COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

In effect each faculty member sets her/his own behavioral parameters with each advisee. I suspect faculty autonomy may be the culprit both with regards to there not being a code of ethics to guide faculty behavior (and offer students some protection) and the reason that other faculty don't speak up when they see faculty abuse their power with regards to their treatment of graduate students.

If one advisor at Harvard had three students commit suicide, both the institution and the faculty member's peers are guilty of looking the other way. While not as dramatic as suicide, many students are "driven" to depression, alcoholism, abuse of family members etc., in response to their being abused.

After graduating a student is powerless in that he/she needs an advisor's recommendation in a highly competitive job market so most grad students will remain silent regarding abusive treatment. Worse still, graduate students become professors and model the behaviors of their major professors - for better or worse.

A temporary solution may be employment of an ombudsman with broad investigative powers. The institution would need to work out a procedure that would allow the results of the ombudsman's research to be "processed" in a responsible manner.

If tenure "goes" and insecure individual faculty members become even more insecure, unsuspecting graduate students are going to suffer even more stress so institutions might want to begin addressing this problem soon.

-- Phil Perrone, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin - Madison (posted 11/9, 10:30 a.m., E.S.T.)

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