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[equalityeluded]

A version appeared previously under the wrong heading. Identifying details are left out/changed to avoid disclosure of involved departments, individuals and disciplines. It would be helpful to hear what you think about the ethics of this case. Assume it happened as described even if you think it seems made up. Have you heard about similar situations?  If a student wants to, can the student simply take your name off and put another’s in?

After a successful MA/S defense, a student chose to continue PhD research under the same supervisor. The advisor supported the student’s effort to rush a proposal meeting to meet application deadlines for an offsite/distant internship. Under the advisor’s supervision, the student developed the idea, formed a committee, proposed, obtained institutional approvals, piloted/refined procedures, and collected the data. The advisor facilitated availability of RAs, pilot subjects, her home to refine experimental apparatus, lab space and funding. By summer, data was collected. The student left for internship in a distant city; informing her advisor of her intent to send drafts of sections of her dissertation for review while on internship.
 
Towards the end of the spring semester, the advisor inquired about the student’s time line. The student had not sent drafts. The student emailed her plans to return to the university town after internship and complete her dissertation in the fall semester. The student wrote that she did not want/need a summer defense. While in town attending a friend’s defense late spring, she reiterated her intentions to return to the area to complete her dissertation in the fall.

Free of local commitments and summer salary, the advisor planned multiple trips. Upon arriving home from one trip, at the end of June, the advisor received an email from the student saying she was putting a dissertation draft (the first) in her mailbox (home) and, if she did not hear from the advisor within two weeks, she would schedule a defense. The advisor initially replied that she had been out of town and did not know her schedule for the remaining few weeks of summer. After retrieving the manuscript, she sent an email stating that she would review the manuscript/provide feedback but would be unavailable for a defense until the start of the fall semester obligation (Mid August).

The advisor provided extensive feedback about the first draft to the student. The student thanked her for the feedback; stated she would incorporate the feedback into subsequent drafts; replied that she was sorry the advisor would be unable to make her defense. Noting the tone of the email (suggesting a defense without her) the advisor told the student she could defend on the first day of the fall faculty obligation. The advisor called/emailed/faxed involved faculty and administrators to ascertain what was going on. None returned messages or replied. The public announcement about the defense was posted with a date in the first few days of August; the advisor was listed as Advisor/Chair but the approval signature line was blank.

The defense was conducted at the indicated time. A senior male faculty member (referred to as”X” from here) conducted the defense. X was not on the committee, not involved in the study, not knowledgeable about the subject matter, had not contacted the advisor and had not replied to her attempt to reach him. Prior to the defense, with a bemused/jovial demeanor, in a tone audible to the audience, he turned towards the degree candidate and stated ” If  ___ {referring to the advisor}comes and sits at the table” {reserved for committee members} “I will tell her, you are my student. She is in my lab now. And, if she attacks with questions I will call the university police”. The advisor was not at the defense. After the defense, the student wrote a letter requesting to join X’s lab. She completed a second set of required pre-defense paper work; this time replacing the name of her advisor with that of X.

The defense was conducted in violation of departmental and university written policies which state that the Chair and at least one other member of the committee must be physically present at the defense. Conducting the defense in the absence of a committee member requires prior approval by all committee members. The defense also violated the training program’s (written) policies which state that the advisor/Chair has the discretion to approve or disapprove a summer defense. Summer defenses may not be held without advisor/Chair approval. Once approved, the advisor and not the student must seek approval of other committee members. Students may not make the request themselves. Faculty member’s policies about summer defenses vary greatly although students are well informed about their own advisor’s policies: Some faculty refuse all summer requests, others set a deadline after which they refuse, others require that arrangements be made prior to the end of the Spring semester to enable summer planning. The advisor’s policy,  well known to the student, was to allow summer defenses under the following specific circumstances: Plans for the defense must be made prior to the end of the spring semester and approval is granted only if and when circumstances beyond the student’s control preclude an academic year defense. Never before has a faculty member usurped a student/study from a colleague without discussion because the colleague would not approve a certain defense date.

