I’ve had a suspicion that my spouse’s dissertation adviser doesn’t want to graduate him for awhile now, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
The first sign was when the adviser recommended my spouse take a second job while writing his dissertation. At the time, I was a little concerned, but I didn’t argue against the idea since we needed the additional income and the job would enhance his programming ability and could potentially tie into the presentation of his results. There’s plenty of funding for his project, so that is not an issue.
The second sign was the number of times I’ve heard other students repeat his adviser’s opinion about having a child while in graduate school. I knew some people looked unfavorably on having a child while in grad school, and I haven’t heard much else since we had our baby other than that it increases the length of grad school by two years.
Third sign, his adviser left the university and worked hard to keep it a secret from my spouse. True, my spouse is prone to panic, but I can’t help but feel as though he encouraged the second job so that he’d leave and do it rather than finish the PhD.
Fourth sign, he stopped reading versions of my spouses dissertation before he left the university. I mean, seriously stopped. He’d just tell my spouse that his dissertation was crap, and that he needed to rewrite the whole thing. Claimed there was too much basic data presentation and too little math, then when he got the next revision, cut out all the math and went back to the basic data presentation.
Is this just the PhD process, or are we in for an extra special ride?
Why doesn’t he switch readers? Find someone else on faculty who is still at the university. Once that advisor’s out of sight, TOTALLY out of mind-- this is not a good advocate. Find the person whose research is next-closest.
I think it is normal, or at least all too common, for PhD students to be pushed awfully near the breaking point before they get their PhDs.
But I think that this sounds a bit like an extra special ride.
I think a certain amount of “this version is too mathy” followed by “this version isn’t mathy enough” is common–sometimes authors overcorrect, sometimes advisers don’t know what they want until they see it, sometimes advisers can’t remember what the previous draft looked like . . .
But it may well be that the adviser is being a jerk because he can–or because he disapproves of the baby, or some other irrelevant reason.
It might be that the adviser kept his intended move a secret for reasons that had nothing to do with your spouse. But to the best of my knowledge, advisers moving is seldom a good thing for the student, especially if he’s too far committed to move with the adviser.
I wish you well as you try to sort this out, get your husband the PhD, and a good job.
What field is your husband in, and is he being supported by a grant or an RA or TA job? Does he have an office at the university? He doesn’t seem very connected to it, since a professor leaving is usually a big deal and not something kept secret.
How did he come to have this adviser? Was there a good match, or did the adviser not really want to take on your husband as a student?
Advisers do sometimes move, but in my experience there is always a plan for dealing with students left behind. This plan is usually not split without leaving a forwarding address. Did the adviser go into industry or to another university? Did he have tenure, or did he leave because he lost tenure?
Who else is on your husband’s committee? Would one of them help? If not, it is time to schedule a meeting with the head of the department. Once you pass your quals and orals, there is an obligation to let a student graduate assuming he is doing tolerable work.
I have some tricks about dealing with an adviser, but this situation is way beyond that. Hell, my first adviser died on me (though I wasn’t nearly as far along) and I got treated better than this.
I’m liking the losing tenure explanation. That would tend to make dealing with students a lower priority, and make leaving in the dead of night much more understandable. But in that case the department should be working to find him a new adviser, though they might be expecting him to do it.
As for the baby situation, my daughter is in grad school, and she has female colleagues who have had babies without being told it will delay things two years. Not to be sexist, but I can’t imagine someone telling a man this.
Anyhow, please give some more information. This is not normal.
Voyager, I’m sorry, but you’re asking questions I don’t have answers to. I do know his degree is in the sciences and his research topic/dissertation is supported by an RA. Although he has an office on campus, his adviser specifically asked people to keep it quiet and not mention it to my husband.
How he became my husbands adviser, I don’t know. My husband has been working for him for a number of years, and from my perspective that relationship had always seemed to be extremely good. His adviser was supportive and always seemed to have time for him, then decided to leave the university and everything seemed to change.
