2008-2009 Program Requirements for UCLA Graduate Degrees

Applicable only to students admitted during the 2008-2009 academic year.

Conservation of Archeological and Ethnographic Materials

Admission

Master's Degree

Advising

The director of the program serves as the graduate adviser. Each student selects a faculty adviser who agrees to serve as the student's committee chair and principal adviser. Student progress toward the degree is discussed each academic quarter by members of the Faculty Advisory Committee. In addition, students (and their advisers) receive a written checklist of their progress each quarter.

Areas of Study

Students should consult the program.

Foreign Language Requirement

Demonstration of proficiency in at least one modern foreign language is required. There are two options for fulfilling this requirement: (1) complete the third course in an introductory, regular sequence of the selected language at UCLA with a grade of A or A-; or (2) take a reading examination administered by the program.

Course Requirements

A minimum of 72 units of graduate coursework taken for a letter grade are required, to be distributed as follows: 16 core courses; up to three elective courses in related departments, such as Anthropology, World Arts and Cultures, Materials Science and Engineering, Atmospheric Sciences, etc.; and one research project completed through enrollment in a 500-series course.

Teaching Experience

Not required.

Field Experience

Twelve months of internship work are required: one three-month summer internship between the first and second years of study, and one nine-month internship following the second year of study. To expose the student to both field and institutional environments, it is preferred but not required that one internship be associated with a field project and the other be within a museum or similar field experience that includes an archaeological excavation project, an ethnology field project, work at an indigenous cultural center, or other similar venues. All intern placement must be pre-approved by the program and will be developed in collaboration between the student and faculty.

Comprehensive Examination Plan

None.

Thesis Plan

Each student organizes a research project in consultation with an appropriate adviser no later than the end of the fourth quarter of study. The research project includes some or all of the following aspects of conservation research and practice: examination of archaeological and/or ethnographic artifacts, assessment of the cultural context, analysis, experimentation with treatment or analysis techniques, and conservation treatment. The project likewise stresses the establishment of a research methodology that guides the development of the project. The results are presented in a paper of approximately 30 pages to a three-member master's thesis committee for evaluation.  In light of the number of courses required for the degree program, students should carefully consider the subject and scope of their proposed thesis in terms of the feasibility to complete it within the time-to-degree guidelines for the program.

Time-to-Degree

The M.A. degree is to be completed within three years.

Termination of Graduate Study and Appeal of Termination

University Policy

A student who fails to meet the above requirements may be recommended for termination of graduate study. A graduate student may be disqualified from continuing in the graduate program for a variety of reasons. The most common is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.00) required by the Academic Senate to remain in good standing (some programs require a higher grade point average). Other examples include failure of examinations, lack of timely progress toward the degree and poor performance in core courses. Probationary students (those with cumulative grade point averages below 3.00) are subject to immediate dismissal upon the recommendation of their department. University guidelines governing termination of graduate students, including the appeal procedure, are outlined in Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.

Special Departmental or Program Policy

In addition to the reasons noted above, a student may be recommended for termination for failure to fulfill the foreign language requirement or an unsatisfactory master's thesis. A student may appeal a recommendation for termination through a request for a hearing before the Executive Committee.

Page 1 -- Archaeology

Program Requirements

Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials