Graduate Program

          Founded over a half century ago (1969), the Curriculum in African and Afro-American Studies was created during a historical moment shaped by profound and often disruptive change as many institutions of higher education sought to define and embrace more inclusive academic and societal missions. The curriculum, like other programs established in this milieu, was a product of the protests of student activists—in this case, the UNC-CH Black Student Movement—who demanded an education that reflected awareness of and sensitivity to the cultural, intellectual, and historical legacies and contributions of people of African descent. In common with some older disciplines (e.g., Sociology), African/African American Studies emerged as a new field to address and understand societal structures, formations, and realities produced by both inequality and social change. In this context, African/African American Studies has transformed and matured in ways characteristic of other new academic disciplines, attending to tasks of highlighting uniqueness, defining boundaries, establishing legitimacy, and finally, perpetuating itself by training new scholars attuned to its perspectives, imperatives, and exemplars.

             In recent years, the fields of African American Studies and African Studies have nurtured and interfaced with expansive, diasporic conceptions of African/Black identity and community, traversing geographies and time to embrace a truly global understanding of the histories, cultures, and knowledge systems of African-descended peoples. Although initially informed by and primarily attentive to the Black experience in North America (particularly in what became the United States), these new diasporic paradigms have charted the lifeworlds of Africans across various locations and temporalities, producing rich literatures and curricular innovations related to the African diasporas in Latin America, Europe, the Indian Ocean littoral, East Asia, and other areas. Having become a department in 1997, African and Afro-American Studies here at UNC-CH was indelibly impacted by these transformations in how Africa and Africans have articulated their presence(s) and meaning(s) in the world over the past several centuries, as well as how scholars have attempted to capture and represent these realities through intellectual inquiry, probing fieldwork, pedagogical expressions, and publications. Whether in terms of its multidisciplinary mix of faculty, course offerings, or collective trajectory, the department has endeavored to maintain its traditional strengths in African Studies and African American Studies, while embracing new categories of analysis and investigative tools that take into account the imperative to comprehend Black experiences in a globalized context. That is, grander conceptions of diaspora—complemented by interpretive study of both the diasporic model itself and its applicability to specific contexts—and its complicated connections to Africa and the rest of the world over time inform much of our work, a development that mirrors changes in the larger (inter)disciplinary field. In conceding that nomenclature matters when it comes to academic enterprises, the unit renamed itself the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies in 2013 to reflect this intellectual direction and programmatic ethos.

            While the name of the department has changed over the past decade, the core mission and objectives of the program have remained largely consistent over its half century of existence. In essence, the unit continues to be dedicated to the creation and diffusion of knowledge about the lives and experiences of people of African descent all over the world. Its multi-/interdisciplinary roots and subject-area configuration brings together anthropologists, historians, political scientists, literary scholars, linguists, religious studies experts, and others to produce a wide spectrum of erudition and methodological approaches that enrich both the student experience at Carolina and the intellectual discourse that is possible in such an academic environment. In common with the University’s strategic plan, “Carolina Next: Innovations for the Public Good,” the department embodies the objectives of building community, strengthening student access (particularly among those who have historically faced exclusion and margination), enabling career development, promoting a culture of democracy and public service, and providing graduates with the skills and experiences needed to operate and prosper in an increasingly globalized world. From our robust array of course offerings and our wealth of scholarly publications to our African Languages Program and study-abroad initiatives, AAAD has been a model of the kind of versatile liberal arts education and cultural literacy that UNC-CH prides itself on providing to successive generations of students and to the larger society.

The AAAD Department’s application deadline for enrollment in Fall 2025 is December 10, 2024. The online application and all supporting documents should be submitted by this deadline. Please note that students are considered for admission only for the fall term.

In preparation for your application, please review the faculty’s areas of interest and consider contacting faculty members you might be interested in working with.