I don’t know whether his adviser lost tenure, either. I know he’d been taking on more responsibility with the university prior to leaving, so I don’t believe that is what happened.
My husband has passed is quals and orals, and has a member of his committee that is working with him. That being said, I don’t know how normal this is. We’re financially down to the line here, and his advisers sudden shift when he left is disconcerting, as if the job was where he expected him to go - as though that was his plan for him when he left. Maybe the whole issue is the dissertation writing process, that its the least enjoyable, most painful process.
I heard that the dissertation takes you to your breaking point, but I’m getting to the point that once this is done, I wanna take it out and have an “Office Space” moment with it.
Hmm, it’s hard to tell what’s going on here, especially since the little information you have is filtered through your husband. My hunch is that this is on the tougher end of normal for a PhD. The writing process is hard and frustrating. To your husband, it’s the only thing that matters (other than you and the kids). But, to his advisor, it’s one of many important things. Those differing priorities can make the student feel slighted. Plus, your husband did move to a lower priority when his advisor changed jobs. The dissertation is now an obligation of the advisor’s former job and no one with power over him currently cares whether it gets done. So putting off your husband is even easier.
I do find the sneaking off without telling your husband suspicious. Of course, I also find the fact that you, his wife, know so little about the situation suspicious too. Are you sure your husband is being honest with you about the situation? Is it possible he really messed up and he just doesn’t want to tell you? Maybe he’s trying to fix it but it’s taking a while (which it would). I may be way off base (and I hope I am).
Wait, the adviser has left the university, and is continuing to advise and/or run the project your husband is working on? I’ve heard of advisers retiring but continuing in an emeritus role to advise, starting a private company and using doctoral candidates as free labor (unfortunately common in bio/pharmacological research), and in extreme cases moving to a new school with student researcher in tow, but I’ve never heard of an adviser just bailing and still remaining in the position. One of the roles of the adviser is to coordinate with the review committee and assure that the thesis is of adequate basis and maturity to go through defense. If the adviser isn’t in the position to do this, he can’t really fulfill his role as an adviser.
Has your husband talked with the chairman of his department or dean of the graduate school? The research and defense process is onerous, but it’s usually more of a grind than gross uncertainty. It’s not uncommon for an adviser to try to stretch out the research for a year or two to get the extra labor, but at least in engineering and sciences it is rare for an adviser to recommend taking on another job outside of school lest it divert attention from research work.
Well, I am a bit preoccupied with the little one, so when his adviser left I didn’t ask too many questions. Especially considering I was under the impression it wouldn’t carry on that long after he left - I was thinking minor changes, not recommendations for new work.
Second, I don’t think my husband messed up a lot. Perhaps he did need to enhance his knowledge of the current literature a bit, but another member of his committee wants to publish all the additional work he’s done that his adviser is cutting out - the math and additional research he’d previously recommended, but now wants to get rid of.
Stranger on a Train, I thought it was odd he was remaining in his capacity as his adviser, too. Apparently, he’s maintaining his position on other students committees as well.
That makes perfect sense. In most cases the person who you do research for becomes your adviser. But people agreeing not to mention him leaving to his student is really odd. Does he have other students?
My professor friends with tenure pride themselves on taking as little responsibility as possible, in order to have more time for grants. You don’t get tenure by being on committees.
Does he know where the professor went?
I had a reasonably wonderful time in grad school. Writing my dissertation was stressful mostly because I wanted to get to the job I had waiting, and because my wife had quit her job so we could go to Austria for a conference. In those pre-PC days I woke up at 3 am every night because I wasn’t writing. But that was a lot less stressful than what you are going to.
I think the adviser acted unethically - it is kind of the moral equivalent of moving out when your kids are in school and leaving no forwarding address. He should politely go with another committee member and get another adviser, one who will not change the direction of the research too much. It might actually go faster.
The place where I got my PhD had recruited a bunch of faculty from another place. These guys brought their students with them, those who wanted to go, at least. That’s the way it should be done. But that assumes the adviser is leaving voluntarily to another research position.
