1.  The English Linguistics program is under the direction of the Duke English department.  How does that affect the candidacy/degree conferral process?

The program is completely administered by the Duke English Department. However a healthy percentage of the funding comes through North Carolina State.

Three members of the North Carolina State English Department/Linguistics Program are adjunct members of the Duke English Department. Thus they serve on all student individual committees and are consulted about admissions applications. The Admissions Committee at Duke, however, consists of one Linguistics professor together with other members of the Duke English Department (most of whom are primarily literary scholars).

The Duke English Department genuinely values the Linguistics Program, and the Committee has always been eager to weigh Linguistics applicants together with all other candidates. Since the beginning, we have accepted at least one or two applicants a year.

There is also an MA program in English Linguistics that is administered through the NC State English Department and that must be applied for separately. See their web site www.ncsu.edu/linguistics for details. In practice, the MA candidates are as much a part of the total Program as the PhD candidates, and some have moved into the PhD program after completing the MA.  

2.  Since this is a joint program with NC State linguistics, where are classes held and how are teaching responsibilities divided among the faculty?

Students attend classes on both campuses. North Carolina State faculty teach at the Raleigh campus; Duke faculty teach at the Durham campus. It takes 30-45 minutes to drive between the two campuses, depending on traffic. There is no practical way to get from one place to another using public transportation but driving by car is straightforward.

In addition to classes at NC State and Duke, our students generally take one or two classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in the UNC Department of Linguistics. These classes are free for our students, and sign up for through inter-institution registration. For these classes a free intercampus bus service is provided between Duke and UNC (some 20 minutes away by car). Students routinely take courses at all three institutions to take advantage of the linguistic resources available in the Research Triangle area.  

3.  Are students assigned a faculty advisor? If so, what is the advisor's role?

Our program is small enough so that students generally get to know all of the faculty quite well. We do not expect to have more than six doctoral candidates at any one time in various stages of progress towards the doctorate. However, each student is assigned (or selects) an advisor from among the faculty. Our advisors do what advisors normally do at American universities. In the later stages of the student's career, the advisor chairs the student's exam committee and, at the end, the dissertation committee.  

4.  Are students encouraged to take classes in other disciplines (e.g. anthropology, psychology, philosophy)?

Students are indeed encouraged to take classes in other disciplines (e.g., anthropology, psychology, philosophy). The Duke Linguistics Program faculty lists a number of scholars in various disciplines. Interdisciplinary flexibility is one of the strengths of the program.

5.  Are the teaching apprenticeships and teaching assistantships included in the plan of study for classes in the NC State Linguistics department or in the Duke English or Linguistics departments?

The teaching apprenticeships and assistantships in the plan of study have been undertaken at both NC State and Duke. We are flexible about this.

6.  Are there other forms of financial aid?

This is a question for the Director of Graduate Studies in Duke's English Department. Please direct any further questions to that office after reviewing their website. http://english.duke.edu/grads/

7.  What kinds of research opportunities are available for students?

Students are typically involved in firsthand research; in fact, this research is considered an important part of their graduate training. Under the aegis of the North Carolina Language and Life Project, there are a number of ongoing, community-based and experimental research projects available for student participation. At the same time, students are encouraged to develop their own research projects.

Based on the availability of funding from external research grants and from the Friday Endowment at NC State, there is often opportunity for summer employment on research grants. For specific types of research foci, see the profiles of individual faculty members and research sites at the NC State Linguistics web site.

8.  How is the job market in English Linguistics?

Although there are a variety of options for employment outside of the academic community (e.g. information technology, speech synthesis, forensic linguistics, etc.), most linguists end up teaching at the university level. Positions in linguistics departments are presently quite restricted and competitive, but a PhD in English Linguistics should open up a wider range of options. For example, most English departments have linguists who teach basic linguistic courses for English majors as well as specialization courses in sociolinguistics such as language and gender, spoken and literary dialects of English, language and ethnicity, and so forth. We thus anticipate better opportunities for a candidate with a PhD in English Linguistics than currently available for a linguist with a degree from a linguistics department.

The recent economic recession in the U.S. has limited university hiring the past few years, but the escalating university student population and the deferred hiring practices of many universities indicate that the university job market will improve in the next decade.

Thus far, all of the PhD students who were involved in the precursor to the collective PhD program have been quite successful in getting tenure-track positions at Level 1 research institutions. Preparing students for the job market is an important part of the mentoring process in this program.