About This Handbook

        This Handbook is a compendium of information about University policies, requirements, and resources that is relevant to Stanford graduate students irrespective of their school, department, or program affiliation. For more specialized information, students will need to consult other publications, the most broadly useful of which are mentioned immediately below.

        Section One is concerned with general academic requirements and administrative procedures for the following degrees: M.A., M.S., M.A.T., and M.F.A; Engineer and Educational Specialist; Ph.D., Ed.D., and D.M.A.  Also included is a subsection on finances that discusses such matters as financial awards, research and teaching assistantships, taxes, and loans. The emphasis in this section is on the steps that students need to take to get things done rather than on policies and procedures that must be carried out by administrative staff. For information about departmental requirements, policies and course offerings, you should obtain copies of departmental handouts, the annual Stanford Bulletin, and quarterly schedule of courses. Students in professional degree programs need a copy of the bulletin of the Graduate School of Business, the Law School or the Medical School.

        While Section One should prove useful not only to graduate students but also to faculty advisors and student services administrators, Section Two, "Student Life," will be of interest primarily to students. It provides summary information about non-academic topics ranging from housing and transportation to campus safety and recreation. Foreign students, especially those who are experiencing life in this country for the first time, should also become thoroughly familiar with the Bechtel International Center publications that discuss matters relevant to them, such as visa restrictions or employment.

        Section Three anthologizes or summarizes a number of key official policy statements regarding both academic and non-academic conduct. Some of these policies, such as those relating to sexual harassment or to health and safety, clearly apply to all members of the Stanford community. Others - such as those governing secrecy in research or inventions, patents and licensing - might appear to have little bearing on the activities of law students or Ph.D. candidates in a humanities department. But we urge all graduate students to review the entire section, if only to gain a better understanding of issues that definitely are important to fellow graduate students in other disciplines.

        Section Four provides thumbnail sketches, plus addresses and phone numbers, of some of the major resources that are available to Stanford graduate students, including the University library system, Computer Support Services, the Career Development Center, and the Bechtel International Center.

        We believe that most of the questions you might have about services or academic policies and requirements are answered here or in the other publications mentioned above. If this isn't the case, if you need a further explanation or clarification, or if need an exemption or other special arrangement, the person to contact first is your departmental advisor or student services staff person if the matter is academic, or the appropriate administrative office if it is non-academic. If they can't resolve the matter themselves, they will usually know who can. As a rule, it is faster and more efficient to solve problems at the department level.

        The Graduate Student Handbook exists because graduate students asked for it and contributed in a major way to its planning. The main reason why such a compendium was and continues to be needed is that the "decentralized" character of graduate (especially doctoral) education everywhere is especially pronounced at Stanford. Many of the functions and services that in other universities are grouped together in a graduate school office that provides "one-stop shopping" for information and processing are decentralized here to academic departments, schools, the Registrar's Office, and the Financial Aid Office. At one point or another during their career at Stanford, all graduate students will need to communicate with all or most of these offices, and this handbook seeks to provide the relevant sign posts pointing to "what" - "where" - "when."

        The "central" university-level oversight and policy formation functions that elsewhere belong to a graduate school office and Dean of Graduate Studies are located at Stanford in the Office of the Dean of Research and Graduate Policy. More specifically, the Associate Dean of Graduate Policy is responsible for university-wide academic policies relating to graduate education and shares responsibility for the general welfare of graduate students with the Vice Provost and Dean for Student Affairs. The latter shapes policy for and monitors the operation of a wide range of student services - in fact, most of the services mentioned in the pages that follow. The Graduate Life Office rounds out the trio, working in partnership with students to improve, individually and collectively, graduate students' quality of life.

        In this, the fourth, edition of the Graduate Student Handbook, we have updated and expanded the previous (1995) edition. To review and revise the handbook has necessarily been a complex and time-consuming project since our sources of current, accurate information are so diverse, so decentralized and so busy with their own very demanding work schedules. Despite their efforts and our own, making the handbook absolutely up-to-date is a goal to be striven for but never achieved, for we live and work in an environment characterized by both great stability and continuous change. Because policies, procedures, administrative configurations, and personnel do change over time, check this online version of the handbook for the currently available policies, procedures and information. Because we wish this publication to be as useful as possible, we invite your suggestions for improvements; please send them to the Assistant Dean of Graduate Policy, McCullough Building, Mail Code: 4000.

Office of the Dean of Research and     
Graduate Policy          

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