About the PhD in Women’s Spirituality
Curriculum Overview
In addition to the 36 units of coursework, a PhD in Women's Spirituality requires that students take five 0 (zero) unity culminating course before advancing to candidacy.
Applicants to the PhD program must have completed an MA degree prior to enrollment. Students admitted with an MA in a field other than philosophy, religion, women's studies, or women's spirituality may need to take up to 18 supplemental units from the Women's Spirituality curriculum. If some of the student's masters-level coursework included an examination of gender and/or religion, those courses may count toward the 18 supplemental units.
I. Required Foundation Courses - 19 units (20 units for semi-distance students)
A. PARW 6054 Women's Spirituality: Personal, Academic, and Ecosocial Jusice Practice (required only for semi-distance students: counts as a required elective)
B. PARW 6500 Contemporary Women's Spirituality or
PARW 6786 Embodying the Present: Women's Spirituality (online)
C. PARW 6027 Foundational Elements of Academic Research and Writing (residential or online option)
D. PARW ---- Women's Mysteries, Sacred Arts, and Healing
E. PARW 7118 Women and World Religions: Historical Perspective (residential or hybrid option)
F. Womanist Feminist and Ecofeminist Philosophies and Activism: 3 units
G. PARW 7609-01
II. Areas of Emphasis - 6 units
III. Electives - 8 units
IV. Foreign Language Proficiency - Noncredit
V. Culminating Coursework
If relevant, students may be required to take additional courses to support and enhance their academic writing skills.
Length of Study
The required preliminary coursework for the PhD degree may be completed in five semesters or two-and-a-half years if the student is enrolled full-time and successfully completes all academic course requirements. After the preliminary coursework is completed, PhD students require several additional semesters in order to complete their comprehensive exams, their proposal writing course, and their advanced research course. Once the dissertation committee has been constituted and the dissertation proposal has been completed and approved, PhD students work closely with the chair of their dissertation committee to devise a timeline for the research and writing of their dissertation. CIIS requires that students spend a minimum of one year engaged in research and writing the dissertation. Full-time PhD students who have elected to work through the summers may be able to complete their PhD in five to six years, but part-time PhD students and those with particular research needs will usually need more time.
