The Director of Graduate Studies oversees all aspects of the graduate program affecting graduate students’ academic standing and progress. All students will have a temporary first-year adviser appointed by the DGS. Nevertheless, they should also feel free to direct questions to the DGS throughout the year.

Each incoming graduate student is assigned to a faculty adviser by the DGS in consultation with the faculty member. The adviser will serve as the temporary (first-year) adviser, guiding the new student through the first few semesters of course selection and identifying relevant faculty with whom the student may work. The temporary adviser may or may not have expertise in the student’s subject matter area, but some care is taken to assign students to faculty with parallel interests. The role of the temporary adviser is to provide the students with a faculty contact who is not necessarily one of the student’s course instructors but is knowledgeable about the Department of American Studies faculty and resources.

During the first or second year of coursework, students should choose a faculty member to serve as their adviser.  Advisers for Ph.D. students must be seniormembers of the graduate faculty in American Studies.  At the graduate level, the distinction between "core" and "associate" faculty is not really significant.   Rather, we have a "graduate faculty" that includes faculty members from a wide range of departments, including the entire core faculty in American studies and a large number of faculty from other units.  Tenured members of our graduate faculty can, and do, advise dissertations, whether they are tenured in American Studies or in another department.  Untenured members of the American Studies graduate faculty can also advise doctoral students, but they do so with co-advisors until they have tenure.  A student can select as an advisor any member of the American Studies graduate faculty, from any department, to serve as adviser.  If that faculty member is not yet tenured, the student will need to have a tenured co-adviser as well.  (See section on "Organization" Pg 31 for a description of senior, member/advising and memberstatus).  If students wish to work with a member/advisinggraduate faculty member, they must also select a senior membergraduatefaculty member to serve as co-adviser.  (Advisers for M.A. students may be senior or member/advisingmembers.)  American Studies faculty is listed on our website. The graduate faculty status of professors is available on the Graduate School web site.

The selection of adviser(s) should be made in consultation with both the DGS and the faculty member who is the student’s prospective choice.  The selection of the adviser is usually formalized at the time the program statement is reviewed and the official degree program filed.  The adviser(s) should be familiar with the student’s area of academic interest and informed about the resources (faculty, courses, and research facilities) in that area available at the University of Minnesota.  See the section on “Filing the Ph.D. Degree Program”.

The duties of Program Adviser include:
• Assisting the student in choosing appropriate courses and in developing a coherent and complete program of courses.
• Preparing an annual review of student’s progress.
• Responding to drafts of the student’s program statement.
• Assisting the student in selecting a preliminary examining committee.
• Signing and submitting the approved Degree Program to the DGS after the Preliminary Examining Committee has met.
• Serving as chair of the student’s Preliminary Oral Examining Committee.
• Assisting students in formulating their subfields.

Upon successful completion of the prelim portfolio and oral preliminary examinations, the Ph.D. student should choose a faculty member to serve as adviser for the dissertation. The thesis adviser should be expert in the field with which the dissertation deals and knowledgeable about resources available both locally and nationally in the field. The thesis adviser must also be a seniormember of the graduate faculty. A member/advising graduate faculty member may be a thesis adviser but a senior member of the graduate faculty must be designated as co-adviser.

The duties of Thesis Adviser include:

• Assisting the student in selecting a Final Oral Examining Committee.
• Responding to drafts of the student’s dissertation proposal (Thesis Statement).
• Serve as one of the three required Final Oral Reviewers.
• Sign the final dissertation copy submitted to the Graduate School.