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We were discussing a potential hire at work a few days ago who suddenly turned down the company's offer for another company despite our team being his "dream pl

We were discussing a potential hire at work a few days ago who suddenly turned down the company's offer for another company despite our team being his "dream place to work" and promising to not make a sudden decision without talking with us first. Turns out he was basically forced to go to this other company by his advisor, who had a lot of funding from this other company, or his advisor would "make graduating very difficult".

otachack 5y ago
That is f*cked up and I hope people that dropped grad careers chime in in the future about situations like this, especially when more unions pop up.
- temp234 5y ago
  There are so many horror stories about academia waiting to come out. The way vulnerable people are exploited and mistreated in what is, in fact, a work environment; moral hazards and conflicts of interest everywhere; lots of untrustworthy research results and inability to reproduce research. Universities are big business and ought to be regulated just as much as any other big business
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking and how you'd like to see them implemented?
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      Decent labor standards would be a start. Universities are rather analogous to sweatshops in how they operate and the economic reasons for doing so. And I suspect that, in much the same way, this state of affairs represents a sort of Nash equilibrium that cannot be significantly altered except by an outside force changing the rules of the game.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        In grad school we definitely had decent labor standards though. I mean, I was worked really hard, but I can't say I was worked any harder than I was in private industry. And the pay wasn't great, but it was more than enough to support myself, and the understanding has always been that you get free tuition as part of the deal, which is pretty great, so that makes up for a lot of the pay deficit. I could see better pay for students with families, but other than that I think grad students have it pretty good these days. An example of a specific labor standard you'd like to see implemented would be welcome.
        Ar-Curunir 5y ago
        As I’m sure you know, Most PhD students stop taking classes by the end of the 2nd year, and focus entirely on research and teaching thereafter, which means that the “free tuition part” is just a sham to avoid classifying PhD students as workers, and to hence avoid paying them for their labour.
        ModernMech 5y ago
        As a grad student you are there for an education and your education doesn't only (or even mostly) happen in the classroom. If grad students want to be treated more like employees and less like students, the relationship between student/advisor will shift more toward an employee/employer relationship. This may result in more pay but it will also result in different expectations. For example, if you want to be treated more as an employee, then I would have a lower tolerance for mistakes a student would make. If you want to be an employee I will start hiring for skills rather than potential. As employer/employee relationships have developed maxims like "fire fast", this attitude change may work against grad students. Also just to be precise, tuition isn't just to pay for classes, it goes to pay for all of the resources you use as part of the university community. If you are done your requirements you will still have to pay tuition. And students don't stop taking classes by the end of year 2 (or 4 depending), they stop taking required classes. Since your advisor pays your tuition, you can negotiate with them if you want to take more than the minimum. You are done your requirements after 2-4 years and don't have to take more classes, but of course you can (I did). Maybe this is something unions can help with.
    - logifail 5y ago
      > Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking [..] It's fundamentally wrong for one human (the PhD supervisor) to have so much unchecked power over another (the PhD student). Without changing how the entire system works, I'm not sure how you fix that by means of regulation.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        It's not really unchecked though. There's the department vice chair, department chair, the college dean, the dean of student affairs, a student senate, a faculty senate, etc. etc... there's a structure here for resolving grievances.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        logifail 5y ago
        > there's a structure here for resolving grievances That may look good on paper. Yet a 20-something student vs an academic surrounded by supporters and wielding power and influence, it's only ever going to go one way. I've personally been on the wrong end of it. After reviewing my options, noting that my supervisor had just been elected Fellow of the Royal Society in London, I decided to bite my tongue, complete my PhD, and leave. The relationship was so broken I didn't even say goodbye to my supervisor (literally cleared out all my stuff from the lab very late one night), and I've never spoken to him, or had any contact with anyone in his research group ever since.
        Fomite 5y ago
        "it's only ever going to go one way." I have seen it go the other way as well.
