the case to ascertain the level of faculty support. Final approval of sixth year funding rests with the M&O Department chair.

Criteria For Evaluating Requests for Sixth-year Funding

1. Good Standing and Program Milestones To be eligible, the student must be in good standing in the program and has met all relevant milestones (i.e., coursework, candidacy and comprehensive exams, has a dissertation advisor and committee) with one possible extension: while the dissertation proposal defense is expected to be completed by the end (i.e., June 30th) of the fourth academic year, it may be permissible for a student seeking a sixth year to instead defend their dissertation proposal by the end (i.e., June 30th) of their fifth academic year if approved by the dissertation committee.
2. Potential for Professional Advancement A key reason for granting sixth-year department funding is the likelihood that an additional year will result in a substantial improvement or change in the student’s status or record. Typically, this would mean that the student’s publication record would improve thereby resulting in an increased likelihood of a placement in a tenure-track assistant professor position at a peer or aspirational school. Evidence of the potential for a strong future placement would include, but not be limited to, a pipeline of manuscripts in the review and/or revision stage—including at least one at a top-tier journal.
3. Extenuating Circumstances Another key reason that a student may need to be funded a sixth year is if they encountered an extenuating circumstance sometime during their PhD program that significantly impacted their ability to make progress on their research—e.g., such as the birth or adoption of a child, serious personal illness, or the provision of care for a close family member. Such cases could qualify as a reason for granting an additional year of funding, assuming that the student is in good standing at the time of the request. At a minimum, this criterion would involve the dissertation committee’s assessment of the strong likelihood that the student will successfully defend their dissertation and earn their PhD degree within the sixth year.

Additional Expectations and Constraints

Students who receive a sixth year of funding will also be expected to comply with the expectations of the Smeal PhD program more generally, which at the time of the adoption of this policy involved the expectation that students will teach two courses during their sixth year as part of the fulfillment of their graduate assistantship stipend. Furthermore, sixth year funding is contingent on availability of departmental resources at the time of the request. The M&O Department is allotted a fixed number of PhD students with five years of guaranteed funding by the Smeal College, and when a student is granted a sixth year of funding, this reduces the number of new students that can be admitted in the next academic year. Benchmarking of our peer institutions suggests that this policy is line with the practices of our peers.

Unfunded Sixth Year

A student who is not granted sixth year funding by the M&O Department may still choose to remain in the program for additional year, with support from their dissertation committee. In such cases:

• The student will be responsible for their own tuition costs as required to remain a student in the university system.
• The department may explore opportunities (e.g., teaching or other types of positions within the college) to aid the student financially, but the provision of any such opportunities will be contingent upon the availability of such opportunities at the time, as well as the demonstrated skills of the student in question.

In short, students can stay for an unfunded sixth at their choice, but whether the M&O Department can provide them with any opportunities for financial support or any other types of resources (i.e., office space) is contingent upon the conditions that exist at the time.

Whereas our department aims to place its students in assistant professor positions among the top 50 research universities, we fully recognize and respect that the decision-making process surrounding the student’s post-PhD degree employment is a highly personal one. Each student must decide for herself/himself—typically in conjunction with the guidance of their faculty mentors—to which (and how many) job positions s/he will apply, which campus visits will be accepted/declined, and ultimately, which job position s/he will accept.