Changing Dissertation Advising: CHE article

[Puget]

From what I can tell based on my own experience and those of people I know in my field, one major key to reducing the time-to-doctorate would be to have more responsive supervisors. There are so, so, so many people I know whose supervisors took 6 months to one year or more to get back to them on drafts of their work. For a few people, this got better once they hit time limitation and were about to be kicked out of the program. At that point, their supervisors got very fast with the feedback.

But the thing is, 6-7 years in is not the right time to be getting good with feedback. That feedback is much more valuable (not to mention more useful!) earlier in the doctoral career.

As someone in the sciences where we have a real apprenticeship model for graduate mentoring, this is shocking to me. I know it's different because we're doing research *together* so much of their work is also my work and the same isn't true in humanities fields, but a year??! What possible excuse is there for that?

I meet with my students at least twice a week-- a "lab hours" block where we at least have a quick individual/grad group check in meeting with a longer individual meeting whenever they need one, and a more formal lab meeting where students present work in progress or we discuss a new study or article. In between, I'm responding to them on Slack and giving them draft feedback etc. All in all I'd say at least of a third of my time is working with the grad students. We graduate our students in 5 years, occasionally 6.

[Parasaurolophus]

As someone in the sciences where we have a real apprenticeship model for graduate mentoring, this is shocking to me. I know it's different because we're doing research *together* so much of their work is also my work and the same isn't true in humanities fields, but a year??! What possible excuse is there for that?

I can't imagine any.

The reason, of course, is that the students aren't anywhere near the supervisor's list of priorities. But they should be. Especially because what ends up happening is that they let the work sit for a year then read it all in a few hours and comment in a rush. They could have done exactly that ten months earlier.

I should hasten to add that I don't really see anything wrong with reading it all in a few hours and commenting in a rush. The benefit of having a supervisor is that they save you a lot of time you'd otherwise waste chasing leads down yourself, following dead ends, and just not quite seeing the forest for the trees. Those few hours they put in save the student weeks of work. And if the contact is regular, well, then it doesn't matter at all if one or more parts of it were a bit rushed.

As someone who now teaches 8-10 courses a year and still publishes at an R1 rate (in addition to some very hefty professional service), I just can't imagine ever letting that kind of thing happen. If I was teaching 1-4 courses a year, had most of my grading done for me by TAs, and had the luxury of a motivated grad student or two... man, that'd be awesome.

[mleok]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

[Puget]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

Yes, I agree in the sciences mentoring grad students is aligned with our research interests in a way it isn't in other fields. But if humanities departments are going to have graduate programs, they better find a different way to incentivize it then so the students don't just get screwed. Like, considering it part of teaching duties. Teaching isn't aligned with our research interests but we do it anyway because it is part of our jobs (though arguably a lot of senior tenured folks at R1 don't feel incentivized to do it very well).

[Hibush]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either.

Those are serious problems that should not be considered unchangeable. Wherever this practice remains, I find it hard to justify training any PhDs. Never mind the job market, the training itself is designed to be bad.

[spork]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

Y'all are reminding me of the differences between my undergraduate and doctoral experiences. As an undergrad I worked in an aeronautical engineering lab that held all-hands meetings weekly. This was in addition to regular meetings between faculty and the PhD students. It was very interesting to see the project management aspects of research -- finite resources, competing demands, safety concerns, etc. In my doctoral program (social science) I'd meet fellow students who hadn't received feedback from their advisors in six months to a year.

[Caracal]

From what I can tell based on my own experience and those of people I know in my field, one major key to reducing the time-to-doctorate would be to have more responsive supervisors. There are so, so, so many people I know whose supervisors took 6 months to one year or more to get back to them on drafts of their work. For a few people, this got better once they hit time limitation and were about to be kicked out of the program. At that point, their supervisors got very fast with the feedback.

But the thing is, 6-7 years in is not the right time to be getting good with feedback. That feedback is much more valuable (not to mention more useful!) earlier in the doctoral career.

As someone in the sciences where we have a real apprenticeship model for graduate mentoring, this is shocking to me. I know it's different because we're doing research *together* so much of their work is also my work and the same isn't true in humanities fields, but a year??! What possible excuse is there for that?

