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[eternalirony]

I haven't been able to find any previous posts on this topic. Your advice would be appreciated!

So, here's the story. I find myself in a worrisome situation with regard to my co-advisers/co-thesis-directors. Am in humanities field with very tough job market. My senior co-adviser (non-specialist), tenured professor, near retirement and junior co-adviser (specialist) assistant prof, pre-tenure. Have good relationships with both, and I know they have written me strong letters, if good results over course of grad career and first job market are anything to go by (good interviews first year on job market, no call-backs but still ABD). However, I hear things on the grapevine that my junior, untenured co-adviser may not get tenure due to insufficient publication production and likely problematic teaching evaluations. I will be on job market for foreseeable 1-3+ years...(or more).

I have talked to tenured, retiring co-adviser (TRCA) about my concerns. TRCA says s/he cannot discuss due to personnel privacy (I think s/he's right?), and moreover I shouldn't worry about it right now... I haven't talked to other faculty yet about this delicate problem.  (Is TRCA also attempting to silence me?)

I must confess that DGS (director of grad studies) warned me off co-adviser situation many years earlier, and at the time I attributed this to his/her known distaste for co-adviser situations - and I trusted my TRCA.

Should I go see Chair, or DGS, or TRCA again to express my growing concern? Should I be more aggressive about it, and push for "demotion" of PTCA to committee-member status, just to be on the safe side?  I would be very anxious about doing this, for all sorts of personal and professional reasons. (Also perhaps dept. officials couldn't do anything either off- or on-record to help, particularly given the laws governing confidentiality of personnel decisions.) 

But I would equally hate to be on job market a year from now, having a finished thesis that is forever "signed" as having been  co-directed by one person who didn't get tenure...it would be awkward in terms of deciding about recommendation letters in future job market years, and even though my PTCA's possible non-tenurability is not my fault, I feel it could prejudice future SCs against my candidacy (my assumption being that a SC's suspicions would be raised when they see my thesis was co-directed, but one co-adviser has disappeared from the scene, with no letter and no explanation - is this a reliable assumption?). 

The other thing that gets my goat is that in reality, PTCA has done little to no actual directing of my dissertation, although s/he has been helpful in other more general aspects of my research, work and professional development. Our approaches are very different, and PTCA's advice, when it comes at all, is too general (e.g. basic copy-editing-type remarks) and not in the least insightful. My "real" dissertation director is the TRCA. S/he was also the one who pushed for this co-adviser relationship with PTCA because PTCA more obviously specialist of my field - and also, although she never said it explicitly, as a sort of professional training for latter. TRCA and I agreed (in as many words) that s/he would be my "real" director we would keep official co-adviser association with TRCA due to his/her specialist credentials... I now suspect that TRCA did so not just for my benefit but also because s/he thought that this co-adviser relationship could strengthen PTCA's changes for tenure..I also feel a bit angry at my TRCA because early in my dissertation research, I came to him/her concerned about the fact that s/he was the only one who was really "directing" me - and I didn't feel comfortable with a co-adviser situation that did not reflect the real relationship. AT that point, TRCA did persuade me that it was okay to keep things as they were. I (not yet knowing of possible impending untenurability of PTCA) agreed that it was fine, as long as I could continue to work most closely with TRCA, I would be okay with the co-director "label."

I think I allowed myself to become a "pawn" in the tenure game and its institutional politics.  I felt I was doing the right thing for everyone concerned, and I trusted my TRCA. To tell the truth, I don't care much about having been a pawn per se, but I do mind if my PTCA fails to get tenure, and if my TRCA's advice to keep the co-adviser relationship was based on wanting to help the PTCA.  In addition to being pawn, I'm now wondering if I have been extremely foolish, (though I didn't know any better)...having essentially agreed to an official relationship that does not represent the truth of the situation...I now worry about the ethics of revealing this reality to other faculty -  feelings of intellectual incompatibility aside, I truly like my PTCA and don't want to hurt his/her reputation within my department (or anywhere else), but I also need to fight for my own professional future (if it comes to that).

Is this a train-wreck waiting to happen, or am I worrying for nothing? For example, if PTCA does not get tenure and/or disappears from my institution and/or academe by job market 2012-13 or 2013-14, could/should I get rec. letters from DGS and/or Chair that could both support my candidacy and neatly/tactfully explain away situation? Is this necessary? If necessary, would it work?? Or would my record be indelibly tainted by suspicion about this less-than-perfect co-director situation?