The advisor requested a meeting with administrators and the involved faculty. At the meeting, nobody denied the events as presented above and nobody claimed to have contacted the advisor to ask about the situation. University administrators, Department Chair and X each gave different reasons/justifications for approving the defense although none explained why they had not discussed the situation with the advisor. X justified his action by stating that the program planned to make changes to the guidelines governing summer defenses. The program’s Student Training Manual was substantially revised during the next academic year to reflect changes in the program’s policies. No changes were made in the policies governing summer defenses. X claimed a job offer would have been jeopardized if the student did not defend on that date.  It appears that, after the defense,  the student was employed at a temporary job that did not require the degree. The administrators claimed that the advisor had allowed summer defenses in the past but did not reply to the advisor’s explanation that the previous students followed the program’s policies to do so. A host of other justifications were offered over subsequent months including complaints about the advisor, in general, and accusation that the advisor was slow giving the students advice for revisions to a paper previously rejected for publication. Additional justifications came in the form of complaints solicited after the defense from a few (out of many) former students and compiled into an unsigned letter. The solicited comments complained about the frequency of lab meetings, type, extent, and timing of feedback on written material, poor handwriting on drafts, interactional style, etc. The advisor was not given a copy of the letter nor notified about it by the department or university. The advisor was not told which of her former students contributed.

 The advisor requested a formal hearing  which was denied. Her attempt to get clarity and an objective review were thorough and included all the proper channels, including involving the Ombudsman, Faculty Senate, Department; All requests were denied. X is currently listed as the advisor on the dissertation in Dissertation Abstracts. The advisor’s feedback was not incorporated into the final draft.

Prior to this incident the advisor had complained about gender discrimination in the program.  She complained about specific events including instances of  male faculty discrediting her, taking credit for work she had completed, interfering with her relationships with students and usurping her role as an advisor in a manner that marginalized her and that was different from how they treated their male colleagues.   When several senior white male faculty members coordinated an effort to recruit another senior white male colleague by circumventing Affirmative Action policies, the advisor objected and eventually interfered with the attempt. When X heard that the Advisor had submitted a grievance, he sent an email notifying the entire faculty, including those in other areas of the field. The advisor believes the notification was meant as retaliation to alienate her from other faculty members. She believes these earlier events contributed to X’s actions.

At the time of the incident, tenured faculty members of the program were all white. They were also all male except the advisor. The program had one other female faculty member who was junior and who subsequently left.  The advisor was the only women to be tenured in the history of the 30 year old program although there were tenured women faculty in the other areas of the department. The majority of the program’s faculty, including X,  have been at the university since around the time it started. The advisor believes that X seized an opportunity to retaliate and further discredit her when the student approached him to discuss a summer defense. She may have asked for advice about how to circumvent the advisor’s policies governing summer defenses. Instead of talking with the advisor, as he may have with a male colleague, X instructed the student to write an email warning the advisor that she had two weeks to respond or the defense would be scheduled. He did not view the advisor as being sufficiently important to talk with about the situation. He felt he had  sufficient clout to simply replace her name with his. His male colleagues on the committee apparently did not question the situation; none felt the need to talk with the female advisor. The student chose a time period when many faculty and administrators take vacations. The defense took place during the brief period after summer school ended and before faculty are obligated to be back in the fall.  It is unclear whether the committee members knew the circumstances surrounding the defense.

[yellowtractor]

OP, you need to run this through your university's stated grievance procedures.  It sounds as if you have attempted to do this (and that you have no union).  Assuming you have, then there's nothing you can do but (a) swallow it, (b) seek legal counsel, and/or (c) apply madly for jobs at other institutions.

What, really, would you like us to say?  Yes, I know situations where groups of tenured faculty used their authority to work around difficult students and colleagues, sometimes vindictively, sometimes as a matter of course.  Yes, a colleague can actually do ANYTHING HE OR SHE WANTS TO DO, provided nobody raises a fuss and/or the relevant bylaws allow it.

I can't imagine that there isn't more to this case, though of course to add more detail would risk outing you.

And I know you explained your rationale for posting in the third person on your previous thread, but I still find it eerie and dissociating.  I imagine the encounters with your colleagues in Yoda-language.  Sorry.

[spork]

I lost interest after the second paragraph.  What's this thread about?