I meet with my students at least twice a week-- a "lab hours" block where we at least have a quick individual/grad group check in meeting with a longer individual meeting whenever they need one, and a more formal lab meeting where students present work in progress or we discuss a new study or article. In between, I'm responding to them on Slack and giving them draft feedback etc. All in all I'd say at least of a third of my time is working with the grad students. We graduate our students in 5 years, occasionally 6.

I'm sure that happens, but it isn't normal, and it wouldn't be seen as acceptable to most mentors. Let's not take edge cases and assume they represent the norm. I'm sure there are science people who run their labs like a small dictatorship based on humiliation and fear, but that doesn't mean its the normal working model.

[Caracal]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

[Puget]

From what I can tell based on my own experience and those of people I know in my field, one major key to reducing the time-to-doctorate would be to have more responsive supervisors. There are so, so, so many people I know whose supervisors took 6 months to one year or more to get back to them on drafts of their work. For a few people, this got better once they hit time limitation and were about to be kicked out of the program. At that point, their supervisors got very fast with the feedback.

But the thing is, 6-7 years in is not the right time to be getting good with feedback. That feedback is much more valuable (not to mention more useful!) earlier in the doctoral career.

As someone in the sciences where we have a real apprenticeship model for graduate mentoring, this is shocking to me. I know it's different because we're doing research *together* so much of their work is also my work and the same isn't true in humanities fields, but a year??! What possible excuse is there for that?

I meet with my students at least twice a week-- a "lab hours" block where we at least have a quick individual/grad group check in meeting with a longer individual meeting whenever they need one, and a more formal lab meeting where students present work in progress or we discuss a new study or article. In between, I'm responding to them on Slack and giving them draft feedback etc. All in all I'd say at least of a third of my time is working with the grad students. We graduate our students in 5 years, occasionally 6.

I'm sure that happens, but it isn't normal, and it wouldn't be seen as acceptable to most mentors. Let's not take edge cases and assume they represent the norm. I'm sure there are science people who run their labs like a small dictatorship based on humiliation and fear, but that doesn't mean its the normal working model.

Ok, but I was responding to Parasaurolophus who said this was true of " so, so, so many people I know", so either Parasaurolophus knows a lot of unlucky people or it isn't as much an edge case as you'd like to think.

[Hibush]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

You may regard my comments on this topic as criticisms of the weird claims. I readily admit to lack of specific knowledge. I suspect some of the weird claims are not the norm, and am hopeful that the associated practices can become rarer.

[Caracal]

From what I can tell based on my own experience and those of people I know in my field, one major key to reducing the time-to-doctorate would be to have more responsive supervisors. There are so, so, so many people I know whose supervisors took 6 months to one year or more to get back to them on drafts of their work. For a few people, this got better once they hit time limitation and were about to be kicked out of the program. At that point, their supervisors got very fast with the feedback.

But the thing is, 6-7 years in is not the right time to be getting good with feedback. That feedback is much more valuable (not to mention more useful!) earlier in the doctoral career.

As someone in the sciences where we have a real apprenticeship model for graduate mentoring, this is shocking to me. I know it's different because we're doing research *together* so much of their work is also my work and the same isn't true in humanities fields, but a year??! What possible excuse is there for that?

I meet with my students at least twice a week-- a "lab hours" block where we at least have a quick individual/grad group check in meeting with a longer individual meeting whenever they need one, and a more formal lab meeting where students present work in progress or we discuss a new study or article. In between, I'm responding to them on Slack and giving them draft feedback etc. All in all I'd say at least of a third of my time is working with the grad students. We graduate our students in 5 years, occasionally 6.

I'm sure that happens, but it isn't normal, and it wouldn't be seen as acceptable to most mentors. Let's not take edge cases and assume they represent the norm. I'm sure there are science people who run their labs like a small dictatorship based on humiliation and fear, but that doesn't mean its the normal working model.

Ok, but I was responding to Parasaurolophus who said this was true of " so, so, so many people I know", so either Parasaurolophus knows a lot of unlucky people or it isn't as much an edge case as you'd like to think.

I haven't done a survey, so we are both just talking in terms of anecdotal experiences. There's a lot of clustering that goes on with grad school experiences by school, career, discipline and other things. I also know people who had criminally inattentive advisors. The only really terrible example I can think of happened in a department that was pretty dysfunctional, so I would assume larger departmental cultures have a lot to do with it. Most of the people I know in my humanities field had good relationships with their advisors, and that includes people who didn't finish their degree.