The Department does not require the submission of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) scores. However, international applicants should review the applicable guidelines of the University Graduate School and proceed accordingly. Applicants from non-English-speaking countries or who have received degrees from institutions where English was not the sole language of instruction are required to submit TOEFL or IELTS scores (no more than two years old).

In addition to the University’s required application materials, applicants should review the information below for additional expectations or application requirements.*

1. Statement of Purpose: In polished prose, this document should clearly and concisely discuss your academic background, intellectual interests, the kind(s) of research that you hope to engage in at UNC-CH, the reason(s) that you are pursuing an AAAD graduate degree, and your prospective career trajectory and aspirations post-graduation. Moreover, you should identify at least two AAAD professors (from the core faculty members listed on the department’s website) with whom you would like to work. The statement of purpose should not be more than three single-spaced pages in length.
2. Writing Sample: This document should be a single-authored, article-length (approximately 15-20 page) manuscript that demonstrates your ability to conduct original research, construct arguments, evaluate and cite evidence, and engage academic literature with familiarity. The sample should be an academic paper, whether a term or seminar paper, honors thesis, research report, or other scholarly writing in a subject area or field related or adjacent to Africana Studies. If you do not have an academic paper to submit, you may submit another substantial piece of professional writing.
3. Area of Interest is a required field via the Area of Interest/Specialization drop-down box within your application.  Please select all that apply to your application, such as a geographic area like Africa or North America and a thematic area like Histories of the Africana World or Gender, Sexuality, and Feminism.
4. Letters of Recommendation: Three letters of recommendation are required, ideally from academic writers (for example, current or former professors) who can discuss in an informed way your academic background, intellectual interests, and preparedness for advanced, graduate-level study. Please note that letters of recommendation should be uploaded electronically, within the Graduate School’s online application. The Graduate School’s website details this process here. UNC does not accept letters of recommendation via the mail or the electronic submission of letters via email, Interfolio, or similar formats.
5. CV or resume: Your application materials should include a recent curriculum vitae (CV) or resume.

 

*Fee waivers: The Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies will support a limited number of application fee waivers for international/non-U.S. applicants. To be considered for a fee waiver, please download and complete the fee waiver form and send it as an email attachment to aaad@unc.edu. Please include the words “application fee waiver request” in the subject line of your email. The deadline for submission of the form is November 15, 2024, 11:59pm eastern standard time.

After you have submitted your application fee waiver request, please allow several days for your request to be reviewed by the Department. We will send additional information, including status updates, via email on or before December 1, 2024, at 11:59 eastern. Please note: This is a fee waiver process and not a fee payment reimbursement process. Once the application fee is paid by either check or credit card, a waiver or reimbursement is no longer an option.

GRADUATE STUDY TRAJECTORY: M.A./Ph.D.

 

Year 1 The department admits all incoming students into a major geographic field. Further, each student enrolls in 9 credit hours of courses per semester (total of 18), including the following seminars: AAAD 700 (Fall); AAAD 800 (Spring) AAAD 703 (Fall); AAAD 870 (Spring).
Year 2  The department requires students to declare two major thematic concentrations within the major geographic field, as well as a minor geographic field by the end of the third semester of enrollment. Each student’s total number of credit hours should equal at least 30 by the end of the second semester of the second year. Additionally, the department requires all students to participate in the Fourth-Semester Review. Students will also participate in an oral defense of the M.A. research project, as well as enroll in AAAD 992.
Year 3  The Ph.D. student completes an additional 12 credit hours of coursework (for a total of 42 credit hours). Starting by the summer between Years 2 and 3, the student works with a committee of three faculty members (two representing the major geographic field and major thematic concentrations*, and one representing the minor geographic field) to prepare reading lists in preparation for the Comprehensive Examination. The student participates in the Comprehensive Examination during the first or second semester of Year 3. Additionally, students prepare and defend the Dissertation Prospectus by the end of the second semester of Year 3, in consultation with a committee of five faculty members. The student should be registered for at least 3 credit hours of Doctoral Research and Dissertation (AAAD 994) during the semester in which the Dissertation Prospectus is defended. *Thematic Concentrations include: Literary Studies & Cultural Production; Gender, Sexuality, & Feminist Studies; Public Policy, Environment, and Social Change; and Histories of the Africana World.
Year 4  The Ph.D. student is eligible to apply to the University Graduate School for formal doctoral candidacy (ABD status). The focus of Year 4 should be dissertation research and preparation.
Year 5  During Year 5, the Ph.D. student completes the dissertation and participates in an oral defense of the work. The student should be registered for at least 3 credit hours of Doctoral Research and Dissertation (AAAD 994) during the semester in which the Dissertation is defended.

