Question: "Professor Ace," my dissertation director, has invited me and three other grad students to work on a special project next winter: a book that he'll publish under his name. We'll be listed in the Acknowledgments ("with help from ...").
Dr. Ace calls this the professional opportunity of a lifetime. We'll meet the most prominent people in the field, travel to professional meetings, and be paid to do research in important libraries. It sounds great, but ...
I worked as a research assistant for four years between my B.A. and grad school. My research work is very professional and was well-paid and I often got byline credit ("This story is based on research by . . . ") The idea of doing my professor's research and PAYING tuition for the privilege AND not having my work acknowledged except as one of a group who "helped" in an undefined way seems like a gross rip-off.
Further stickiness — I'm the only woman in the group, and Dr. Ace says his grant will pay for two double rooms for his assistants, two to a room. Eeeeeeek! I don't want to share a room with a strange man — even if he is a fellow researcher. What do I do?
Answer: Ah, but doesn't everyone want to be like Ms. Mentor — with an ivory tower of her own, dispensing her perfect wisdom only when she chooses, and getting paid for it?
Well, there is only one Ms. Mentor, and all others must go through a rigorous and sometimes nasty and puerile apprenticeship before they can call their work their own.
Ms. Mentor believes that your work should be treated and celebrated as your own intellectual property — but she knows that in academe, there is also a sordid history of credit delayed and justice denied.
Especially before the rebirth of the women's movement in the 1970s, countless faculty wives served as unpaid "research assistants." Often their words turned up in the great man's publications under his name alone. (For tales of horrific spongers, Ms. Mentor recommends Dale Spender's book Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them.)
Nowadays, there are some traditions and rules. In science, the P.I. (Principal Investigator) is usually listed as senior author on an article, with other contributors listed as co-authors. Among engineers, the writer of the article is traditionally listed as first author. While there have been controversies about the order of names, and how many should be included (one notorious paper listed over 900 "co-authors"), engineers and scientists routinely expect author credit.
But things can get ugly. Readers of Ms. Mentor's tome will find the case of Heidi Weissmann, a New York medical researcher whose department chief republished her work under his own name. In 1997, University of Michigan researcher Carolyn Phinney was awarded more than $1-million by a jury that found that her supervisor had stolen her ideas and used them to secure a grant.
Yet when Antonia Demas, a Cornell grad student, discovered that a senior professor was claiming her work as his, the university dismissed her case.
In the humanities, Ms. Mentor regrets to say, things are murky from the start. As underlings in the academic hierarchy, graduate students are supposed to be humbly grateful for all the training they can imbibe. Sometimes they're paid, but often they receive only an inside-the-book acknowledgment.
Far be it from Ms. Mentor to pass on gossip. But one huge series of literary criticism, all published under one famous professor's name, is rumored to be the work of grad-student hirelings (some of whom make egregious errors).
Sometimes humanities professors do reward graduate-student collaborators with money or name credit. Cheyenne Bonnell, whose diary transcriptions make up a quarter of Kate Chopin's Private Papers (Indiana University Press, 1998), is listed as associate editor, after the principal editors Emily Toth and Per Seyersted.
Generous mentors can create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Stephen Ambrose's students, for instance, spent summers retracing the steps of Lewis and Clark with their professor — sharing discoveries over campfires first, and later in books and articles. Theirs was a genuine community of scholars.
Ms. Mentor suspects it's not too late to create that kind of community for yourself. Tactfully ask the other three grad students if they're "comfortable with" the acknowledgment deal. Tell them that bigger credit will be an immense help on the job market (always the strongest argument).
If they're willing, you can all ask your professor, politely, about spinning off your own articles, using the research for your own pursuits. If you must, offer to wait until after his book has appeared ("priority of discovery" ranks highly with traditional academics, along with "whose is bigger").
Even if you must go it alone, tell Dr. Ace that you have four years of research experience — he may truly not know that. Tell him you're eager to begin developing a publication list. Show yourself to be bright, eager, experienced, and ambitious. (And shrewd: Never say "rip-off." Always say "collaboration.")
As for the sleeping arrangements: Ms. Mentor will address that knotty, tacky, touchy dilemma next month, and invites opinions and anecdotes from readers. Is her correspondent too prudish? Too imaginative? In June, Ms. Mentor will rule.
Question: Whenever we pass in the hall, one of the old profs on my committee frowns, looks sickly, and squints. I think he hates me. But my roommate says that I shouldn't "personalize," and that Dr. Sour's behavior has nothing to do with me. He probably just has gout or heartburn or needs a root canal. What do you think?
Answer: Root canal.
Sage Readers: Ms. Mentor has now settled in for her summer season of contemplation and fumigation. She welcomes communiqués from eager readers whose particular distresses and idiosyncrasies have not yet been addressed in her column or in her tome (listed below).
She regrets that she cannot answer all mail personally, nor can she put anxious or lovesick correspondents in touch with one another. But she encourages regular readers and all unquiet souls to peruse the bookshelf and the first-person stories on this site for snickers, groans, and comfort.
