Terminating the support for the RA student?

[dyanchu]

I have been supporting the graduate student to work on the research grant for a couple of years. Previously, he was very motivated and showed lots of progress towards his PhD. But after getting married and having a child everything changed.
First, he asked for 1 month off when having a child. I was supportive of this.
Next, he started not coming to the lab 1-2 days a week.
And now, when the baby turned 6 month, he went oversees to show the baby to his family. Initially, it was a plan to visit the family for only 4 weeks but the return trip is already delayed by more than 2 weeks because of some additional need to stay with the family. During all this time, no work is done (he could at least work on the papers but says that it is difficult with the family around).

I was always trying to be nice to my students but this situation really makes me stressed and disappointed. There are deadlines on the research grant he is paid from (it is the NSF grant and I am due to the yearly report soon) and with such behavior I feel I just need to terminate his support and use those money to hire another student. Any advice? How would you stress to students the importance of working in the lab and progressing? Would you pause the support until the student is back?

[doc700]

Hello! 

This is annoying and I would be frustrated and disappointed too.  I'm curious if your university/department/group has a vacation, sick leave and workload policy for students?  My department has one.  A 4 week absence would be pushing it but technically not out of compliance in my department (although there would be no remaining days left for the year and this would use all the holiday days which at least my group allows to be used throughout the year). 6 weeks would be over.

This is a federal grant.  You must have to certify effort for the grant, no?  If the student has used more than allotted vacation/sick leave/holiday etc time you can't certify effort and thus they cannot be paid (at least from the grant).  At least at my university, once our strict COVID shutdown ended last spring if the work was designed to be in person, the student must be in person to do it.  Its fine if they collect data one day in lab and analyze the next day from home, but if they are supposed to be in lab our university didn't allow us to substitute other activities (alternative theory project) and still report effort. 

Have you tried discussing with the student the policy about vacation and workload?  I think it would be harsh to shut off funding if the student wasn't clear on the exact number of absences they could have.

[mamselle]

Also, is the nature of the family need clear?

It's one thing if they just want more time to visit, another if someone's seriously ill, or needs support for food or meds, or something.

But they still should be clearer about the time away and understand the limits.

The accounting rules are indeed usually very specific.

M.

[dyanchu]

Thank you for the replies.
Unfortunately, it is usually more the conversation between the professor and the student rather than a policy in place. Therefore, it is very hard to refer to something specific. But when I did my PhD, we were allowed for only 2 weeks of vacation time per year. We also don't certify the efforts from the students, so the only way is to temporary terminate the support. It is just very annoying to be in such situation and make hard decisions for students.

Regarding the situation, I am not aware of any specific reasons rather than there was some need for additional issues to be resolved (not sure what the issues are so it sounded very general).

[Ruralguy]

You are kind of in a bind until he comes back. I think when he does, you have to talk about limits on vacaction time and leave, and how if they are violated,  you have to terminate support. You could potentially , in terms of the PhD program, extend some leniency, but in terms of this grant, you need to show work, and if you asked for money for students, presumably you have to show progress of those students. Of course you could keep him and be honest about his lack of work, but you'd probably then lose that funding source.

[doc700]

Thank you for the replies.
Unfortunately, it is usually more the conversation between the professor and the student rather than a policy in place. Therefore, it is very hard to refer to something specific. But when I did my PhD, we were allowed for only 2 weeks of vacation time per year. We also don't certify the efforts from the students, so the only way is to temporary terminate the support. It is just very annoying to be in such situation and make hard decisions for students.

Regarding the situation, I am not aware of any specific reasons rather than there was some need for additional issues to be resolved (not sure what the issues are so it sounded very general).

My department has a policy but one of the requirements is that each PI have a January group meeting where we lay out all the lab expectations.  This is includes vacation/workload as well as authorship, behavior in lab (respect for others), communication etc.  We also give resources they could go to with various problems.  Its a bit tedious to repeat every year but I think ultimately worthwhile.  The policies do deal with the lower bounds so it doesn't outline how you get a great PhD but it does help in these type of situations.  I had a student with extended medical problems so it was helpful to have a boundary in place for what is just reasonable random sick leave and what you need to go to the office of disability services and get a plan for --  which we will accommodate but needs to be official.

About this year's yearly report, I just submitted one.  We spoke to the program officer as we had difficultly using the central facilities this year due to COVID.  It doesn't help your long term problem and you want someone on the grant who will do the work, but I think for this years report there will be a lot of leniency as COVID was very impactful to how our labs operated.  This doesn't actually seem like a COVID specific situation but I think you will still be able to renew the funding this specific year with less results.

