Candidates must complete a minimum of 63 credit hours of graduate course work beyond the bachelor's degree in addition to 24 credit hours of doctoral research and dissertation.

For candidates with French or Spanish as a first concentration, two tracks are available.

Track I.?The course work for Track I must be distributed as follows: at least 39 credit hours in the first concentration; at least 18 credit hours in the second concentration; and at least 6 credit hours in a cognate field or in either the first or second concentration as approved by the student's graduate committee.?

Track II.?The course work for Track II must be distributed in this way: at least 45 credit hours in the first concentration; at least 12 credit hours in the second concentration; and at least 6 credit hours in a cognate field or in either the first or second concentration as approved by the student's graduate committee. Students choosing Latin American Studies as their second concentration will take 6 graduate credit hours in an appropriate language area that is outside their primary concentration (either French, Portuguese, or Spanish), and in addition 12 graduate credit hours in Latin American Studies classes outside of the primary concentration.

Track II, please note:?Graduate students who select Track II and do not combine their cognate field (6 credit hours) and the field of the second concentration (12 credit hours) will normally not be eligible to teach their field of the second concentration at institutions which follow Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) guidelines for college foreign language teaching. SACSCOC requires a minimum of 18 graduate credit hours for eligibility to teach a given field at the college level. Students who choose to combine the second concentration (Track II) with the 6 credit hours in the cognate field will have a minimum of 18 credit hours in the field of the second concentration, and they will therefore be eligible to teach the field of the second concentration at institutions that follow SACSCOC guidelines.