A. Program Description. Columbia has been one of the most important centers of graduate education in history since modern PhD programs began in America over a century ago, and the recipients of our degrees hold distinguished positions in virtually every major university in the United States, and in many abroad. Our program offers a broad education in most areas of historical scholarship and attempts to train students for a discipline and a profession in the midst of considerable change. That includes not simply assisting students in acquiring the knowledge and skills essential to becoming contributing scholars, but also helping them to become effective teachers and to exist comfortably within a demanding and complicated professional world.

B. Special Programs. Our strength derives not only from the distinction of our faculty and the talents of our students, but also from the University and the city in which we reside. Columbia provides rich physical and intellectual resources for historians. It has one of the nation's largest and greatest university libraries. It has departments of considerable distinction in many areas of interest to historians, whose faculties interact extensively with ours. It has one of the nation's great law schools, with a legal history faculty that shares with us a law and history program. It has one of the nation's great medical schools and one of its leading public health schools, with a program in the history of medicine and public health run jointly with our department. It has a School of Public and International Affairs and some of the nation's oldest and most important area studies programs, which offer opportunities for interdisciplinary work on many areas of the world. And it has one of America's premier women's colleges, our neighbor and partner Barnard, whose distinguished history department is closely associated with our own.

C. Financial Aid. Students admitted into the PhD program receive a five-year fellowship, which includes five years of summer funding. Three years of service as a teaching assistant is required.

D. Degree Requirements. Students must complete two years of coursework, pass language examinations, pass oral examinations in four subfields, and defend a dissertation to receive the PhD