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[dellaroux]

I'm hearing this third-hand (at dinner with a friend, last night) but I believe any suggestions in this rather tight time frame would be appreciated--including ways to leverage the time frame out a bit, if any of those exist. The issue is:

1) The child of this friend is overseas at a postdoc, having defended last June and having been given until this Monday to deposit all materials for a March completion date.

The thesis is good (I've seen part of it) and the student (I think) stands to make a mark in their field. Think courageous, taking in a serious global problem and working towards tenable options. Not a flake in any way.

2) To have the materials done and turned in, the student apparently hired a friend to do the final formatting and turn it in in time for last fall's completion date.

The friend didn't take the task seriously enough, waffled, turned somethings in but not others--I don't know the whole story there, but given the circumstances, the student was allowed extra time to get things correctly formatted, etc., and turned in.

3) The student's fiance, now back in the States, has taken on the task of printing up files and bringing them in for tentative approval to avoid last-minute problems. The fiance went in late last week to be sure that all the front matter, chapter pages, bibliography, etc. were correct, and a problem has arisen.

Apparently the signature/approval page was done and turned in by the friend the first time around, before the holidays, and no questions were asked, so the student believed it was correct as it stood. A second page was required and that, too, was produced, signatures gotten, and dropped off two weeks ago; the student emailed the grad. records advisor who checks all submitted work for binding suitability and was told it had been received.

4) When the fiance went into the meeting on Friday with all the sample pages in hand, the graduate records assistant apparently met them at the door with "Well, you know, the signature page needs to be re-done."

The fiance said that they would have that done, went through the materials, and left with several other red-inked sample pages to be re-done over the weekend.

You can guess what comes next.

5) Unbeknownst to the fiance, of course, the advising professor is on a beach on the other side of the country on sabbatical this term.

The student, and their folks, and the fiance, and friends around the dinner table have all tried to think through options--given the weekend, FedEx and other delivery systems couldn't turn it around because no-one seems to deliver or pick up on Sundays.

6) And given the time differences, the pieces of the problem weren't put together until too late to make the drop-off on Friday night that only might have gotten the new pages (on bond paper) to the advisor with a turn-around envelope inside to be sent back with the courier.   

The student has emailed a file with the new blank pages to the advisor, but so far no answer.

The student also emailed what I thought was a rather diplomatically worded question to the records assistant, asking how it was that the form's deficiencies (margins, apparently, and something is not centered properly...) were not noticed in the six weeks that the form has been in the office, or even the two weeks since the second copy was dropped off, and flagged to avoid a last-minute problem.

7) It sounds as if the student will have to pay a full semester's continuation tuition if in fact they're even allowed to do that, unless some other resolution can be worked out.

These are the things that torture students' souls.

8) I suggested seeking out the dean of students and without putting the grad records advisor in a bad light, just pointing out the complications of time and distance in the situation, but the student's fiance had already suggested that and the student is afraid that either they will look like a flake or the records advisor will take it badly and start vetting every single page of the thesis in retaliation.

When the student emailed their faculty advisor the first time, to let them know, the advisor apparently just said, "I told you they could be capricious" but didn't offer to go further (and has a rep for being a bit depressive and not exactly a go-getter, so that seems a bit of a dead-end street.)

The other readers were also emailed to confirm their presence on campus, but again no replies.

I couldn't think of anything else to suggest, but maybe someone here can?

[science_expat]

Electronic signature? Emailed and printed out on correctly formatted form.

[dellaroux]

I'll suggest that, thanks.

If the prof in question or their staff assistant has the computer chops to do that, that could work.

(Unfortunately, this place does have a "sleepy-little-backwater-U" mentality, and makes of incompetence a virtue, so it might take some doing to find someone who knows what an electronic signature is...)

But I will pass along the idea.

Thanks.

[aggiesadjunct]

What about a power of attorney?  If the fiance has a power of attorney, she should be legally permitted to sign anything for the student in question.  Of course, that then begs the question of how to get the signature for the power of attorney, but I think that can be done electronically or via fax.

[dellaroux]

Thanks to all--I heard back from the fiance and they were able to carry the document through to a secretary in the department who had permission to sign for the prof.

I didn't think that could ever be done, but one always learns something new...!