(More insidiously, am I blaming my future failures on something outside myself to make myself feel better for my future failures???  I realize that my candidacy will be judged primarily on my dissertation, production of research etc...so the smartest thing to do, as always, is to concentrate on my own work - and the things over which I have control. Still - if it would be a good idea to foreclose the possibility of future problems with the tenure situation of my co-adviser, I think I need to start laying the ground for making changes to my committee.)

I guess I just want to know:
1. Should I accept this?
2. Should I attempt to change it?
3. How much should I worry about it?

Thanks in advance.

[obprof]

Whoa. Let me sure I have this correct.

You want to demote a co-supervisor because you think s/he will not get tenure, and you believe that a future letter that this person might write for a job (that you haven't yet applied for because it doesn't exist yet) might therefore be somewhat weaker than what you might like. Even though this person has (1) written strong letters for you, (2) has been helpful in the general aspects of your research, work, and professional development.

You know, dumping this person will NOT help your career. Anyone who hears this story will not think well of you.

What will help your career: finish your dissertation, publish, publish, teach, and publish.

[sagit]

I don't think you necessarily need to state that this person was your co-chair when you apply for jobs.  Or even if you do have them listed as such on your CV, as long as you have a letter from the other co-chair who actually directed your dissertation, then I can't see that it would matter to the hiring committee all that much (especially if you have 2 other strong references).

I don't see any problem with the tenured advisor suggest that the non-tenured assistant professor be a co-advisor.  First, didn't you say that the assistant professor is the specialist?  So that makes sense to choose them as a co-advisor.  And I would hope that a senior professor would look out for their junior colleagues by trying to provide them with opportunities to strengthen their tenure case.  If and when you get a TT job I hope you have a senior colleague that looks out for you as well.

Edit: I agree with obprof.  It would not look favorably on you to dump someone from your committee just because they *might* not got tenure.  If they are somehow actively hindering your progress, then fine, maybe that would be a reason to remove the person as a committee member.  But I'd also ask how proactive you have been in asking this person for the kind of mentoring you are looking for.

[hegemony]

From my point of view it is a non-issue.  There are several options for getting a letter from your non-tenured advisor.  If he gets a job elsewhere, he can easily write you a letter from there.  No search committee is going to blink an eye at the fact that one of your letter-writers has moved institutions, even if they notice it, which I doubt they will.  If he does not get a job elsewhere and is sitting at home collecting unemployment, then he has even more time to write you a letter.  The search committee will never say, "This recommender is no longer writing on university letterhead!  He must have failed to get tenure!  Which means ... our candidate is probably a poor prospect!  Never mind the rest of the stellar material, we cannot and will not hire someone who was ever advised by someone who failed to get tenure!  Cross him off the list!"  They simply will not say that.  Plus, if he fails to get tenure, he still will get a terminal year of employment at your university, so he still may be writing on that coveted letterhead after all.  If you use an electronic service, this person can also easily upload a letter at any point and just leave it there.

You are also somewhat over-emphasizing the impact of the letter.  Pretty much everybody has great letters from the usual range of people.  The letters have impact when one of the letters hints at an issue ("Jones has turned around her habits and is working much harder these days...") or there is a conspicuous absence, like the sole dissertation advisor (this can be easily got round in your case) or someone known to the committee/a big name makes a special case ("Believe me when I say that in my thirty years of directing Nobel Prize winners, I have never seen...")  But you have several ways of getting a letter from this person, you have ways of compensating in the unlikely event that a letter is not available, and a letter-writer having failed to get tenure will not make the difference between you getting a job and not getting a job.

And you may choose not to get a letter from that person anyway.  You may choose to get letters from people who are more suited in various ways to recommend you.  Your other advisor can always write, "Smith and I have been so pleased with the candidate's progress ... "  (And that advisor can perfectly well write a letter even in retirement.)

I think you are imagining conspiracies and threats where there are none.  You are not a pawn.  This is a completely ordinary situation and no one is in any danger (apart from the fact that your junior advisor may or may not get tenure).  Your senior advisor did not agree to include the junior advisor to help him get tenure, because it's extremely unlikely co-chairing a dissertation committee would make the difference between someone getting tenure and someone not.  I mean extremely unlikely.  There are no ethics about "revealing" this (completely ordinary) situation to other faculty; the danger is that you will reveal yourself to be someone who is imagining great complications where none exist.  This is why your senior advisor told you not to worry about it.  It is because there is genuinely nothing to worry about.  Now breathe and get back to your work.

On preview: I agree: "What will help your career: finish your dissertation, publish, publish, teach, and publish."

[busyslinky]

As long as you have one advisor who will still be there, it is no problem.  I had co-advisors, one did not get tenure (who eventually moved).  That person wrote letters for me and still served on my committee after they moved to a new school.  No one even cared whether that co-advisor received tenure or not.

