Book of Hours, the Netherlands, second half of 15th century Medieval Studies Program Description

Cornell’s Medieval Studies Program is designed to provide students with expertise and professional success in the fields of particular departments, the members of whom will likely form the majority of the students’ Special Committees.  But Medieval Studies also presents graduate students with combinations of scholars in clusters of study that might not be as visible in traditionally defined departmental graduate training.  At the right are listed just some of the possible clusters of graduate study available in Medieval Studies, with the names of members of the Medieval Studies Graduate Field who regularly teach and mentor students in those clusters, and some information about courses or other resources.  For further information about individual faculty listed here, see http://www.arts.cornell.edu/medieval/People/faculty.htm.

This section also contains information for undergraduates and from Cornell University's Procedural Guide for the graduate field of Medieval Studies, in addition to a comprehensive list of the Medieval Studies course offerings since 1993. More information on student life is available under the "People" heading.

Further Information
 Program Overview

Archaeology; Art History; Asian Studies; Celtic Studies; English Literature and Language; Gender and Sexuality Studies; German Studies and Germanic Philology; History; Iberian Peninsula Studies; Latin Language and Literature; Linguistics; Literary and Critical Theory; Musicology; Near Eastern Studies; Old Norse Studies; Paleography and Textual Studies; Philosophy; Romance Literary and Linguistic Studies; Russian Language and Literature

 Cornell University Facilities

 Undergraduate Minor in MS

 Procedural Guide for the Graduate Field of MS

 Course Descriptions

Procedural Guide
for the graduate field of Medieval Studies
(revised August 2005)

Table of Contents

THE PROGRAM IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES

Incompletes in Courses

Course work should be completed as soon as required by the instructor, and students should be alert to the many dangers of excessive numbers of incompletes. How many are too many? Both the Graduate School and the field have certain stipulations concerning the completion of courses after the term in which the course was offered:

Field rules: A student has too many incompletes if he or she has more than one after one semester, or more than two at any other point in his or her career. The majority of a graduate student's work for courses should be completed shortly after the end of the term, if not actually within the term. The graduate student's semester is often considered to end about a month after the close of the undergraduate semester, but faculty establish their own deadlines in this as in other course matters. The Field expects students to make up all Incompletes by the time of their A-exams. The faculty will take account of extraordinary circumstances and can make some exceptions.

Graduate School rules: Incompletes (INC) or "No Grade Reported" (NGR) may be removed within one year from the date of the end of the semester in which the INC or NGR was given. To remove these later than one year after the course has ended, the student must submit a Course Enrollment Petition. If this is approved, the instructor can then submit a Manual Grade Form.

Students should realize that Incompletes -- especially in their main fields of concentration -- may disqualify them from fellowship competitions.

Chairs of special committees are expected to monitor students' progress towards the degree. The Director also reviews student transcripts on a regular basis, and will notify any graduate student who appears to be progressing less than satisfactorily toward the degree.