        gwbrooks 5y ago
        Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations. Unchecked power is a pretty big charge in a situation where the student can (Yes, at a cost) always walk away.
    - Fomite 5y ago
      One very specific example I'd like to see is protection for foreign students on visas in the event that they report academic misconduct - there's lots of ways they can lose their funding after that, even if there's not retaliation, and that's bad for the system.
ipsin 5y ago
This sounds very much like extortion, and I'm curious how any school with a purported honor code or sense of academic standards could allow it. Even if the student didn't have proof of threats, the situation itself should be enough to get the student a new advisor or oversight with the existing one. I mean "should" in an ideal sense. I think this kind of shit is common.
- lamename 5y ago
  If the professor in question brings the university a lot of grant money, especially if they're tenured, a lot gets ignored. As for the honor code I cynically suspect it's more about having an item go use against someone when the university chooses, rather than a true standard that all are held to at all times. If nothing else, it's just tough for a large institution to handle all of its problems at once.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - saltminer 5y ago
    Back when I worked as a tutor, we knew a lot about the professors since most of us were also TAs at some point or worked as TAs concurrently. Some were consistent in busting people for cheating, others tried to avoid it at all costs (because they based their self-worth on their Rate My Professor page), but a few were just capricious and arbitrary. On their good side? "Eh, everyone uses Stack Overflow [or forgets to do anything to hide their plagiarism, not even bothering to edit the author name Javadoc comment on the code they copied] every now and then." On their bad side? "Copying others' work is unacceptable, you can either take an F in the course or plead your case to Academic Integrity." Of course, the ones who showed favoritism were also the ones who practically printed grant money, so nothing ever happened while I was there (and I doubt anything ever will).
    - downrightmike 5y ago
      With code, as long as it works, so what. Plus learning a language requires copying to learn how to do it correctly. Would you want to be required to be completely original learning French? It makes no sense to burn people for doing what it took industry decades to figure out.
_fat_santa 5y ago
The dynamics of academia really surprise me sometimes. When I think of "work", I think of two things: "work" (the actual day to day things you do) and "workplace" (the place your work at). In a traditional workplace, were always taught to value "workplace" over "work" and to never stay at a "workplace" for the "work". That is, if you have a crappy boss and toxic culture, working on a shiny greenfield project isn't going to help and most will advise you to leave and pursue a "workplace" that is more aligned with you. With academia the dynamics are completely different because now "work" and "workplace" occupy the same space, as in they are equally important, with "work" might be even more important than the "workplace". So you get into a situation where you hate the "workplace", but unlike the traditional workplace, you can't simply up and leave because your "work" is far too important, and continuing your "work" at another "workplace" is from everything I read about academia, difficult to say the least. Not sure how unions will look in academia but it's clear that we need some sort of arbiter in that space to re-balance the "work" and "workplace" since the dynamics are so different.
- caddemon 5y ago
  Yeah this is related to the reason I'm not sure how much a traditional union can really help here - "school" and "work" become blurred beyond distinction for many grad students. Anyone with funding from an RAship is both getting paid and making degree progress because of their work in the lab. Some items will be very clearly a lab duty and some will be very clearly for personal development, but a lot of time is also spent on tasks that fit into both "work I'm doing in exchange for my funding" and "research training that is counting towards my degree requirements". I'm not sure how much impact a union can have on anything that isn't purely on the "work for funding" side. I'm all for TAs to unionize with a national org because it doesn't run into this issue and there is also less overall job heterogeneity there. But how do you negotiate highly personalized degree requirements as part of a labor union? There could be some high level policy changes that would help future students, but I don't think we know exactly what would work best. And will these national orgs even choose to prioritize that kind of improvement? The UAW unions that have formed at a few other places over the last 5 years have helped raise salary/benefits a bit, but there has barely been discussion of fundamental changes that could help fix academic training. It's pretty focused on basic labor rights. Maybe it is just my department but most people I know wanted to do a PhD knowing the terrible salary, and what they really feel ripped off on is the lack of academic freedom that was promised as part of this training. People want a union because they feel ripped off, I get it, but the union leaders are working towards a pretty different type of resolution from everything I can tell. Maybe this is just the first step in the process, but I'm skeptical.