Not a very big issue.

[eternalirony]

Okay, so it was paranoia. I feel stupid, but relieved. Please know, Obprof, that I didn't "want to dump" my untenured co-adviser, and that I did not want to hurt him/her in any way. (That's why I posted an unidentifiable story on an anonymous forum rather than talking to people in my institution.) I was worried (as it turns out, ridiculously) about the possible impact of this situation: I didn't want to come on the forum as a job-seeker two years from now, tell of a co-adviser who didn't get tenure and have people say "you fool, you should have addressed this sooner; your senior co-adviser never should have advised that!" The thinking was: better to be safe now than sorry later.

Although I doubtlessly deserve some admonishment for over-thinking this, I appreciate the responses of those who have withheld judgment for someone in my situation. As a grad student having received contradictory advice from different department officials regarding the correct nature of advisee-adviser relationships, how would I know what the generally acknowledged truth about it is? Add that to the thousands of different pieces of contradictory advice out there about all the things that can hurt/help you on the job market, it can get confusing, and yes (especially for those of us given to worrying excessively about things beyond our control), paranoia-inducing. Believe me, I'm trying to improve this character defect, but I think people generally acknowledge the job market years are a little crazy-making for most people.

Mea culpa - but it was worth it to be reassured, no matter how ill-founded my worries. Thanks all (including Obprof) for the advice! 

[ruralguy]

This is really inappropriate behavior on your part.

The concern about it is legitimate, but doing anything, right now, is bad.

If this is adviser's tenure year, then just wait for the decision.

If its not, then, sure, you have every right to switch, but don't go around whispering against this person. Just switch.

[ruralguy]

Reading into this some more...it really just looks like you are overthinking the problem, getting anxious, and spreading this anxiety to your department. Try to contain the anxiety and paranoia. This in itself can't help your letters much!  Just switch, or don't, but stop going around "voicing your concerns".

[snowbound]

I won't repeat what everyone else has already said, but I will add that any hint that you want to dump junior advisor* could be the last small nail that seals said advisor's coffin, evidence that they are so lousy at their job that grad students refuse to continue working with them.  Being seen as helping to kick junior advisor out the door would not enhance your reputation in the department one little bit. Not only would it eliminate the possibility of a letter from junior colleague when they move on to a new institution, but it might well affect the tone of letters that other faculty write for you--and would possibly hinder networking with all of these people in the future.

I'm not saying you are a jerk--your explanation of how your job anxiety is making you over think this is persuasive.  But I do think you need to guard against being perceived as one.

*your acronyms were very confusing.  I never did figure out PRCA.  Using acronyms that make the reader go back and scan through a bunch of stuff in order to follow what you say at a later point is not a good idea--something to bear in mind as you try to publish, publish, publish.

[fedscholar]

Sounds like a STFU issue to me. Finish the damn dissertation, and request letters from the guy who is still standing. Anything else strikes me a being a self-absorbed weasel.

[glowdart]

Grad school is a tightly focused pressure cooker which invites paranoia and insularity; it's easy to forget that even small disciplines are large enough that not everyone knows the tenure gossip from the PhD-granting institutions. Assuming the co-advisor doesn't make tenure, the search committee at a school may not notice and will not care that your co-advisor moved and is writing from another school.  They likely won't know the backstory, and they may not care even if they do know the backstory. 

Write.  Forget the rest of it. 

[proftowanda]

Overthinking, for sure, if

(a) your institution's dissertation signoff form is like those at my alma mater, at my current institution, and others that I have seen -- the form that is in the dissertation.  It has a line for one advisor's signature.  That's all.  Have you looked at the form for your institution?

and (b) few committees look at that page or, for that matter, the entire dissertation.  They will look at your c.v., also written by you, upon which you can opt to list only your senior advisor (whatever your acronym for that).  They will look at your letters and expect to see one from the advisor you list on the c.v.  That's all.

Now, get back to work, and stay out of the hallowed halls.  That's no playground.  And this isn't your game being played.  So don't think that you can be safe taking sides, even if unintentionally; that's how it would look, and that really would hurt letters.  You won't be a player, and you could end up being the football.

[snowbound]

Now, get back to work, and stay out of the hallowed halls.  That's no playground.  And this isn't your game being played.  So don't think that you can be safe taking sides, even if unintentionally; that's how it would look, and that really would hurt letters.  You won't be a player, and you could end up being the football.

Gee, Proftowanda, that's kinda what I was saying, but you said it with so much more wit and aplomb!