[equalityeluded]

spork, In late June, a PhD student decides she wants to defend her dissertation during the brief period after summer session and before the fall semester in a program that has very explicit rules governing summer defenses. A year after the data was collected and without having sent prior sections as drafts, she put the first draft in the advisor/Chair's home mailbox while she was out of town (end of June). She warns (email) her advisor that if she does not hear from her in two weeks she will set a dissertation date. The advisor provided feedback but told the student she had to wait about two weeks from early to mid August, to defend, due to needed revisions and the advisor's schedule. Another faculty member, not involved in the study or on the committee, approved the student's request. He took her name off the project, conducted the defense in the absence of the advisor. After the defense, he had the student write a letter to him requesting to join his lab. He had paperwork redone with his name as Chair. Nobody on the committee and no university administrators checked with the advisor prior to the defense to solicit her input or perspective. After the defense the university has stone walled all attempts by the original advisor to get an explanation or a hearing. The advisor had previously complained about gender discrimination that marginalized her and discredited her. She had interfered with an attempt to hire a senior white male without going through the Affirmative Action policies. All other tenured faculty members in the area were white male. The only other female was a junior faculty member who subsequently left. The advisor thinks the faculty seized an opportunity to discredit her further in retaliation to previous complaints.

[equalityeluded]

What if it were the following:
spork, In late June, a PhD student decides she wants to defend her dissertation during the brief period after summer session and before the fall semester in a program that has very explicit rules governing summer defenses. A year after the data was collected and without having sent prior sections as drafts, she put the first draft in the advisor/Chair's home mailbox while he was out of town (end of June). She warned (email) her advisor that if she does not hear from him in two weeks she will set a dissertation date. The advisor provided feedback but told the student she had to wait about two weeks from early to mid August, to defend, due to needed revisions and the advisor's schedule. Another faculty member, not involved in the study or on the committee, approved the student's request. He took the advisor's name off the project, conducted the defense in the absence of the advisor. After the defense, he had the student write a letter to him requesting to join his lab. He had paperwork redone with his name as Chair. Nobody on the committee and no university administrators checked with the advisor prior to the defense to solicit his input or perspective. After the defense the university stone walled all attempts by the original advisor to get an explanation or a hearing. The advisor had previously complained about racial discrimination that marginalized him and discredited him. He had also interfered with an attempt to hire a senior white male without going through the university's Affirmative Action policies. All other tenured faculty members in the area were white male except him. The only other African-American faculty member in the area was a junior faculty member who subsequently left. The advisor thinks the faculty seized an opportunity to discredit him further in retaliation to previous complaints.

[yellowtractor]

You've lost Spork again, I'm afraid.  Double-posting has that effect.

OP, what else are you hoping we can offer you?  You've posted this account on two threads now and received a variety of responses....

[new_bus_prof]

Have you heard about similar situations?  If a student wants to, can the student simply take your name off and put another’s in?

Yes, there's been plenty of situations where Faculty Chairs are removed and replaced by more senior, tenured department faculty for Student Dissertation Advisors.

Here, there's a simple form the student and new chair sign to take over the project. The old chair receives nothing, unless the student wishes to send an email about the change.

[newtothis10020]

Ethics, professional standards, decent behavior. They are dated and old fashioned. Why shouldn't a senior male faculty member abuse his power by taking a manuscript completed under the supervision of a more junior faculty member and shove his name on it. Sounds fine to me. Happens all the time. Especially if the junior faculty member is female or black. Maybe he really needed that publication.

[polly_mer]

Ethics, professional standards, decent behavior. They are dated and old fashioned. Why shouldn't a senior male faculty member abuse his power by taking a manuscript completed under the supervision of a more junior faculty member and shove his name on it. Sounds fine to me. Happens all the time. Especially if the junior faculty member is female or black. Maybe he really needed that publication.

<Polly looks around> 

<whispers "Is it my turn to use the cluestick?"  "Yeah?"  "OK">

What's your point?   

Yellowtractor's first post in this thread is spot on.  The OP's choices are follow the grievance policy, suck it up, make a legal case, or move on.  Were I in the situation, I would suck it up and put all of my energies into getting into a good mindset so that my job applications would net me a position somewhere else.

I was sympathetic the first time I came across the OP's post on a different board.  However, the continued "But what if they discriminated against me for being an X?  Wasn't I shafted even more?" saga has run past the limits of my patience.  I am now also in YT's camp of wondering what isn't being told in this story and wondering about the OP's interactions with the department prior to this incident.

