Heidi Estrem Brad E. Lucas Eastern Michigan University Texas Christian University Embedded Traditions, Uneven Reform: The Place of the Comprehensive Exam in Composition and Rhetoric PhD Programs Sound doctoral pedagogy, in addition to other forms of professionalization in PhD work, is essential in nurturing future generations of scholars in composi tion and rhetoric. Using the comprehensive exam as a focal point, this article identifies absences and contradictions in the field's approach to evaluating the competency of doctoral students. I. Traditions and National Perspectives It is a commonplace among scholars that obtaining the PhD requires surviv ing certain rites of passage, one of which is the comprehensive exam.1 The say ing goes something like this: You will never feel as current with scholarship in your discipline as you did on the day of your exams. Whether or not this is true, at least that's the adage. Passing the exams does not guarantee a doctoral student the PhD, but itmarks one form of approval that "proves" graduate students are worthy of the discipline. Within most composition and rhetoric PhD programs, assessment of student work varies: seminar papers, qualifying and/or compre hensive exams, dissertations, and the dissertation defense. While some scholars in composition and rhetoric have studied the general practices and procedures of the dissertation, few details about the comprehensive exam have entered disci plinary discussions about graduate pedagogy, institutional reform, or writing as sessment. We hope to initiate discussions of the exam as a means of reconsider ing the evaluation of doctoral students in composition and rhetoric graduate programs. Over the past 30 years, many PhD programs in composition and rhetoric have worked within confines of local traditions tied to older literature PhD pro grams. Some have found room for rethinking PhD requirements. With the pres sure to professionalize, many graduate students now participate in administrative work, and written work is often directed to a larger audience than faculty readers 396 Rhetoric Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2003, 396^116 Copyright ? 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.