Program of Study | Ph.D. in Performance Studies

Timely Progress

Students in the Ph.D. Program in Performance Studies are required to make clear and timely progress toward the degree. Retention in the program and reappointment to funded positions (teaching, research, fellowship) will depend in part on the demonstration of timely progress. The program defines timely progress as follows:

• Completion of all required coursework: end of 5th semester
• Qualifying examination (written and oral components) passed: end of 6th semester
• Submission of final dissertation prospectus, approved by entire dissertation committee: December 1, 7th semester
• Public presentation of doctoral research: by end of 10th semester
• Completion of dissertation: by end of 12th semester

In order to enhance students’ progress towards completion, the Graduate Program in Performance Studies offers the following completion-promoting activities:

• We require that a prospectus that has met the approval of the full Dissertation Committee be filed with the program administrator in Fall of the 4th year. The format of this prospectus follows closely standard formats for extramural fellowship applications.
• Students are required to give a formal presentation of their doctoral research during Fall of their 5th year of study.
• Graduate Colloquium, a required part of our curriculum taken over three semesters, addresses professional development issues including orientation to leading professional organizations and journals, information about publishing, guidance through the revision of an article with the goal of submissions for publication, and guidance in how to write research proposals and grants.

Funding Package

Students in the program are normally nominated for University funding and are typically awarded a package of support: fellowship, teaching, and research support derived from University and departmental sources. Students are typically offered six years of support, which depends on continued demonstrable progress.

The 6-year funding package offered to all students at the time of admission will typically include the following:

• All Fall and Spring fees and tuition – 6 years
• $29,000 academic year stipend and/or salary – 6 years
• $5,000 summer stipend – 6 summers

Please note that this package is made up of a combination of fellowship stipend and teaching salary. (Students usually teach in 3 or 4 of the 6 years.) Stipend payments are usually received in late August, late January, and late May, while teaching salary is received monthly starting in early September. Taxes will be owed on salary income as well as on fellowship funding. Some taxes will be withheld from your monthly salary payments, but not from fellowships so save funds with which to pay your tax bill. This bill can be for several thousand dollars if most of your funding has been from fellowships in the prior calendar year.

Our ability to fund all students depends on each student’s commitment to the department and to our program. By accepting the offer of funding and responding to our request for teaching preferences, you become an important part of how we educate our undergraduate students. We will provide you with training, support, and supervision to fulfill this important role and prepare for future careers. At the same time, you are expected to participate fully in this reciprocal agreement, communicate proactively about your circumstances, and fulfill your teaching commitments.

Funding in the 4th Year

If a student advances to candidacy for the Ph.D. in a timely manner (by the end of the 3rd year), has a satisfactory Doctoral Candidacy Review, is on track to file the dissertation in a timely manner, and has previously applied for any extramural funding, then the student will receive an academic year of Doctoral Completion Fellowship (DCF) support from the Graduate Division. If a student does not qualify for the Doctoral Completion Fellowship, we may offer teaching support in the 4th year. Refer to the Graduate Division website for DCF details.

International Students Please Note:

Please read the employment rules on your I-20 or DS-2019 immigration document. You will likely be limited to a maximum of 50% employment on campus during Fall and Spring and no off-campus employment.  International students are not eligible for as wide a range of loans, grants, and other awards as domestic students. You will also be charged NRST (Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition) each semester. This will be paid by the department and/or university during your first three years in good standing in the program. At the end of your 3rd year, you should pass your Qualifying Exams and Advance to Candidacy. Your NRST will then be waived for 3 years, through the 6th year only.  After the 6th year, you will be charged for NRST unless you have completed your degree, withdrawn, or are on Filing Fee (for 1 semester only). Please consult with Avy Valladares as you plan.

External Fellowships

Many of our graduate students have been successful in garnering external support from sources such as Fulbright, the Social Science Research Council, the Jacob Javitz Fellowship and other funds. Students applying for major year-long external fellowships should be aware that these often do not cover full fees and tuition.  However, the Graduate Division offers Tuition Support for External Fellowships and you are encouraged to see if your intended fellowship meets the criteria.  Please consult with the GSAO in advance when you are considering applying for outside funding so we can discuss possible impacts on teaching and/or on other funding sources.

