From my experience as a doctoral student, I would not be surprised to learn of more suicides or maybe even homicides related to the way doctoral students are treated. This would go for any institution, although the pressure could be greater at an "elite" institution. If the same advisor was implicated in all of the suicides, why wouldn't the institution have investigated the reasons long before this? I believe that there are many professors who have control/power issues which are unresolved and which result in abuses of power toward students, especially doctoral students, because the stakes are higher. I just read in the American Educational Research Journal Fall, 1998 an article which reflected my research experience as a doctoral student: Miller, Nelson, & Moore, "Caught in the paradigm gap: Qualitative researchers lived experience and the politics of epistemology." There may be many reasons for the abusive behavior toward students and there may be lesser mental health reactions than suicide, but I believe that something needs to be done to change the archaic hierarchical structure which does not allow mature students to have equal control (a collaborative arrangement) over their own learning and epistemological decisions.
JOIN THE DEBATE Be sure to include your name and affiliation. Legitimate requests for anonymity will be honored. Submissions may be condensed or edited for clarity.
| ||||||||
previous response
Copyright © 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education