I actually saw more problems with over-involved advisors who had rigid ideas about the sort of projects their students should pursue and the methods they should use.

I do wish we could discard the idea that the problem is that humanities advisors don't usually co-publish with their advisees. That's a feature, not a bug. It would be like me saying the problem with STEM mentoring is that students are expected to spend much of their time working on joint projects and can't spend enough time working independently and then claiming this was the reason STEM advisors didn't care about their grad students except to the extent they could provide work and get them grants.

For what its worth, I do think it would be good if there was more collaboration in my humanities field. You sometimes see two people write a book together, but it is always established scholars. If it became normal for grad students to work together on journal articles that would be a good thing.

[mamselle]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

Ummm...those are not weird claims. People don't always perceive what ought to be in their best interests, and do act against it. And I've seen both.

I've known of excellent R1s where, for example, a musicology prof set their grad students up to succeed with strong, focused conference assistance options; public presentations sponsored by the school; broadly conceived grad seminars that folded in the latest digital learning, display, and curatorship options, and included their resultant articles in well-organized books that became the go-to texts on their shared topics. This person also did a cool sideline in popular music and concert studies that included people in other parts of the department.

Much of this was grant-funded and in many ways did run like a more scienc-y lab program with frequent meetings, etc.

Of the four folks I described upthread, also all in the humanities,, at least three that I know of never got comments back from their advisors any sooner than 6 months after submission; it was, one said, "...as if you were bothering them and might be penalized with bad comments if you rushed them too much. There was a feeling of fear about that in the department,"

People also knew that when they were called on the chair's carpet for taking too long, the last reason in the world you would ever give was that you were awaiting your advisor's comments on you last two chapters, or in any way suggest your advisor was the problem. Point to your "outside readers" if you wanted (even when they were usually the timely ones) but do not ever drop your advisor in the soup if you wanted a peaceful life and a finished degree.

And for the reasons above stated. Your work was usually only tangentially related to the advisor's: you were supposed to be the "new expert" on that topic, and it was always supposed to be something "no one else had ever published on before." It wasn't really the connected, felted set of related interests a lab has, because one didn't get money for the university or oneself thereby--or only if one were truly energetic and entrepreneurial about it, as the first fellow I described was.

So why wouldn't Chronos eat his young?

They were a threat, a burden, and a sort of come-uppance. The《on dit》in the grad student lounge was very clear on that. There were also "stars" who, it was said, had had it written into their contracts that they wouldn't have to take on grad students at all if they didn't want to, making it that much more competitive to find a "good" advisor,
as well.

There really can be incredible differences.

As one friend, a published writer, once observed, "It wouldn't be believed in fiction."

M.

[mleok]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

Let's be honest, how much of an intellectual legacy is there to be had from graduating PhD students who will never produce PhD students of their own?

[Caracal]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

Let's be honest, how much of an intellectual legacy is there to be had from graduating PhD students who will never produce PhD students of their own?

Edit: If you have nothing pleasant to say...

[marshwiggle]

I think it's really just that there is essentially no incentive for a humanities professor to be invested in the success of their students, since they don't derive co-authored publications, nor do the vast majority of their students go on to tenure-track positions at comparable research universities, so there's no real intellectual legacy either. In the sciences, your research productivity is very significantly affected by the quality of students that you're able to attract, so you want your students to be productive as well, and the interests of the student and supervisor are better aligned as a consequence.

People absolutely are interested in building intellectual legacies through grad students. Can we stop with the weird claims about the humanities based on total lack of knowledge?

Let's be honest, how much of an intellectual legacy is there to be had from graduating PhD students who will never produce PhD students of their own?

Edit: If you have nothing pleasant to say...

Mleok makes a good point. What does it mean for a faculty member to build an "intellectual legacy" through their grad students if those grad students do not and/or cannot carry on that legacy? I don't know that a single generation counts as a a "legacy" if even that generation cannot have the level of success of the mentor*. Usually people speak of a legacy with the idea that the effects will expand over time, not diffuse and disappear.



*This will be even more pronounced if the grad students can't even get TT positions in the first place, let alone supervise PhD students.