Additional Funding

3rd year

All students receive a $500 stipend during their 3rd year to help with expenses related to preparation for the Qualifying Exam as well as the fee for Advancing to Candidacy.

4th year

All students receive a $100 stipend during their 4th year to help with expenses related to the job market such as porfolio services.

Awards

The Dunbar Ogden Essay Prize in Theater History 

Each Spring we will send out a call for submissions for consideration for an essay prize to be awarded at Commencement. This $500 award goes to the most outstanding Performance Studies graduate student essay. Professor Emeritus Dunbar Ogden wishes to recognize “students who demonstrate high merit in their scholarship of performance study, with a preference for those focused on theater history.” Students must be ABD at the time of submission. Essays should be 20-30 pages in length, and should be taken from research related to the dissertation, but able to stand alone (i.e. the piece should be self-contained, without a lengthy explanation of the dissertation, as a publishable essay would need to be). Essays published in other venues are acceptable, as are submissions intended for future publication or under consideration. Full dissertation chapters will not be considered. Please save the essay in Google Drive and share with Avy Valladares, making sure to send the email notification. Due by April 1.

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (OGSI)

Every year, TDPS nominates its Outstanding GSI for this campus award. The nomination process is department specific and within the Performance Studies Ph.D. that process occurs in the following way: In the early spring, the HGA submits to supervising faculty a list of all ABD students who have taught within the department in the previous calendar year, then from that group, a “short list” of finalists is derived based on number of courses taught, student evaluations, and supervisor observations, usually by February 1. The short-listed candidates are then asked to submit the following materials to support their candidacy by March 1:

• 1-2 page statement of pedagogical philosophy as it pertains to teaching done in TDPS. (While some graduate students do teach in departments outside of TDPS, only courses taught within the department are eligible for consideration by our program.)
• Syllabi
• Exercises or Prompts

Conference/Professional Development Funding

Thanks to our Hickman Endowment, we are able to offer registered students some additional funding for conferences/professional development activities and research travel. The deadlines for proposals are April 1 and November 1. Please save your application(s) on Google Drive and share with Avy Valladares, GSAO, making sure to send the email notification. The Graduate Student Affairs Officer and Head Graduate Advisor will review applications and you will be informed of your award(s) 2-3 weeks later. Actual awards will be in the form of a stipend and will be made after the GSAO receives appropriate documentation/receipts. Please note that it is possible to apply for both conference/professional devolopment and research awards.

The Graduate Assembly also offers travel awards. Please see the GA website for all the details and take advantage of this opportunity.

The Graduate Division offers funding for 2 conferences and/or professional development activities during your academic career at Berkeley. You can find more information about these Conference Travel Grants on the Grad Div website. You will be able to apply to our program for additional support.  In general, we assist with a total of 3 conferences and/or professional development activities, or 2 if both are outside of North America, and usually offer the following standardized maximum amounts based on geographic location of the activity. These amounts are a guide only and are contingent on our overall fiscal capacity in relationship to the total amount that students request in any given year. In making allocations, we may also take into account the previous travel funding the applicant has received in the program.

• California and Western N. America: $1,000
• Other US, Mexico, and Canada: $1,400
• Europe: $2,000
• Central and South America: $2,000
• Asia, Africa, Middle East, and South Pacific: $2,400

Applications for financial assistance to travel to give a paper at a conference or professional meeting should include the following:

• Your name
• Your year in the program (1st year, 2nd year, etc.)
• Title of paper
• Title of conference
• Date and location of the conference
• A statement about why this particular conference is important to your professional development
• A brief abstract of the paper and its relevance to your research
• A brief summary of the travel funding you have received from the graduate program in performance studies over the last two years
• An explanation of any funding previously received and not yet used
• List any other sources of funding to which you have applied for this conference (or for which you intend to apply)

You may apply for the funding even if your paper has yet to be accepted. An award will be made when we receive appropriate documentation/receipts for your trip. In exceptional circumstances, funding may be allocated for a student to attend but not present at a conference. In such cases, the applicant needs to make a clear and compelling case for such attendance. Such awards will also be contingent upon fiscal capacity, with non-presenting attendance being a low funding priority.