 

Ph.D. PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS  

The department requires all students enrolled in the Ph.D. program to complete an initial 30 credit hours of coursework. This coursework counts toward satisfying the requirements of an M.A. degree in Africana Studies. Based on the approval of the DGS, students can transfer up to 6 credit hours of coursework from another graduate program. At least 18 credit hours must be taken within AAAD. Students enrolled in the graduate program must complete the coursework below: 

AAAD 700: Africana Social Theories (3 credit hours)

AAAD 703: Professional Development: Teaching and Beyond (3 credits)

AAAD 800: Africana Studies/Black Methodologies (3 credit hours)

AAAD 870: Social Movements in the Africana World (3 credit hours)

AAAD 992: Thesis Substitute registration (3 credit hours)

Additional coursework (15 credit hours)

 

Additionally, students must complete a research project and undergo a Fourth-Semester Review. The M.A degree’s research project is based on original research, fieldwork, or other creative activity and informed by the student’s major geographic field and thematic concentrations. The Thesis Substitute course (AAAD 992) is the required course for this project, which students complete under the direction of the primary advisor. Additionally, each student must participate in a review in the fourth semester of their graduate work. This review consists of a scheduled meeting between the student, the primary advisor, and two other faculty members with whom the student has worked and/or taken courses. At least two members of the review committee must be AAAD faculty members, and the student’s advisor should inform the DGS of both the time and place of the review prior to its occurrence. Students should provide the review committee with the M.A. research project several weeks prior to the meeting. The student should be prepared to discuss the Project in detail, including its significance and contribution to the field. The Fourth-Semester Review confirms the awarding of the master’s degree, assuming completion of all degree requirements by the end of the fourth semester and a successful oral defense of the M.A. research project.

 

Furthermore, students pursuing a Ph.D. in Africana Studies need to complete an additional 12 credit hours of coursework, beyond the 30 credit hours taken in completion of the M.A. requirements. Students are required to complete the following additional coursework:

AAAD 900: Seminar in dissertation planning (3 credit hours)         

AAAD 994: Dissertation registration (3 credit hours)

Additional coursework (6 credit hours)

 

Language Training

The department requires all Ph.D. students to demonstrate proficiency in at least one language other than English. The language requirement may be satisfied by successful completion of a university-administered language test. Moreover, a student with a B.A. or M.A. degree in the study of a language other than English would be considered proficient in that language. With prior consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies, a student may fulfill the language requirement by earning at least a “B” in an approved language course. In all cases, the language requirement should be satisfied by the first semester of Ph.D. candidacy (ABD status). For students specializing in certain geographic and/or thematic concentrations, proficiency in an additional language may be necessary.

 

Fourth-Semester Review

Each student pursuing a Ph.D. degree must participate in a review in the fourth semester of their graduate work. This review consists of a scheduled meeting between the student, the primary advisor, and two other faculty members with whom the student has worked and/or taken courses. At least two members of the review committee must be AAAD faculty members. The student’s primary advisor should inform the DGS of both the time and place of the review prior to its occurrence.

