Doctoral Program

The CUSSW doctoral program is widely considered the home of social work leaders – the school has educated more deans and faculty for schools of social work than any other. Most candidates in the Ph.D. program seek positions in academia, or as researchers, teachers, or senior administrators in government or nonprofit agencies.

The Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work is offered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and is administered by the School of Social Work. Students choose a method of concentration – advanced practice; social policy and policy analysis; or social policy and administration. In each sequence, students do intensive work in research methodology and statistics in connection with their own career planning.

Course Requirements

The student’s program is individually arranged from the CUSSW advanced courses listed below and from courses available in other professional schools and graduate divisions of the University. Normally students are required to complete a minimum of 49.5 credits. At least 30 points must be completed within the University. Of these, 18 must be taken in the School of Social Work. A typical program includes six points in the student’s social work method, nine points in social or behavioral science courses, 21 points in research methodology and statistics, three points in history and philosophy of social welfare, and three points in a substantive field of practice. Students concentrating in policy analysis must also take a minimum of two courses in microeconomics. All candidates must spend at least three consecutive terms in full-time residence (three consecutive terms during which nine or more points are earned in each term).

Students are also required to complete a 360-hour research practicum and a dissertation seminar. On completion of all course requirements and with recommendation from the faculty advisor, students complete a written and oral comprehensive exam. On completion of all program requirements except the dissertation, students are awarded an M.Phil. degree. Dissertation topics must be approved and proposals completed one year following the comprehensive examinations. The degree is awarded after the oral defense and depossit of the dissertation. A continuing registration fee is due each term that a student is not taking courses or research instruction.

Admission Requirements

Admission requirements for the Ph.D. program include:

• a Master's degree in social work (or a related field) from an accredited U.S. or Canadian university
• an M.S.W. degree (required) with two years post-M.S.W. practice experience strongly preferred for those applying to the advanced practice concentration
• a personal statement
• all graduate and undergraduate transcripts
• three letters of recommendation.
• GRE scores
• For international students whose native language is not English, TOEFL scores are required unless they have earned their Master's degree at an institution in an English-speaking country.

Students with graduate degrees in other fields may be admitted to the policy or administration concentrations.

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Admission Procedures

Applications for the doctoral program, including all supporting materials and the application fee ($225 for paper applications, $65 if submitted online) should be filed by January 2.

Application materials, including information on financial aid, are available in the Doctoral Office (Room 919, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027) or online at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ssw/phdprogram/admissions. Links to the online application as well as the downloadable PDF version, can be found on the above web page.

Within four weeks of the date of acceptance, an accepted applicant for the Ph.D. is required to pay a nonrefundable pre-registration fee that will be credited toward tuition.

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Courses

In addition to the minimum 18 points taken within the School of Social Work, twelve or more of the points required for the doctoral degree may be taken in other graduate facilities or professional schools of the University.

Doctoral students are also eligible to take courses at other area universities participating in the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium.

Academic advisors are assigned to all doctoral candidates for program planning and guidance.

Not all courses are given every year. To ascertain which of the following courses will be given in each of the next two years and their times, consult the separate Registrar’s Directory of Classes or www.columbia.edu/cu/registrar.

T8002 Doctoral Proseminar in Social Work Research
0 points. Required of all degree candidates. The proseminar introduces incoming students to social work research enterprise and the broad range of faculty at the School and their scholarly activities. It also provides some ongoing group advisement.

T8003-T8004 Advanced Tutorial Courses
3 points. Field of practice tutorials (T8003) offer students a venue in which to focus, with the guidance of faculty experts, on research and readings related to their respective areas of substantive interest.  Students solicit faculty with expertise in their area to initiate a tutorial. Students and faculty may also initiate other pertinent non-field of practice oriented tutorials under course number T8004.

T8202 Ecosystems Perspective: Theory, Research and Practice
3 points. Required for degree candidates in the advanced practice sequence. This course focuses on the exploration of the knowledge bases and research issues for the understanding and supply of (1) the transactions between people and their environment and (2) related practice.

T8203 Seminar in Advanced Social Work Practice
3 points. Required for degree candidates in the advanced practice sequence. This seminar is designed to examine issues in the development and research of knowledge for social work practice.