Research Funding

Thanks to our Hickman Endowment, we are able to offer registered students some funding for conference and research travel. The deadlines for proposals are April 1 and November 1. Please save your application(s) on Google Drive and share with Avy Valladares, GSAO, making sure to send the email notification. The Graduate Student Affairs Officer and Head Graduate Advisor will review conference and research applications and you will be informed of your award(s) 2-3 weeks later. Actual awards will be in the form of a stipend and will be made after the GSAO receives appropriate documentation/receipts from the trip. Please note that it is possible to apply for both conference and research travel awards.

We are especially keen to support primary research that is of paramount importance to a student’s anticipated dissertation project, publications, and entry into the academic profession. We may make awards for 2 research trips, usually for the summers after the 2nd and 4th or 5th years, and award amounts will be primarily based on location of research and cost of any specialized equipment central to conducting primary research. Ineligible expenses: tuition; labor and services such as copyediting.

Awards (made as stipends after we receive appropriate documentation/receipts) are usually between $300 and $2,500, with the larger amount awarded only in cases of significant international travel. Awards for research in the US/Canada/Mexico do not usually exceed $1,700. These amounts are a guide only and are contingent on our overall fiscal capacity in relationship to the total amount that students request in any given year. In making allocations, we may also take into account the previous research funding the applicant has received in the program.

The proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria: significance and potential impact of the proposed research on the student’s trajectory through the graduate program and on professional standing; persuasiveness of the statement of purpose; appropriateness of budgetary items; and industry in attempting to identify alternate funding sources.

We have had a few requests for funding to pursue training of various kinds. This is a novel category of request, but one increasingly common, so the executive committee drafted a set of criteria by which these requests will be evaluated:

• The training must not be available at UC Berkeley.
• The training must be integral to the student’s research work (ie it must constitute the primary object of analysis of at least one chapter of the dissertation).
• The student’s dissertation advisor must attest to the centrality of the training on the above point; if the student is pre-QEs, the HGA must be able to attest to its centrality.
• If the student is pre-QEs, the content of the training must be in keeping with the student’s stated research trajectory in the 1st and/or 2nd year reports (ie there must be clear continuity between the student’s research interests as stated in these reports and the requested training).

Applications for financial assistance for research expenses should be 1-2 pages single-spaced and include the following information:

• Statement of purpose: nature of the research you will conduct and its relevance to your dissertation; a rationale for the expenses for which you are requesting support. Identify at least one Core faculty member who is advising you on this project
• If you are applying for funding for training, please include a note of support from your dissertation chair or the HGA if you are in your 1st or 2nd year (see above)
• Overall Budget: For travel costs, list dates of travel, destination, and airfare price. For other expenses, be specific and detailed
• Amount Requested from our program. Allocations can range from $100 to $2,500, but more typically fall in the $700 to $1,700 range
• A brief summary of previous support (for research or conferences) that you have received from our program in the past two years
• An explanation of any funding previously received and not yet used
• List any other sources of funding to which you have applied for this research (or for which you intend to apply)

Language Study Funding

Thanks to our Hickman Endowment, we are able to offer registered students some funding for language study. The deadline for proposals is April 1. Please save your application(s) in Google Drive and share with Avy Valladares, GSAO, making sure to send the email notification.

The Graduate Student Affairs Officer and Head Graduate Advisor will review applications in April and you will be informed of your award by mid-month. Actual awards will in the form of a stipend, usually up to $1,400, and will be made when the GSAO receives appropriate documentation/receipts for the language class/program. Please note that this award can be used for a private tutor and/or class fees and tuition and does not have to be used for a UC Berkeley language class; we encourage you to find the best class or program for your situation and research needs. You may be required to submit appropriate transcripts/certificates after completion of the course. Students are eligible for only 1 language award during their time in our program, but study doesn’t have to take place all at once: classes can be taken in 2 summers, for example.

If you are interested in doing intensive language study, please provide the information outlined below. Allocations will be contingent on the cumulative amount of all student requests.

• Information on the language class: where it’s being offered, and assurance of the program’s quality
• Rationale for why this class is important for your work
• Whether or not you have applied for and received any other funding assistance to study this language
• Total cost