For students on the Ph.D. track, the Fourth-Semester Review determines whether the student is making sufficient progress in the doctoral program. Prior to the review, the student should make available to the review committee at least two papers completed during their time in the AAAD graduate program. One of these writing samples must be a research paper or another substantive piece of original work, aside from the M.A. Project. During the review, the student and the review committee will discuss the submitted works and the student’s plans in the next phase of their graduate studies. Students will receive feedback during the review concerning their academic progress in the program and advisement regarding continuing enrollment. If the student has satisfactorily completed the requisite 30 credit hours of coursework and successfully defended the M.A. research project, they will be awarded the M.A. degree regardless of whether they opt to leave the program or to continue. 

 

The Ph.D. Comprehensive Examination

Students will take the Comprehensive Examination by the end of either the first or second semester of the third year of enrollment in the graduate program. This written assessment will be administered by a committee of three faculty members: two representing the student’s major geographic field and thematic concentrations, and one representing the minor geographic field. The student, in consultation with each of the committee members, will construct a reading list for each of the three exam areas (i.e., a list for each of the two major thematic concentration in the major geographic field, and a list for the minor geographic field). Each of the three lists should be comprised of 30-35 readings, with most being books of substantial relevance to the content areas in which the student is to be tested. The exam will be comprised of three main questions associated with each of the three reading lists. The committee members should design the questions with the student’s chosen specializations and record of coursework in mind. Prior to the exam, the committee should also submit the exam questions to the DGS for the purposes of soliciting feedback, maintaining consistent standards across student exams, and record keeping. The student is required to answer each question as thoroughly as possible, and the DGS shares the department’s requirements for the comprehensive examination with students in advance. The student is allowed 8 hours to answer each question and may do so wherever they choose. The entire exam (all three questions) must be completed over a single 45-day period, with no more than one part of the exam being taken in a single day. 

Each part of the exam will be graded according to the following grading system of the University Graduate School: H (High Pass), P (Pass), L (Low Pass), and F (Fail). A student who receives an F on any part (or parts) of the exam will be allowed to retake that part (or parts) within 6 months. In these instances, a student choosing to take part(s) of the exam a second time may not do so sooner than 3 months after the initial exam and no later than 6 months beyond it. A second effort that results in failure of any part of the exam will make the student academically ineligible to continue in the graduate program. 

 

The Ph.D. Prospectus

After successfully completing the Comprehensive Examination, the department requires students to prepare a Dissertation Prospectus. This document should offer a detailed description of the dissertation project, its intended contributions to the field of study, its methodological and theoretical approaches, and the source materials that will constitute its evidentiary foundation. The student will be required to give an oral defense of the Prospectus, which will be attended by the committee and any member of the AAAD Department (faculty or students) who chooses to attend. The Prospectus defense should take place no later than the end of the second semester of the third year of enrollment. (For students who entered the Ph.D. program with at least 30 hours of approved M.A.- level coursework completed elsewhere, the Prospectus should be defended by the end of the second semester of Year 1 enrollment.) 

Students who successfully defend the Prospectus will become eligible to apply to the University Graduate School for formal doctoral candidacy. At that point, the last remaining requirement of the Ph.D. program is completion of the dissertation, and the student’s progress takes on “all but dissertation” (or ABD) status.

 

The Ph.D. Dissertation

The capstone requirement of the Ph.D. work is the dissertation.  With the prior approval of the student’s dissertation committee, this single-authored work can take either the form of (1) a book-length thesis based on original research and ideas or (2) three separate, journal-length papers on an overarching theme, with each paper being of publishable quality. Students should consult closely with their advisor and other dissertation committee members to determine which format is best suited to the standards of the student’s field(s) of study and career goals.  

The dissertation should be completed by the end of the fifth year of doctoral training. Only under extraordinary circumstances would the period of doctoral candidacy be extended.  Further, the department expects faculty members who serve on the Dissertation Prospectus committee to also constitute the dissertation committee. To fulfill the requirements of the doctoral degree, the student will need to submit a complete dissertation to the committee, in accordance with the guidelines and recommended format of the University Graduate School and participate in a defense of the thesis.