[fizzycist]

This is really pretty standard behavior for grad students to have for at least a portion of their PhD, or at least its standard for the ones I've encountered at R1 physics depts. Also a standard (but very real) source of frustration for their supervisors!

I don't know of a great solution, but I doubt that suddenly cutting off RA support is going to help. This student is experienced and trained on the project, so a replacement student would presumably be less productive for a while and cost you time to train. And students being in precarious financial situations and/or being angry with you is not good for your group's overall morale.

If you have a postdoc or another experienced student then you could ask them to team up with this student for a while to get the project back on track. If you don't have those resources, you could try to pitch in for a while yourself. Else, you may have to live with some periods of slow productivity.

Its very unlikely that anything will happen to your existing NSF grant just for submitting a mediocre annual report. You might have trouble with renewal, but renewal proposals already have pretty low funding rates even if you are productive.

The good news is IME students can return to their prior state of productivity in time. So your best bet for everyone's sake is to try and encourage and motivate this student and hopefully you have other students/postdocs and projects that you can focus on while they are going through the down period.

[research_prof]

I have been supporting the graduate student to work on the research grant for a couple of years. Previously, he was very motivated and showed lots of progress towards his PhD. But after getting married and having a child everything changed.
First, he asked for 1 month off when having a child. I was supportive of this.
Next, he started not coming to the lab 1-2 days a week.
And now, when the baby turned 6 month, he went oversees to show the baby to his family. Initially, it was a plan to visit the family for only 4 weeks but the return trip is already delayed by more than 2 weeks because of some additional need to stay with the family. During all this time, no work is done (he could at least work on the papers but says that it is difficult with the family around).

I was always trying to be nice to my students but this situation really makes me stressed and disappointed. There are deadlines on the research grant he is paid from (it is the NSF grant and I am due to the yearly report soon) and with such behavior I feel I just need to terminate his support and use those money to hire another student. Any advice? How would you stress to students the importance of working in the lab and progressing? Would you pause the support until the student is back?

This issue has a simple solution: terminate the support and ask your department/college to support your student as a TA. The student will get the message.

You can admit another student to work on your NSF grant and request a no-cost extension from NSF, if needed. I was in a similar situation, where a student that I was supporting was making excuses and no progress . The moment he received the TA contract for the next academic year, he definitely got the message.

[Ruralguy]

Though I have seen this sort of thing happen, research_prof, it really should only happen if standards were communicated at some point. If not, I think until they are, and the student violates them again, a more lenient approach is likely more appropriate.

[research_prof]

Though I have seen this sort of thing happen, research_prof, it really should only happen if standards were communicated at some point. If not, I think until they are, and the student violates them again, a more lenient approach is likely more appropriate.

What are the standards that need to be communicated? That a student needs to make progress? Well, this is something stated in their contract since day 1.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

A friend from my undergrad was in a similar situation after moving across the pond:
she got really disheartened in her PhD due to a combination of social isolation and culture shock (the university she got into really was in the middle of nowhere). She ended up nearly quitting (moved home to be with her family), but her supervisor proposed a deal: she finishes a specific part of the project and graduates with a master's degree (despite already having one). To my knowledge it worked out well for both of them (apparently, having specific and not so distant objective really helps with motivation).

On the other hand, I know about a very similar situation with a postdoc (extended trips home, lack of productivity etc), where his supervisor was forced to eventually hire another person to finish work. So, compassion does backfire sometimes.

[Ruralguy]

By standards, I mean specifically communicating limits on vacations, communicating with supervisor if ill, discussing a potential family leave if appropriate, etc.. You could argue that certainly they'd have know that they still have to get work done, and I am sure that it is so, but without all of this being discussed in the open, its probably best that the supervisor involved hear lean towards leniency, realizing that solid work may never really return.

[Hibush]

It's important to communicate as soon as possible when there is a problem. Usually we don't do it proactively, and you can't do too much retroactively. Normally, advisors react when something is starting to feel irreversible.

In short, whatever you do, do it now.

[clean]

If he returns and worked at the same level of effort as in the past (which is now in question), could he finish the task within the terms of the grant?

How much time would it take for a new person to come up to speed and would the new person be able to complete the task within the terms of the grant?  (CAN you effectively replace him)?

If he CAN be replaced, I suggest a call to ask HIM the question.  You need to know TODAY what he plans to do to complete the task by X date, or is it HIS recommendation that you replace him on this task?
"I need (list tasks) done by (this time).  Should I find someone else to complete them on time or are you going to be able to do it?  (IF he say's HE will, then this is the follow up question).  What are your plans to accomplish these tasks/ I will need a written plan with deadlines and commitments from you outlining your new deadlines."