Resources

Doctoral students should review the doctoral program policies and procedures prior to the start of each academic year.

All PhD students are required to meet with their faculty advisors for an annual student progress review. The reviews will be submitted to the Department’s Graduate Studies Committee, which will determine whether satisfactory progress is being made and students are eligible to proceed to complete their graduate work. The College’s Graduate Office will receive a copy of each student’s review.

Students are required to complete two qualifying events and a dissertation proposal to advance to candidacy.

1. A comprehensive exam on the common four-course core requirements: policy seminar, research methods, quantitative methods (statistics), and qualitative methods. The comprehensive exam assesses the student’s knowledge of the common core curriculum. This exam should occur as soon as possible after these core courses are completed. The program director will coordinate the content of the exam with the faculty of the core courses. This is a written take-home exam testing the knowledge of the content of the core curriculum. Students will be given the questions and have a time limit of five days to complete the exam. Students must pass the exam to proceed.
2. A concentration specific qualification hurdle that will be either a publishable literature review or a directed qualifying task or assignment, taken after the concentration required theory or seminar course, and/or summer research residency. The program director and the student’s concentration advisor will coordinate and agree on the form of this qualifying task. It should advance the student towards the development of a dissertation proposal.

Each doctoral student must complete a dissertation that embodies the results of extended research in a field of study, advances theoretical knowledge, and makes an original contribution to the field and to policy or policy analysis. This work should give evidence of the candidate’s ability to carry out independent investigation and interpret the results of the research in a logical manner. The dissertation can be organized in one of two ways: (1) as a full-length monograph based on a set of specific and related research questions/hypotheses, or (2) as three papers of publishable quality. At least one of the individual papers must be empirical, i.e. employ either primary or secondary data (or both) in analyzing specific research questions or hypotheses.

No dissertation committee shall have fewer than three faculty members, two of whom shall full time employees of Northeastern University. The chair of the dissertation committee (the student’s advisor) will be a full-time tenured or tenure-track member of the faculty of Northeastern University and will hold an appropriate doctoral degree or equivalent. A non-tenure track research faculty member may chair a dissertation committee if he or she holds an appropriate doctorate and has received the approval to do so from the tenured and tenure-track faculty members of the unit(s) in which his or her appointment resides. Upon establishing the committee, the student should notify the Graduate Office.

Once the Dissertation committee agrees that the dissertation is ready to defend, the student and the committee will establish a date and time for the defense. The student will assume responsibility for notifying the Graduate Program Office (gradcssh@northeastern.edu) and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities Graduate Office of when the defense will take place, as detailed in the Guide to the Preparation and Submission of Theses and Dissertations and that the defense will be publicly advertised for at least two weeks prior to the scheduled date.

This oral exam will be taken after completion of all other degree requirements and must be held at least four weeks prior to the commencement at which the degree is to be awarded. The student and at least two committee members, including the advisor, must be physically present at the defense. All internal and external committee members are expected to participate in the defense. If the committee is not satisfied that the dissertation meets the requirements of a satisfactory dissertation specified above, members may request that the student make revisions before depositing the dissertation or that second defense be scheduled. Note commencement deadlines when scheduling the defense.

PhD candidates must submit this form at least 2 weeks before they plan to defend their proposal/dissertation.

PhD students should use this form to submit accomplishments like publications, presentations, and awards that they would like added to their student profiles.

Master’s students should review the master’s program policies and procedures prior to the start of each academic year.

Students in the Criminology and Criminal Justice Master’s Program can review Frequently Asked Questions. Questions not covered in the FAQs should be directed to the Graduate Program Coordinator.

Students should complete the SCCJ PlusOne Over-ride Request Form to indicate which CRIM and/or INSH course(s) they need an over-ride for.

Students interested in the Bachelor’s in Criminology and Criminal Justice can request information from the Undergraduate Admissions Office.

Undergraduates in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice can apply for our SCCJ “in house” scholarships, many of which were established by families to honor their criminal justice students and alumni. SCCJ emails all students annually when the online applications become open to applicants.

Prospective students should view our admissions requirements and deadlines prior to submitting their applications for our degree programs.

Current students are welcome to join various student organizations including Alpha Phi Sigma, the Criminal Justice Student Advisory Council, and the Graduate Student Association.