 

AFRICANA STUDIES GRADUATE MINOR

Master’s students enrolled in other programs at UNC-CH may pursue a graduate minor in Africana Studies in the AAAD Department. This course of study requires the approval of the AAAD DGS and the appropriate administrator in the student’s major department or school prior to the initiation of minor coursework.  Students must satisfactorily complete 9 credit hours of classes to fulfill the M.A. minor requirement.

Doctoral students enrolled in programs outside of the AAAD Department may pursue a Ph.D. minor in Africana Studies.  As with an M.A. minor, the doctoral minor requires advance approval of both the AAAD DGS and the appropriate administrator in the student’s major department or school. Students must satisfactorily complete 15 credit hours of classwork to satisfy the Ph.D. minor requirement.

 

GRADUATE ADVISING AND COMMITTEES 

The department assigns all incoming graduate students an official faculty advisor upon entering the program. These assignments are made by the DGS in consultation with the relevant faculty members. The geographic and/or thematic specialization(s) of the faculty advisor will ideally sync with the student’s research interests as expressed in their admission application to the graduate program. For a student’s Year 1 enrollment, all advisor assignments are considered preliminary and exploratory. By the beginning of Year 2 in the program, the student should settle on a primary advisor for their M.A.-level committee, who will also be expected to serve as committee chair for doctoral-level requirements (e.g., Comprehensive Examination, Ph.D. prospectus, dissertation, etc.). A semester prior to the Fourth-Semester Review, the student, after seeking the advice of the primary advisor, should approach other faculty members to serve on the M.A. committee. Students pursuing the Ph.D. may choose to reconfigure their committee at any time beyond the Fourth-Semester Review, although, again, it is assumed that the primary advisor will be the chair of the student’s Ph.D. committee and that wholesale revision of a committee’s membership will be an uncommon practice. Students should make any decision to reconfigure a committee during the exam, prospectus, or dissertation stages after seeking the advice of the primary advisor/committee chair and the Director of Graduate Studies and after receiving the written approval of the latter.

All students should meet with their primary advisor on a regular basis.

Below is a representative listing of the kinds of courses that students can expect to take during their training in the graduate program:

AAAD 700. Africana Social Theories. This course aims to engage with theoretical debates in the field of Africana Studies with a focus on key theoretical approaches to selected thematic issues as they pertain to people of African descent in Africa and the African Diaspora.

AAAD 701. Cultures of Colonialism in the Africana World. This course familiarizes participants with important scholarship on the colonial era in Africa and/or African diasporic regions (depending on the instructor’s area of expertise). Our focus is on the cultural dimension of colonialism, examining those ideologies and cultural apparatuses that drove colonial projects, as well as those that arose among the colonized as means of navigating/resisting/thriving within imposed systems. Education, religion, arts, sport, media, and medicine are fields of special concern.

AAAD 702. Muslim African Cosmopolitanism. This course explores how Muslim cultural practices and artistic expression in postcolonial Africa embody the histories and politics of multicultural encounters. Cosmopolitanism, which describes the transcultural aesthetics of a work of art (in music, performance, film, and literature), focuses on encounters between the self and the other, the local and the global, the familiar and the foreign, as well as the important ethical questions triggered by the ensuing frictions.

AAAD 703. Professional Development: Teaching and Beyond. This course pursues professional development through three aims. First, through readings and guided exercises, students are able to implement tools related to the teaching craft with a focus on teaching philosophies and pedagogy, syllabi development, and lesson planning. Second, students will discuss topics related to job placement and professional dynamics within academia, with a particular focus on issues faced by underrepresented faculty. Third, through guest lectures curated to student interests, they are exposed to diverse career pathways. 

AAAD 710. African Activism in the Social Media Era. This graduate seminar course is designed to empower students to critically examine their previous knowledge of race, gender, and social justice, emphasizing harnessing strategies and methodologies for effecting social change through community activism and the dynamic realm of social media.

