COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

I support the idea of faculty committees. It is a structure in my Ph.D. program. It does do what it is intended to do, i.e., extend the conversation and scholarly relationships outside of the advisor-student loop. Further, it improves the likelihood that students will be encouraged to extend themselves and their scholarly community by virtue of the fact that multiple opinions and intellectual perspectives are negotiated in the committee advising process. As noted in one of your colloquy responses, isolation or lack of integration is a condition strongly associated with the graduate student experience. The committee structure acts in opposition to this potentially traumatic experience.

Despite their power, the intellectual disciplines are probably a structure that contributes to the problem under discussion. I say this because Durkheim is not a well known name among chemists. His work on suicide (so titled) was one of the first great contributions to coming to understand its causes. The sociology and psychology departments on the same university campuses as the "troubled" chemistry departments have plenty of insight to offer, but do little to influence the culture of the institution in which they are housed. Organizations of all sizes are well studied and many frameworks for interpreting them are available and informative. The problem is that this remains primarily disciplinary study rather than information for action, change or preservation, that would be appropriate for any department to utilize (chemistry or otherwise).

With advising being central to the concerns raised in your article, maybe we should solicit some advice about how to organize adult training and education so that it preserves the dignity and sanity of the adult students as well as their teachers. Honest, rather than romantic examination of various models of special training would be helpful (the literature on the apprenticeship model/metaphor has taken a very romantic turn). Straightforward acknowledgment of the often intense power relations embedded in professional training would be helpful (this would help students be honest with themselves as well as departments being honest with students). A reciprocal commitment on the part of academic institutions to aggressively seek to promote opportunities for the students who have so diligently contributed to the prestige and reputation of the university would be a good idea (after all, E. J. Corey would probably not be nearly so well revered and famous if his talent and intellect had not been continuously and vigorously supported by his "600" students). It seems a rather brutal institution that would, effectively, require its students to forego so much only to stab them in the back, metaphorically speaking, as they walk out the door with degree in hand! (I am not speaking of those students who are failed on examinations or leave prior to graduation - I passed my candidacy exams but chose an alternative career with the blessings and well wishing of my former advisors.)

Not questioning or examining the organization of departments is very likely to preserve them nearly intact. I simply recommend that preservation be a conscious choice based upon knowledge of alternatives and their potential consequences - such rationality is a prized hallmark of the scientific mode inquiry and management. That something seems to work well does not imply that it is anywhere close to its optimal point of operation. Guiding ideologies determine what point of operation satisfies (or satisfices) the organization.

P.S. In the tradition of academe, I must explicitly acknowledge Prof. Douglas E. Mitchell of the School of Education at the University of California, Riverside for pointing out how ideology guides the interpretation of optimum when there are multiple "profit-making" conditions - this is a tie in to Simon's concept of satisficing - such that it is possible to say, "this is good enough," while differing from other conceptions of optimal.

-- Ross E. Mitchell, Research Fellow, University of California, Riverside (posted 10/22, 4:06 p.m., E.D.T.)

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