klyrs 5y ago
That really sucks but I'm not sure what the connection between this professor's probably illegal action and unionization.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Unions are generally vehicles of resistance to illegal and/or oppressive actions. HTH.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Sadly, given my experience as a steward, I don't think a union could actually help in this particular situation.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Many people don't have a better choice than keep trying with unions.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    What might be different about grad students is the weird market dynamics. They're well-educated, overworked, and underpaid. They should be able to get a decent job outside of academia from hiring managers sympathetic to not being in academia. Except for foreign students and people who really want to be in academia, there's a lot of pressure that should have made work conditions much better. If someone ready to pay you twice as much with normal hours and less drama doesn't improve conditions, I'm not sure if a union can.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      Aren't graduate students there in order to get credentials that help them land all those better jobs outside of academia? I think you're imputing hiring pressure that they're pursuing, not experiencing.
      - 5y ago
AndyMcConachie 5y ago
People who have no experience with academia would think your story is false and outlandish. People who have experience with academia would think your story is commonplace and borderline uninteresting. This has been my experience with telling and hearing stories like this.
asf9b8hqw4n 5y ago
This is definitely abusive, but it's not clear how a union would go about solving this? The CBA could prohibit it (but it's already against policy) or the union could file a grievance (students could already do this), but nothing really prevents this from happening with a union. I don't even think the union has jurisdiction over "academic" matters like graduation. The Harvard CBA explicitly points out that academic matters cannot be arbitrated like other grievances: https://studentunionization.harvard.edu/files/hgsu/files/2022.01.12_hgsu_new_cba_no_red_lines-a_0.pdf?m=1642720521 https://studentunionization.harvard.edu/files/hgsu/files/202...
- caminante 5y ago
  That's a material exclusion. Regardless, for the parent's example, it sounds like a mis-alignment in expectations between the PhD candidate and their advisor. I wonder "Why is this coming up now?" For options, I don't know why the PhD candidate can't accept the lesser option, graduate, and then switch jobs. Or...maybe the candidate made a crafty tale to accept another job without getting called out for a disingenuous "love letter."
- thylacine222 5y ago
  Students cannot already file grievances. Grievance procedures are part of a contract, and many, if not all, non-unionized grad workers work without a contract, and if they do have a grievance procedure, they are often only through university-run venues where they do not receive independent representation.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  > I don't even think the union has jurisdiction over "academic" matters like graduation. The union has jurisdiction, or perhaps we should say influence, over those matters it is strong enough to act collectively to force acceptance of its influence or jurisdiction. Naturally if tries to get full jurisdiction over handing out Ph.Ds, that will be a misguided attempt which will be met with extreme resistance and fail. But if it insists on its right to intervene when advisers inappropriately block their advisees from graduating - that is a realistic (though not easy) objective. > This is definitely abusive, but it's not clear how a union would go about solving this? It's very clear. Let's assume the student has not yet accepted a work offer here or there. A group of union reps from the department go talk to that Professor. They tell him/her that this is an informal chat; that they have heard about his threat. They demand that he perform the following: 1. Informally affirm, to them, that s/he will not penalize or impede the advisee in any way, regardless of their choice of employment. 2. Ditto but to the advisee, within X time. and that if these demands are not met, they will make the affair public: The department will be plastered with posters attacking him for extortion and mistreatment; press releases will be sent out; and ethical charges will be filed directly (if grads can do so), or external legal action may be initiated. ... that is, assuming the Professor does not deny the claim, which of course can also happen, and then things get more delicate and beyond the scope of this comment, but still actionable.
lvs 5y ago
lostlogin 5y ago
Surely a resignation upon graduation is the way to go here - though burning bridges early in one’s career is not ideal.
dchapp 5y ago
Would you have been willing to hire this person without them graduating?
- hayd 5y ago
  They've paid many tens+ of thousands of dollars for graduate school... they likely place some value on graduating!
hoka 5y ago
Why not have them sign with the other company, graduate, quit immediately, and join yours?
nonlincoder 5y ago
Something similar happened to me. My advisor gave me a bad reference at a place I wanted to work because he wanted me to go somewhere else.