AAAD 711. Gender and the Political Economy of Development in Africa. This seminar explores contemporary debates in the field of International Development Studies (IDS) with a particular focus on those pertaining to gender, masculinities, human rights, and sexuality drawing on empirical developments in Africa.

AAAD 715. Language and Politics in Africa. This course explores issues surrounding the politics of language in Africa from the creation of the imagined “nation-states” during colonization to the contemporary issues emanating from the realities of heterogeneous linguistic, ethnic, and cultural formations across the continent. Special attention is focused on African policy makers and institutions that have therefore been caught up in complex language policies and planning problems complicated by a legacy of imposed colonial languages.

AAAD 731. Crisis and Renewal in the American City. This course examines significant academic texts on the “great American city,” looking backward from the contemporary period at themes of race, place, class, crisis, and renewal that have attended urbanism, primarily focused on the US. Readings will examine cities that include Detroit, Oakland, Chicago, and Baltimore. Themes covered involve urban deindustrialization and renewal, racialized disinvestment, the politics of activism and power, public housing, and environmental toxicity.

AAAD 735. Black Southerners. This course is designed to offer students a deep historical exploration of the experiences of African Americans in the southern US states from the end of the American Civil War through the twentieth century. Much attention is given to activism, gender, labor, and community formation, as well as the ever-evolving nature of Black identities in the South and the larger nation.

AAAD 740. Womanist/Black Feminist Thought. This course explores the genealogy of Black feminist and womanist thought as intersecting theoretical frameworks. We will investigate the expansion of womanist thought from a theologically dominated discourse to a broader category of critical reflection associated with Black feminism, analyze the relationship between the two, and review their historical interventions.

AAAD 785. Histories of the African Diaspora. This course is designed to give students a broad-ranging historical perspective on the migration and settlement of African peoples in various parts of the world, largely over the past three centuries. Based on selected secondary readings, students will study and compare the ways in which people of African descent have created cultural and geographic communities outside of Africa, especially in the slave and post-emancipation societies of the Americas.

AAAD 787. Pan Africanism and Contemporary Black Internationalism. This course explores key philosophical, theoretical, and intellectual aspects of Pan-Africanism and Black Internationalism in the African diaspora. It will focus on the development and expression of Pan-Africanism and Black international projects in the western context, primarily the Americas.

AAAD 790. Black Feminist Ethnography. A graduate-level introduction to the renderings of Black feminist thought within various modalities of ethnographic practice and representation over time and across the African Diaspora. Explores how Black feminists have understood and pushed disciplinary boundaries through their innovations in method and theory.

AAAD 800. Africana/Black Studies Methodologies. Africana/Black Studies methodologies are conjoined through a shared grounding in a politics of Black liberation. Rather than prescribing a singular approach to Africana/Black Studies research, this graduate-level survey course celebrates the methodological innovations that have deepened our understanding of the modern world through the lens of Black experience.

AAAD 820. Dynamics of Constitutionalism in Africa: National and Regional Scales. This course examines the dynamics of constitutionalism in contemporary Africa.  It pays particular attention to the implications of constitutional making and remaking to institutional and political arrangements, and practices. Additionally, it explores the effects of constitutional developments on the land question, climate change, gender equality, the protection of human rights, and undercurrents of horizontal and social democratic accountability in terms of modalities of public power.

AAAD 830. Excavating the Archives: Research Methods in African American Cinema History. This class is designed to introduce graduate students to research methods that primarily center on researching African American cinema history. The course explores a wide range of methods created to heighten and refine the skills students need to develop specific research questions that guide their investigation and execution of a project.

AAAD 834. Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and the Making of the Modern World. This course examines the historical evolution of Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist ideologies and movements since the late nineteenth century. It is particularly concerned with the persistence of separatist political trends and cultural expressions among people of African descent across the diaspora(s), as well as the emergence and development of continental Pan-Africanism, decolonization movements, and Afro-Caribbean political projects.

