
The hard part about the issue is that there are no easy answers. To a certain extent graduate education has to be set up in a way that one person and one person only is the main conduit of information/buffer between students, the rest of the advisory committee, the rest of the faculty, and the graduate school. If it is more than one person, you risk a power struggle -- if it is just the student against the powers that be, the student doesn't have the support they need.
I think part of the solution is for every university to have good practice guidelines which guide who can advise, and even which departments are and are not helping students along. Another part of the solution is for colleagues to trust the expertise and skill of the Major Advisor.
Of course, some mediocre folks will finish, some bright folks will never finish, etc. But at least there is formally some sort of accountability in the system. The only thing which might potentially change things (at least for those of us in public institutions) is the growing political unpopularity of graduate education and the associated free-rider benefits for faculty members in those institutions.
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- -- Alan Davidson, University of Connecticut (posted 11/4, 10:12 a.m., E.S.T.)
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