otachack 5y ago

That is f*cked up and I hope people that dropped grad careers chime in in the future about situations like this, especially when more unions pop up.

temp234 5y ago
There are so many horror stories about academia waiting to come out. The way vulnerable people are exploited and mistreated in what is, in fact, a work environment; moral hazards and conflicts of interest everywhere; lots of untrustworthy research results and inability to reproduce research. Universities are big business and ought to be regulated just as much as any other big business
- ModernMech 5y ago
  Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking and how you'd like to see them implemented?
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    Decent labor standards would be a start. Universities are rather analogous to sweatshops in how they operate and the economic reasons for doing so. And I suspect that, in much the same way, this state of affairs represents a sort of Nash equilibrium that cannot be significantly altered except by an outside force changing the rules of the game.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      In grad school we definitely had decent labor standards though. I mean, I was worked really hard, but I can't say I was worked any harder than I was in private industry. And the pay wasn't great, but it was more than enough to support myself, and the understanding has always been that you get free tuition as part of the deal, which is pretty great, so that makes up for a lot of the pay deficit. I could see better pay for students with families, but other than that I think grad students have it pretty good these days. An example of a specific labor standard you'd like to see implemented would be welcome.
      - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
        As I’m sure you know, Most PhD students stop taking classes by the end of the 2nd year, and focus entirely on research and teaching thereafter, which means that the “free tuition part” is just a sham to avoid classifying PhD students as workers, and to hence avoid paying them for their labour.
        ModernMech 5y ago
        As a grad student you are there for an education and your education doesn't only (or even mostly) happen in the classroom. If grad students want to be treated more like employees and less like students, the relationship between student/advisor will shift more toward an employee/employer relationship. This may result in more pay but it will also result in different expectations. For example, if you want to be treated more as an employee, then I would have a lower tolerance for mistakes a student would make. If you want to be an employee I will start hiring for skills rather than potential. As employer/employee relationships have developed maxims like "fire fast", this attitude change may work against grad students. Also just to be precise, tuition isn't just to pay for classes, it goes to pay for all of the resources you use as part of the university community. If you are done your requirements you will still have to pay tuition. And students don't stop taking classes by the end of year 2 (or 4 depending), they stop taking required classes. Since your advisor pays your tuition, you can negotiate with them if you want to take more than the minimum. You are done your requirements after 2-4 years and don't have to take more classes, but of course you can (I did). Maybe this is something unions can help with.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > Can you expand on what regulations you feel are lacking [..] It's fundamentally wrong for one human (the PhD supervisor) to have so much unchecked power over another (the PhD student). Without changing how the entire system works, I'm not sure how you fix that by means of regulation.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      It's not really unchecked though. There's the department vice chair, department chair, the college dean, the dean of student affairs, a student senate, a faculty senate, etc. etc... there's a structure here for resolving grievances.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - logifail 5y ago
        > there's a structure here for resolving grievances That may look good on paper. Yet a 20-something student vs an academic surrounded by supporters and wielding power and influence, it's only ever going to go one way. I've personally been on the wrong end of it. After reviewing my options, noting that my supervisor had just been elected Fellow of the Royal Society in London, I decided to bite my tongue, complete my PhD, and leave. The relationship was so broken I didn't even say goodbye to my supervisor (literally cleared out all my stuff from the lab very late one night), and I've never spoken to him, or had any contact with anyone in his research group ever since.
        Fomite 5y ago
        "it's only ever going to go one way." I have seen it go the other way as well.
      - gwbrooks 5y ago
        Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations. Unchecked power is a pretty big charge in a situation where the student can (Yes, at a cost) always walk away.
  - Fomite 5y ago
    One very specific example I'd like to see is protection for foreign students on visas in the event that they report academic misconduct - there's lots of ways they can lose their funding after that, even if there's not retaliation, and that's bad for the system.