T8403 Social Administration
3 points. Required for degree candidates in the administration sequence. This is a course on basic macro and micro organizational theory and research designed to give students a grounding for their dissertation research. General organizational theory as well as human service organizational theory is covered.  Depending on the interests of students in the class, there also are opportunities to explore more specific organizational theory and research to allow students to advance their research interests.  Since human services now occur in all three sectors, the course prepares students for interests in the nonprofit, public and for-profit sectors, and for cross sector activities.   This is a reading intensive course that requires students to critically examine diverse organizational phenomena.

T8404 Comparative Social Policy
3 points. Required for policy and administration students. This course introduces the student to the literature and data on social policies across the world. Most of the readings focus on similarities and differences within the rich world, but attention is also paid to policies in low and middle income countries. Students work in small teams to produce a paper with a quantitative analysis of differences in policies or outcomes across countries.

T8407 Seminar in Social Policy Analysis
3 points. Required for Social Policy and Policy Analysis. This course is designed to enhance students' ability to conduct social policy analysis by acquainting them with several key analytic tools, e.g., cost-benefit analysis, literature reviews, regression analysis, social experimentation, and micro-simulation analysis.

T8502 Research Methods in Social Work
3 points. The course provides a review of research methods from the perspective of social work research concerns. Topics include problem formulation, research design, data-gathering techniques, measurement, and data analysis. Selected aspects of these areas encountered in social work research are intensively reviewed.

T8505 Dissertation Seminar
1.5 points. Required of all doctoral candidates. Through the discussion of problem formulation and research design on participant-suggested topics, this seminar facilitates the formulation of doctoral candidates’ dissertation proposals.

T8506 Inequality, Poverty and Public Society (elective)
3 points. Addressing issues relating to wealth and income inequality in American society, including the definition of poverty, the composition of the poverty population, and the causes of poverty, this course examines evidence regarding trends in inequality, duration of poverty spells, repeat stays on welfare, and the perpetuation of inequality across generations. Several large data sets, which contain information on inequality and poverty issues, are made available for class use. Either individually, or in teams, students formulate research projects and undertake analyses from one or more of the data sets in the formulation and execution of a research study.

T8507 Intervention Research Methods (elective)
3 points. Focusing on the science of behavioral intervention research, this course provides students with the knowledge and skills to design and evaluate such research. Topics covered include: research design, theory and its relationship to study aims, methodology, measurement and outcomes, efficacy and effectiveness clinical trials, different types of intervention research, sampling, recruitment, the process of intervention development, the use of process measures to examine intervention implementation, assessing fidelity and adherence, conducting data analysis, and the importance of research ethics.

T8509 Qualitative Research Methods I (elective)
3 points. Prerequisite: T8502.  The first part of a two-semester sequence course designed to introduce students to the theory, method, and practice of qualitative research. Different approaches to inquiry and methods of qualitative research are examined, as are ethical issues and analytic strategies. Students are required to conduct a small study in the area of their choosing.

T8510 Qualitative Research Methods II (elective)
3 points. Prerequisite: T8509 or permission of instructor.  The second part of a two-semester sequence course designed to introduce students to the theory, method, and practice of qualitative research.

T8511 Advanced Methods for Policy Analysis (elective)
3 points. This advanced course focuses on the use of empirical methods in policy analysis. Through a series of directed readings on major policy topics, students learn how policy research methods have been used and what their strengths and limitations are.

T8801 Changing Histories of Social Work and Social Welfare
3 points. Required of all degree candidates. Taken in the first semester, this course provides a comparative historical and philosophical perspective on the development of social welfare and social work institutions, concepts, issues and paradigms in the U.S. and two other nations or parts of the world.

T9800 Doctoral Research Instruction
6 points. Doctoral candidates must register for 6 credits of research instruction, usually in the 5th semester. The faculty provides supervision and consultation to doctoral candidates in the course of their selection of the dissertation topic, carrying out the prescribed research, and writing the dissertation. Library privileges are included.

T0001/T0003 Continuing Doctoral Registration
0 points. All degree candidates who are not registered for any courses or research instruction are required to maintain their matriculation status by registering and paying a fee each term until completion of the degree. Students under the flat-fee tuition system should register for T0003.

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