Graduate Program Policies and Procedures

The Department of Anthropology at Iowa State University provides a unique opportunity for students to obtain quality graduate education through course instructions, seminars, field school, independent research and internships. As a major part of graduate education, each student chooses a major professor who is a mentor and guide for graduate work. The major professor, along with the Program of Study (POS) Committee, provides specific direction for an individual student's graduate program. The following guidelines will help the student, in conjunction with his/her major professor and the POS committee, plan a graduate program that will lead to the master's degree in a timely and efficient manner while meeting all the departmental and university requirements. These guidelines are approved by the anthropology faculty as a whole and should be interpreted as minimum standards. Individual POS committees may choose additional coursework or other requirements to meet the needs of a given student or research topic.

I. Requirements for M.A. Degrees
The Department of Anthropology requires graduate students entering the master's degree program to receive a round-out, holistic education in the form of a set of core courses that cover the four major subdivisions within anthropology (for details, please see below). Students who enter the graduate program with identified deficiencies (i.e., those are admitted with 'provisional' or 'restricted' status) must make up their deficiencies prior to taking the core courses. Upon the satisfactory completion of the core courses, the degree candidate may choose one of the five distinct tracks as his/her area of concentration. Required courses for each of the five tracks are listed below.

A. Graduate credit requirements:
The M.A. degree requires 34+ semester hours of graduate credits, of which:

• A minimum of 30+ hours is earned in formal course work. These 30+ credits include 12 credits in 4 core courses, one statistics research method course for 4 credits (or computer methods course for linguistics for 3 credits), six credits in track courses, and six to nine credits in area studies and electives.
• The remaining required credits are earned in research credits (Anth. 699). A minimum of four research credits is required for either research fieldwork or thesis writing.

B. Course requirements:

• Core courses:
  

  Anth. 500: Language and Culture (3 credits)
  Anth. 503: Biological Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 510: Theoretical Dimensions of Cultural Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 555: Seminar in Archaeology (3 credits)

• Methodology courses (one of the two):
  

  Stat. 401: Statistical Methods for Research Worker (4 credits)
  Engl. 510: Introduction to Computers in Applied Linguistics (3 credits, for Linguistic Anthropology track)

C. Track courses:

• Applied Anthropology Track:

  Anth. 511: Cultural Change and Applied Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 536: Development Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 530: Ethnographic Fieldwork Methods (3 credits)
  (plus six credits in area studies and electives)

• Socio-cultural Anthropology Track:
  

  Anth. 511: Cultural Change and Applied Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 530: Ethnographic Fieldwork Methods (3 credits)
  (plus nine credits in area studies and electives, of which three credits normally come from outside the department)

• Linguistic Anthropology Track:
  

  Select one of the following two:
  Ling. 511: Linguistic Analysis (3 credits)
  Ling. 514: Language in Society (3 credits)
  Anth. 530: Ethnographic Fieldwork Methods (3 credits)
  (plus nine credits in area studies and electives, of which three credits normally come from outside the department).

• Archaeology Track:
  

  Anth. 516: Environmental Archaeology (3 credits)
  Anth. 528: Archaeological Laboratory Methods (3 credits)
  (plus nine credits in area studies and electives, of which three credits normally come from outside the department).

• Biological Anthropology Track:

  Anth. 519: Skeletal Biology (3 credits)
  Anth. 524: Forensic Anthropology (3 credits)
  Anth. 538: Primate Behavior and Evolutionary Ecology (3 credits)
  (plus nine credits in area studies and electives, of which three credits normally come from outside the department).

D. Program of Study Committee

• Committee appointment
  

  In consultation with the student's major professor, a Program of Study Committee of at least 3 individual is appointed. One committee member must be from outside the Department of Anthropology. The POS Committee supervises and approves the Program of Study, as well as the thesis proposal and the thesis.

• Program of Study
  

  In consultation with the student's Program of Study Committee, an official Program of Study is developed and filed with the Graduate College . This document lists all the classes the student will complete in order to obtain the master's degree, as well as the time frame for fieldwork and thesis writing.
  
  Students should file both Program of Study and Committee Appointment forms during the second semester or early in the third semester of the M.A. Program.

Fieldwork Research

Students are expected to collect empirical data through fieldwork for their degree theses. The research project title and its fieldwork duration is determined by the student in consultation with the POS committee. Most fieldwork is conducted in summer after the completion of course work.

Thesis Defense

An oral defense-of-the-thesis examination is required. Students must file a final oral with the Graduate College at least three weeks before the final oral exam. Students are required to provide a copy of the thesis to each member of the POS Committee at least two weeks before the final oral exam. A thesis must follow the guidelines outlined in the Thesis Manual and be deposited with the Graduate College following the timeframe below.

II. Normal Progress Guidelines
Students making normal progress complete the M.A. degree in two academic years. Normal progress guidelines for each year are given below:

First Year
Students complete two core courses and two track courses, plus the methodology course and one to two area studies courses. A minimum of 9 credits for each semester is required for a full-time student. The POS committee is formed and a tentative thesis should be presented to the student's major professor preferably by the middle of the second semester in residence.  Research should be planned between the second and third semesters, usually during the summer. The second year should include two more core courses, Statistics and courses from one of the tracks or from an area of concentration outside the department.