ipsin 5y ago

This sounds very much like extortion, and I'm curious how any school with a purported honor code or sense of academic standards could allow it. Even if the student didn't have proof of threats, the situation itself should be enough to get the student a new advisor or oversight with the existing one. I mean "should" in an ideal sense. I think this kind of shit is common.

lamename 5y ago
If the professor in question brings the university a lot of grant money, especially if they're tenured, a lot gets ignored. As for the honor code I cynically suspect it's more about having an item go use against someone when the university chooses, rather than a true standard that all are held to at all times. If nothing else, it's just tough for a large institution to handle all of its problems at once.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- saltminer 5y ago
  Back when I worked as a tutor, we knew a lot about the professors since most of us were also TAs at some point or worked as TAs concurrently. Some were consistent in busting people for cheating, others tried to avoid it at all costs (because they based their self-worth on their Rate My Professor page), but a few were just capricious and arbitrary. On their good side? "Eh, everyone uses Stack Overflow [or forgets to do anything to hide their plagiarism, not even bothering to edit the author name Javadoc comment on the code they copied] every now and then." On their bad side? "Copying others' work is unacceptable, you can either take an F in the course or plead your case to Academic Integrity." Of course, the ones who showed favoritism were also the ones who practically printed grant money, so nothing ever happened while I was there (and I doubt anything ever will).
  - downrightmike 5y ago
    With code, as long as it works, so what. Plus learning a language requires copying to learn how to do it correctly. Would you want to be required to be completely original learning French? It makes no sense to burn people for doing what it took industry decades to figure out.

_fat_santa 5y ago

The dynamics of academia really surprise me sometimes. When I think of "work", I think of two things: "work" (the actual day to day things you do) and "workplace" (the place your work at). In a traditional workplace, were always taught to value "workplace" over "work" and to never stay at a "workplace" for the "work". That is, if you have a crappy boss and toxic culture, working on a shiny greenfield project isn't going to help and most will advise you to leave and pursue a "workplace" that is more aligned with you. With academia the dynamics are completely different because now "work" and "workplace" occupy the same space, as in they are equally important, with "work" might be even more important than the "workplace". So you get into a situation where you hate the "workplace", but unlike the traditional workplace, you can't simply up and leave because your "work" is far too important, and continuing your "work" at another "workplace" is from everything I read about academia, difficult to say the least. Not sure how unions will look in academia but it's clear that we need some sort of arbiter in that space to re-balance the "work" and "workplace" since the dynamics are so different.

caddemon 5y ago
Yeah this is related to the reason I'm not sure how much a traditional union can really help here - "school" and "work" become blurred beyond distinction for many grad students. Anyone with funding from an RAship is both getting paid and making degree progress because of their work in the lab. Some items will be very clearly a lab duty and some will be very clearly for personal development, but a lot of time is also spent on tasks that fit into both "work I'm doing in exchange for my funding" and "research training that is counting towards my degree requirements". I'm not sure how much impact a union can have on anything that isn't purely on the "work for funding" side. I'm all for TAs to unionize with a national org because it doesn't run into this issue and there is also less overall job heterogeneity there. But how do you negotiate highly personalized degree requirements as part of a labor union? There could be some high level policy changes that would help future students, but I don't think we know exactly what would work best. And will these national orgs even choose to prioritize that kind of improvement? The UAW unions that have formed at a few other places over the last 5 years have helped raise salary/benefits a bit, but there has barely been discussion of fundamental changes that could help fix academic training. It's pretty focused on basic labor rights. Maybe it is just my department but most people I know wanted to do a PhD knowing the terrible salary, and what they really feel ripped off on is the lack of academic freedom that was promised as part of this training. People want a union because they feel ripped off, I get it, but the union leaders are working towards a pretty different type of resolution from everything I can tell. Maybe this is just the first step in the process, but I'm skeptical.

klyrs 5y ago

That really sucks but I'm not sure what the connection between this professor's probably illegal action and unionization.

