"Prior to enrolling in Thesis Research, you must complete all coursework, the comprehensive exam, and the foreign language requirement. Additionally, you must submit a Master’s Thesis Proposal Approval form along with the recommendation of your program director to the graduate dean. The graduate dean will approve your thesis proposal and readers only after you have completed all the previously listed requirements. Thesis Research is only taken once, but you may enroll in Graduate Readings for any subsequent semesters of work. Upon completion of your thesis and its approval by your readers, your first reader will change the grade for Thesis Research." -Master's Thesis Handbook, 1

“Graduate Readings courses serve several purposes: they enable students to maintain full-time status when they near the end of their studies, defer loans, maintain use of the library, and, above all, enable the student to be recognized as a student when it is time to graduate. Students who are not enrolled in regular courses are required to be enrolled at least in Graduate Readings (if not in Thesis Research courses) for at least two out of three semesters during an academic year. Readings courses indicate to the Braniff Graduate School that the student still intends to graduate. When students discontinue enrolling in Readings courses and seek to restart their studies, they will be required to re-apply with a special fee.” -Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts Master’s and Certificate Programs Student Handbook 2024–2025, 7 

“Comprehensive Examinations cannot be administered before the student has completed all required course work with a cumulative grade point average of 3.00. The exam should be taken by the end of the semester following the satisfactory completion of all course requirements. Students must enroll in a Comprehensive Exam course through their Graduate Director at the beginning of the semester in which they will take the exam.”          -Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts Master’s and Certificate Programs Student Handbook 2024–2025, 4

“Students must submit a Foreign Language Requirement Approval Form to the Braniff Graduate Office before attempting to satisfy the language requirement through any means. They may fulfill the language requirement in one of four ways.

1) Through coursework:

a) Take the Reading Knowledge sequence in German, French, or Italian, i.e. MCTF or

    MCTG 5311 and 5312 or MCTI 5338 and 5339 and pass the second course with a grade

    of B (3.0) or higher. If you already have some proficiency in these languages, you may

    take only the second course. Note that these courses are recorded on your transcript, but

    not typically counted for graduate credit.

b) Complete the UD undergraduate language sequence in the language, including First-Year and Second-Year courses.

c) By taking an upper level (3000+) course (other than the special reading courses) at the University of Dallas in the literature of the language in question and by passing with a grade of B (3.0) or better.

Students entering the Master’s program with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dallas may fulfill the requirement—with the approval of the Classics Department—with such a course taken at the University no more than three years prior to admission into the Master’s program.

2) In the Modern Languages, by taking and passing a written translation exam. Students can express a preference for the area or author in or on which they would prefer to be tested, but the Modern Languages Department will make the choice of the work and the passages to be included.

3) In the classical languages only, by passing an examination prepared by the Classics Department from a primary text that is pertinent to the student's program and relevant to the student’s planned thesis. The student, with the consent of the Graduate Director and the Graduate Dean, will choose a portion of approximately 500 lines or 5000 words in a text in classical Greek or Latin. The Classics Department will create an exam from this text, asking the student, for example, to identify the syntax of underlined words.

4) In the M.A. Theology program only, students may, with the approval of the Program Director, satisfy the requirement by both submitting an exact translation in fluent English of a 12–15-page excerpt from previously untranslated material pertinent to the student's work and passing an oral examination in the grammar and content of the translation.  It is possible for remote students, with the agreement of the relevant Department, to take a language examination with a proctor.

In some cases, where the student's thesis requires proficiency in a language other than the normal five (for example, in dealing with Cervantes or Dostoevsky), another modern language may be substituted for German, French, or Italian. No one is allowed to do a thesis on a topic whose major texts are in a language in which the student has not attained reading proficiency.

The Foreign Language Requirement Approval Form requires the approval of the Program Director and Graduate Dean, and, if applicable, the language examiner.

All grades earned for foreign language courses at the 1000 to 3000 levels will be recorded on the transcript but will not be included in determining the grade point average. 3000-level courses can be cross-listed as graduate courses. Only language courses at the 5000 level or above, not including Reading Knowledge courses, may be counted for course credit towards a graduate degree.”

- Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts Master’s and Certificate Programs Student Handbook 2024–2025, 4-5