AAAD 861. Caribbean Expressive Cultures.This course examines a wide range of Caribbean expressive forms including literature (fiction and non-fiction), poetry, film, music, and more in order to chart the historical entanglements between political mobilization and artistic production. Paying special attention to the artistic production of Caribbean women and queer writers and scholars, this seminar traces the evolution of the dynamic aesthetic, social, and political visions that have been generated by the region’s artists.

AAAD 870. Social Movements in the Africana World. This seminar examines the dynamics of Black social movements, broadly conceived, in Africa and the African diaspora. The focus is on ideologies and practices of political imagination and organization in different times and places. The course is chronological in organization, covering historical and contemporary social movements in Africa and the African diaspora.

AAAD 882. Health, Reproduction, and Inequality in Africa and the African Diaspora. This graduate seminar examines the ways that reproductive healthcare access and health itself are shaped by social, racial, and economic inequalities. Of particular interest will be the ways that negotiations over reproduction shed light on broader social conflicts, exposing the importance of centering questions of reproduction in social theory.

AAAD 886. Enslaved and Free Black Women in the African Diaspora. This course surveys some of the seminal texts that have shaped the field. Throughout the semester students will explore how Black feminist methods have both challenged and transformed traditional disciplines in pursuit of distinct conceptual frameworks, new narrative frames, and archival inquiry.

Students admitted into the AAAD Ph.D. program will be offered multi-year funding packages, primarily consisting of teaching assistantships (TA-ships). Incoming Ph.D. students will be eligible for five years (10 semesters) of support. TA-ships carry a competitive stipend that compensates 15 hours of work each week of the semester. Students receiving assistantships have their in-state tuition, fees, and health insurance covered. Beyond this initial period of support, ongoing students may apply for additional funding via service as TAs, but the granting of additional support will be based on the needs and resources of the department.

Beyond TA-ships, the department also provides summer research stipends for graduate students on a competitive basis. Moreover, our admissions committee nominates exceptional applicants for prestigious recruitment fellowships, and no additional application is required. Further, the University Graduate School also provides funding support for students, and their Graduate Funding Information Center website is regularly updated with funding opportunities.

Please note: Our admissions practices and funding priorities are geared toward the support of students applying to the Ph.D. program. Thus, applicants seeking a terminal M.A. degree in Africana Studies will receive consideration only following the admission and funding of Ph.D. applicants.

• Do you have an online program?
  • We do not offer online degrees at either the undergraduate or graduate level. Our graduate program is a full-time, on-site program.
• Do you offer a terminal M.A. degree?
  • No. We only admit students seeking a Ph.D. degree in Africana Studies, though they will earn a M.A. degree during the course of their doctoral studies and  training.
    
• Can an applicant be admitted directly into the Ph.D. program, bypassing M.A. requirements?
  • Under very specific and limited circumstances, an individual applying to our graduate program with at least 30 approved credit hours of graduate-level coursework from another institution may be admitted into the Ph.D. program after successfully petitioning to bypass the M.A. degree requirements. However, our admissions practices and funding priorities are geared toward the support of new graduate students applying to the Ph.D. program–that is, those planning to take the entire course of M.A./Ph.D. study and required classes here at UNC-CH.
    
• Do you admit graduate students mid-year, with a start date in January?
  • We do not admit students for the spring semester. All admitted graduate students start their program of study at the beginning of the fall semester in August.
• Are there funding opportunities for admitted students?
  • Yes. Students admitted into the Ph.D. program are eligible for funding support through both the department and the University Graduate School.
• Do applicants need to submit GRE scores?
  • No. We do not require GRE scores as part of the application process.
• What is the application deadline?
  • The deadline for the Fall 2025 admissions cycle is December 10, 2024. The application portal closes at 11:59 PM EST on the posted deadline date. We strongly encourage applicants to submit their applications at least two weeks in advance of the posted deadline. We do not accept late applications.
• When are admissions decisions announced?
  • Applicants will be informed of admissions decisions by the first part of April.