Where is the adviser now? Is he local, or did he move? In any case, an adviser who said he isn’t reading the dissertation any more is not much of an adviser.
This sent up the biggest red flag for me. In my field, “surprise” moves aren’t uncommon, as faculty don’t want to publicize their job search. But even then there’s usually 6-12 months warning, during which time everyone in the lab makes arrangements to stay or follow. Those that stay will switch advisers, and if they’re not very far along they might also switch projects.
How the hell is the adviser still advising after quitting the position? I guess the answer is “he isn’t”.
I’d tell your husband to talk to the department head, other faculty, anyone else who might be able to help. He needs to get a new adviser now.
I’ve seen several instances where the adviser has left, but remained on as the primary adviser for students who stayed at the original institution. These are usually students who are finished with their benchwork (or very nearly so) and only need to write. With file-sharing, etc., writing and editing can be done from a distance. However, this always seems to extend the time to graduation. Even the best adviser, with the student’s best interest at heart, can’t ignore the fact that he now has a new position that needs his attention. So, it takes longer to get each incremental step of the writing done.
If the adviser is still reading your husband’s submissions, but not at the desired rate, your husband is just going to have to suck it up and wait. If the adviser has said “I will not read any more” (note the absence of qualifiers), then your husband needs to go to the department chair or the program director and discuss other options for finishing.
BTW, I hope you weren’t offended by my earlier suggestion. You seem quite interested in your husband’s progress, so it struck me as odd that you didn’t know some very basic information. Plus, the adviser sneaking off in secret is really strange and I’ve seen professors do unethical things like that to ditch an under-performing student.
I am a faculty spouse, and spent some time in the academy myself.
If a prof wants to dump a student, the student usually is told pretty point blank that their subject sucks, and that their support has dried up, and that if they want to keep trying - go for it, but without any school assistance.
If a prof leaves, then either it is on good terms and they might help out, or their students follow them to the new school, or the Grad Advisor assigns a new dissertation chair. There should be a member of the dept. who is in charge of all grad students that your spouse can go see.
Leave the university to get away from a student? Now that’s a bit excessive!
The unethical thing to do in this case is to ask for one more experiment and one more draft until the student gives up. The ethical thing to do is to hand the student off to another adviser who likes the work better or can fix the perceived problem. Advisers are primarily teachers.
The places I’ve been consider students who have passed all their tests worthy of getting a PhD assuming they actually do the writing and are minimally competent (and if they are not, they shouldn’t be getting RA money.)
I wonder what the political situation is in this department.
I join everyone else in saying that your husband should get a new advisor if the old one isn’t going to read his dissertation, and the department head (or person in charge of such things, if not the dept head) ought to help with that.
Actually, in the experience of my male friends, this is pretty normal. My female friends didn’t tend to get told this, in fact. I think it depends a lot on the institutional and departmental culture, but there seems to be this kind of “man-to-man” thing where a certain type of stick-in-the-mud professor feels comfortable telling a would-be father (but not a mother, or perhaps a female grad student just wouldn’t have such an advisor) “yeah, it’s a big mistake to have a baby during grad school” (one of my friends actually got that from his advisor! eek. they went ahead and had it, anyway, and he graduated on time.)
My daughter’s adviser delayed having a baby until she got tenure, which might be a bit extreme. I was in Computer Science, not a hotbed of sensitivity, and lots of my fellow students wives had babies with no apparent ill effect. Some delay I can see, but two years?
He moved across the country to another university.
As for the political situation, there seems to be a lot of political upheaval around here due to the rise in prominence of the business and MBA programs. I don’t blame his adviser for leaving, especially if this is not an issue outside of Texas, but it is odd since he was on track to head the research group. I don’t know what his tenure situation was.
That being said, this couldn’t have been a last minute decision, because he took a student with him, who obviously had time to apply and get accepted.
As for the additional two years because of a child, that just doesn’t make sense to me. Sure, he took a little time off after the birth, but the babe being around didn’t stop him from working long hours and weekends.