Accepting gifts from PhD/Graduate students

[sambaprof]

One of my PhD student, who I am advising/supervising and who has failed to clear the qualifying exam in his first attempt in August and currently working on it to clear in the upcoming January exam came Yesterday and gifted me with the box that has the sweets.

While I accepted the sweet box, I am in two minds if I should give it back to him, since there is a possibility he will be dismissed from the PhD program, if he does not clear the qualifying exam in January.

Please advise your suggestions, thoughts and general guidelines on this issue.

[research_prof]

You can take the box and put it in your lab, so that your students can have the sweets. In this way, it was not a gift to you, but you rather gave it to your students.

[Caracal]

As far as I can tell, most schools don't have any specific policies about gifts from students to faculty. The general rule that does apply to business affairs, however, is that "nominal" gifts can be accepted. There's no universal definition of nominal, but a box of chocolates almost certainly fits in that category. Nobody is going to imagine you can be bribed into doing anything unethical with a box of chocolates.

[sambaprof]

You can take the box and put it in your lab, so that your students can have the sweets. In this way, it was not a gift to you, but you rather gave it to your students.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will do this. In fact I will purchase and add 1 more box of chocolates and keep it in the lab.

[mamselle]

Some cultural expectations exist around honoring professors in this way.

If, say, one of the South Asian students from a lab I EA'd for went home for a couple weeks, we could expect some tasty, foil-wrapped boxed candies on their return--which immediately went into the break room for that lab, as noted above.

NOT accepting would have been a serious no-no: you would be denying the student the chance to show you honor as they've probably been raised to do.

It's not a bribe, it's a gift.

M.

[sambaprof]

You can take the box and put it in your lab, so that your students can have the sweets. In this way, it was not a gift to you, but you rather gave it to your students.

Do I need to let the other students know that the sweets are given by a particular student or just keep it and tell them eat and enjoy it.

[research_prof]

You can take the box and put it in your lab, so that your students can have the sweets. In this way, it was not a gift to you, but you rather gave it to your students.

Do I need to let the other students know that the sweets are given by a particular student or just keep it and tell them eat and enjoy it.

Yes, you can send an email to your group and say that "X student was kind enough to buy some sweets for us, so I bought even more and left it in the lab. Hope you all enjoy!".