Grad School Drops Mandatory Residency Rule

The Graduate School will drop a long-standing residence requirement and allow graduate students to complete degrees without a full-time presence on campus.

Effective Sept. 1, the change helps recognize new types of delivery of graduate courses, says Lois Beecham, assistant dean of the Graduate School. Students have more opportunity to take UW–Madison courses at off-campus locations, through video technology or through the Internet, she says.

The school’s executive committee approved the change this month. The residence requirement will be replaced with a new credit requirement that outlines the minimum number of credits required for advanced degrees. The minimum for master’s degrees is 16 credits; for master of fine arts and specialist’s degrees, 24 credits; and for Ph.D. and doctor of musical arts, 32 credits.

“The concept of having to be in residence for a graduate degree has really fallen by the wayside for the past 15 years,” Beecham says. “We’re bringing our policies up to speed with what is actually happening out there.”

Each program will have its own minimum requirements and the 16-credit number is treated as a baseline minimum, Beecham says. Some units may also choose to retain some level of residence requirement if it is central to the degree.

Residence rules were a bigger issue in Ph.D. programs than they were with master’s degrees, Beecham says. They especially created problems for full-time professionals pursuing advanced degrees. For example, Beecham says that school principals seeking an educational administration doctorate had trouble getting two semesters off from jobs.

Beecham says the committee agreed that the new minimum credit requirements help protect the integrity of the degree.