Gathering all my sympathy here, the problem is that even if the OP was discriminated against and even if she fights to the limit against injustice, the process of fighting is usually a long process that drags out over years with no guarantee that she will win.  Even if she wins a lawsuit or an internal investigation, the time and energy expended will be considerable with little likelihood of getting the vindication that she wants.  Anyone who has followed some of the big discrimination suits that were won knows that the victory isn't for the wronged party, but for the people in that class who follow years later.  The victim bears all of the burden and the reputation hit with the time, money, and energy costs, but seldom is the win anything more than a pittance and an article in the newspaper, rather than the grand vindication that the victim wanted.

Yes, that's unfair.  No, people shouldn't stand by quietly and allow these things to happen.  However, in most cases, the best thing for the victim to do is cry on friends' shoulders for a few days, change jobs to a better institution, and redouble the efforts to fight injustice in the greater society by giving testimony about the situations that still occur.  The best revenge is living well; not immolating yourself to teach the bad guys a lesson. 


I will leave this thread with a handful of inspirational messages.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win."--Jonathan Kozol

"You got to know when to hold 'em.  Know when to fold 'em.  Know when to walk away and know when to run."--Kenny Rogers

[mastergardener]

Happens all the time. Yes that's unfair but might as well chalk it up to how it is and suck it. No use keep'n that bee in your bonnet. Two students,dating, worked on the same genetics floor but with different researchers. The girl was working with a pretty new investigator developing a series of new procedures based on her own dissertation. The guy was working with a well known senior researcher using shared equip but on different problems. The kids were talking and sharing. The boy ended up proposing a study  almost entirely procedures being developed in his girlfriend's lab. He took the ideas and ran with them came in first. His adviser was thrilled.  By the years end both students were in the senior investigators lab doing the work started by the ripe investigator. He had more money and power and more lure. The way it is.

[equalityeluded]

There may have been an additional financial incentive for the student and faculty member who headed the "defense". The student's degree is in an applied area requiring license but also supervision after the degree. It may be that after the defense the faculty member supervised that same student's "post-doc" hospital practice. Not sure that this is the case but there is indication that it is. If that was the case, her billing may have gone into an account that he controls and can use to pay himself, make purchases and pay her. With new restrictions on billing, she may have needed the PhD for the billing.  The financial incentive would have been substantial;Maybe waiting two weeks would have been costly. Had the faculty member not taken over the research, the student may have been less inclined to have him supervise her.

[bacardiandlime]

May have supervised the postdoc...

This is now sounding like something that happened some way in the past, rather than (as your initial, breathless, 4000 word posts made it sound) a current event.

It also sounds less like something that actually happened to you, and more like a vague hypothetical you're just 'throwing out there' to get people's responses. And now you're resurrecting old threads about sexism v. racism. That has been hashed to death on the boards, you're not contributing anything new or useful with your anecdotage of hiring practices that happened to (or were witnessed by) the sister of a friend of someone you knew.

[equalityeluded]

bacardiandlime, If you have no interest in past posts feel free to move on. I am new to this board so something that is old and tired to you may not be to me. There may be others who are interested. If nobody is interested, the posts will find their way to the bottom of the pile where they belong. No use fretting over it, conjuring up stories or motives or speculating widely. My posts were written to solicit opinions; something I thought could be useful or helpful to me; no more no less.  Just take it as is or leave it and put your time to better use. I am sure you have better ways to spend your time. Enjoy the nice weather.

[spork]

I'm still lost.  Can someone summarize in 6 sentences or less?

[kedves]

I'm still lost.  Can someone summarize in 6 sentences or less?

That is a very tall order, but I will try and probably get it wrong.

1.  There was a graduate student who did not come up to standard and an advisor who pushed the student to do so;
     the advisor did everything that an advisor should do.
2.  Suddenly, a shot ran out:  at the dissertation defense, Prof. X took the student from the advisor, threatened to call
     the cops if the advisor objected, and everyone said a lot of bad things about the advisor.
3.  The advisor went through the procedures to correct the record and clear her name, but no one would help.
4.  All the ones in opposition to the advisor are white men; the advisor might not be that shade and is not 
     that configuration.
5.  The theft of the student appears to be in furtherance of past grudges.
6.  Have you heard the like (and enjoy the nice weather if you have not)?