A. Program Description. The University of Massachusetts Amherst/Five College Graduate Program in History represents an extraordinary collaboration between the faculties of five distinguished campuses--Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst--and offers qualified students exceptional resources to pursue advanced study in history. Our goal is to offer a small, high quality program with a low student-faculty ratio and ample opportunity for participation in seminars, lecture courses, and individual instruction.

MA and PhD programs are available in a variety of fields, especially in the history of the United States, Latin America, and Europe; among these is the nationally known and highly respected program in Public History. We offer a variety of historiography courses in U.S., European, Latin American, and World History. We also schedule a range of topical courses and research seminars. In recent years, these have explored social and cultural history, the history of work and labor, women's and gender history, public history, and the history of science and technology. Recent additions to the faculty have strengthened resources in the history of China, Pacific Empires, and the history of science.

B. Special Programs. Notable is the nationally respected program in Public History that draws on a network of museums, archives, historical societies, and historic preservation agencies from local institutions like Historic Deerfield and the Emily Dickinson Museum to the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the National Park Service, with opportunities for both internships and research. Among a rich variety of special collections are the W. E. B. Du Bois, Horace Mann Bond, and Daniel Ellsberg papers and the papers of the Hon. Silvio O. Conte at the University as well as important resources for Early America, especially New England, and Latin America. The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals, and other primary sources in women's history. The substantial collections of the American Antiquarian Society are nearby in Worcester, Massachusetts.

C. Financial Aid. The program offers financial support to a number of qualified incoming graduate students each year. PhD students are offered four or five years of funding (depending on whether they have earned an M.A. before enrolling); we currently provide a stipend of $24,821.60 per year plus a waiver of tuition and most fees. Students pursuing the MA can receive funding on a semester basis; such support, awarded competitively on the basis of academic promise, ordinarily takes the form of renewable teaching assistantships, which currently provide a stipend of $12,410.80 per semester plus a waiver of tuition and most fees (students funded in either semester of an academic year receiver waivers for both semesters). In addition, several research, travel, and study grants are available to assist dissertation research. Support is also available, on a competitive basis, to allow students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Public History to accept unfunded or underfunded internships with history organizations.

D. Degree Requirements. Eight courses are required for the MA, and four for the PhD for students entering with an MA. Candidates are expected to prepare a number of fields, sit for exams (MA students prepare a portfolio of their work completed while in the program, while PhD students take traditional qualifying exams), prepare dissertations and theses, and demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language. Other requirements and more detailed descriptions should be checked at the History Department and Graduate School web sites.