Course Handbook - Faculty of History

The Chairman of the course in 2010/11 is Prof MC Carpenter, and the Academic Secretary is
Dr T Webber. Do feel free to contact them if you need their help, whichever option you
are taking. The Chairman and Academic Secretary for the MPhil handle the day-to-day
administrative work of the programme, and there may be occasions during your time here
when an informal conversation with either of them may lead to the quick solution of some of
the problems affecting your work. However, many important items of business such as a
change of supervisor, approving dissertation titles, leave to continue to the PhD, appointing
examiners and scrutinising examination results are formal, and must be handled by the MPhil
Sub-Committee and/or the Degree Committee.
9.3 Faculty contacts
Queries about the Faculty’s Graduate Training provision should be addressed to the Faculty’s
Director of Graduate Training, Dr C Watkins (graduate-studies@hist.cam.ac.uk).
Other questions about Faculty matters can be addressed to Miss Tessa Blackman in the MPhil
Office who will be happy to try to answer questions. Please e-mail her with your questions in
the first instance on medieval@hist.cam.ac.uk. If you do not yet have access to e-mail
(although all research students are allocated an e-mail address and expected to use it), the
office’s telephone number is 748152 (or 48152 if you are using the university telephone
network).
If you are having any serious problems in relation either to the taught course or to your
supervisor which you feel cannot be dealt with by either the option leaders or your supervisor,
you should in the first instance consult Prof M C Carpenter. Thereafter, in delicate cases the
Graduate Teaching, Learning and Quality Committee has a team of “Ombudspersons” who can
also be consulted for neutral advice (information on this scheme is given in the General
Graduate Handbook online).
9.4 Non-academic questions and problems
The Graduate Tutor appointed by your college will normally be the best person to approach
about personal problems which you may prefer not to discuss with your supervisor, visa and
passport problems, dealings with grant awarding bodies, accommodation and financial
problems in general. The Degree Committee does not deal with these sorts of issues.
9.5 Summary: Administration of the MPhil and who to ask about what
The following table summarises how the MPhil is administered, who does what, and who you
should approach with particular questions or with problems.
Day-to-day running of the course
The MPhil is administered by the
Chairman
and the Academic Secretary
with administrative support from
the MPhil office.
The MPhil Subcommittee of
senior academics oversees the
running of the programme. The
committee is ultimately
responsible to the Degree
Committee for the Faculty of
Current post holders
Prof M C Carpenter
Dr T Webber
Miss Tessa Blackman,
Administrative Secretary
Prof C Carpenter
(Chairman)
Dr M T J Webber (Acad.
Secretary)
Dr J Grove
Dr C Watkins
Contact details/ Area of
responsibility
Contact via: MPhil office.
Contact with:
Informal queries about
problems; for advice and
assistance in addition to that
from your supervisor, or
where there is a problem
with your supervisor, which
your Option Director could
not help with
Contact via: MPhil office.
Contact with:
Formal business, including
change of supervisor, essay
or dissertation title changes,
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