spacemanmatt 5y ago
Unions are generally vehicles of resistance to illegal and/or oppressive actions. HTH.
- klyrs 5y ago
  Sadly, given my experience as a steward, I don't think a union could actually help in this particular situation.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Many people don't have a better choice than keep trying with unions.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  What might be different about grad students is the weird market dynamics. They're well-educated, overworked, and underpaid. They should be able to get a decent job outside of academia from hiring managers sympathetic to not being in academia. Except for foreign students and people who really want to be in academia, there's a lot of pressure that should have made work conditions much better. If someone ready to pay you twice as much with normal hours and less drama doesn't improve conditions, I'm not sure if a union can.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    Aren't graduate students there in order to get credentials that help them land all those better jobs outside of academia? I think you're imputing hiring pressure that they're pursuing, not experiencing.
    - 5y ago

AndyMcConachie 5y ago

People who have no experience with academia would think your story is false and outlandish. People who have experience with academia would think your story is commonplace and borderline uninteresting. This has been my experience with telling and hearing stories like this.

asf9b8hqw4n 5y ago

This is definitely abusive, but it's not clear how a union would go about solving this? The CBA could prohibit it (but it's already against policy) or the union could file a grievance (students could already do this), but nothing really prevents this from happening with a union. I don't even think the union has jurisdiction over "academic" matters like graduation. The Harvard CBA explicitly points out that academic matters cannot be arbitrated like other grievances: https://studentunionization.harvard.edu/files/hgsu/files/2022.01.12_hgsu_new_cba_no_red_lines-a_0.pdf?m=1642720521 https://studentunionization.harvard.edu/files/hgsu/files/202...

caminante 5y ago
That's a material exclusion. Regardless, for the parent's example, it sounds like a mis-alignment in expectations between the PhD candidate and their advisor. I wonder "Why is this coming up now?" For options, I don't know why the PhD candidate can't accept the lesser option, graduate, and then switch jobs. Or...maybe the candidate made a crafty tale to accept another job without getting called out for a disingenuous "love letter."
thylacine222 5y ago
Students cannot already file grievances. Grievance procedures are part of a contract, and many, if not all, non-unionized grad workers work without a contract, and if they do have a grievance procedure, they are often only through university-run venues where they do not receive independent representation.
einpoklum 5y ago
> I don't even think the union has jurisdiction over "academic" matters like graduation. The union has jurisdiction, or perhaps we should say influence, over those matters it is strong enough to act collectively to force acceptance of its influence or jurisdiction. Naturally if tries to get full jurisdiction over handing out Ph.Ds, that will be a misguided attempt which will be met with extreme resistance and fail. But if it insists on its right to intervene when advisers inappropriately block their advisees from graduating - that is a realistic (though not easy) objective. > This is definitely abusive, but it's not clear how a union would go about solving this? It's very clear. Let's assume the student has not yet accepted a work offer here or there. A group of union reps from the department go talk to that Professor. They tell him/her that this is an informal chat; that they have heard about his threat. They demand that he perform the following: 1. Informally affirm, to them, that s/he will not penalize or impede the advisee in any way, regardless of their choice of employment. 2. Ditto but to the advisee, within X time. and that if these demands are not met, they will make the affair public: The department will be plastered with posters attacking him for extortion and mistreatment; press releases will be sent out; and ethical charges will be filed directly (if grads can do so), or external legal action may be initiated. ... that is, assuming the Professor does not deny the claim, which of course can also happen, and then things get more delicate and beyond the scope of this comment, but still actionable.

lvs 5y ago

lostlogin 5y ago

Surely a resignation upon graduation is the way to go here - though burning bridges early in one’s career is not ideal.

dchapp 5y ago

Would you have been willing to hire this person without them graduating?

hayd 5y ago
They've paid many tens+ of thousands of dollars for graduate school... they likely place some value on graduating!

hoka 5y ago

Why not have them sign with the other company, graduate, quit immediately, and join yours?

nonlincoder 5y ago

Something similar happened to me. My advisor gave me a bad reference at a place I wanted to work because he wanted me to go somewhere else.