5 ms·

> 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

> 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.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations Someone is in a position of power over someone else, and is exploiting that, and a response is to claim that this is a "wholly voluntary situation"? Really?!
  - patrick451 5y ago
    I take it you think we should do away with workplace discrimination laws, the minimum wage and OSHA too. I for one, wish there were more thumbs in my canned chili. It's been a little bland lately.
- patrick451 5y ago
  Yeah, that's all just a dog and pony show. If you escalate an issue with your advisor through any of those channels, your career is toast. You might as well just quit.
rajin444 5y ago
> It's fundamentally wrong for one human (the PhD supervisor) to have so much unchecked power over another Why is this fundamentally wrong? Short of a truly equitable society (which I think most agree would be a dystopian nightmare), I don't see this as fixable. The problem is that the power is abused. The best way to fix this is high trust societies, not creating one more institution with a disproportionate amount of power.
- logifail 5y ago
  > Why is this fundamentally wrong? It's the unchecked nature of the power. Politicians have upcoming elections to worry about. Tenured professors ... what do they worry about?
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > Tenured professors ... what do they worry about? Class assignments and number of classes taught per semester, teaching times and locations, class sizes, advising assignments, committee assignments, TA allocations, grader allocations, internal grants, withholding or revoking consulting permission, withholding internal department funding, lack of promotion (there is still a ladder after tenure), and most of all reputation, which in academia has higher currency than currency. Tenured professors still have a job to do and they still have a boss (lots of bosses, as I said), and if they don't do their job they can still get fired (I've seen it happen), or their lives can be made miserable. If there's an issue of academic dishonesty then there there are processes at journals, conferences, and funding agencies to address concerns. I've also witnessed these processes work as intended.
    - logifail 5y ago
      > Tenured professors still have a job to do and they still have a boss (lots of bosses, as I said) We are apparently talking about very different kinds of professors at very different kinds of institutions. Unless he were to actually commit a crime, I don't think there is anything my ex-boss could have possibly done which could have ended up with him being removed from his post. He was simply too important to the institution in terms of his reputation and his ability to attract external funding. How he treated his students was really neither here nor there, as long as the money and the citations kept rolling in.

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.
- logifail 5y ago
  > Agree, and let's also remember that these are wholly voluntary situations Someone is in a position of power over someone else, and is exploiting that, and a response is to claim that this is a "wholly voluntary situation"? Really?!
- patrick451 5y ago
  I take it you think we should do away with workplace discrimination laws, the minimum wage and OSHA too. I for one, wish there were more thumbs in my canned chili. It's been a little bland lately.
patrick451 5y ago
Yeah, that's all just a dog and pony show. If you escalate an issue with your advisor through any of those channels, your career is toast. You might as well just quit.

rajin444 5y ago

> It's fundamentally wrong for one human (the PhD supervisor) to have so much unchecked power over another Why is this fundamentally wrong? Short of a truly equitable society (which I think most agree would be a dystopian nightmare), I don't see this as fixable. The problem is that the power is abused. The best way to fix this is high trust societies, not creating one more institution with a disproportionate amount of power.

logifail 5y ago
> Why is this fundamentally wrong? It's the unchecked nature of the power. Politicians have upcoming elections to worry about. Tenured professors ... what do they worry about?
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > Tenured professors ... what do they worry about? Class assignments and number of classes taught per semester, teaching times and locations, class sizes, advising assignments, committee assignments, TA allocations, grader allocations, internal grants, withholding or revoking consulting permission, withholding internal department funding, lack of promotion (there is still a ladder after tenure), and most of all reputation, which in academia has higher currency than currency. Tenured professors still have a job to do and they still have a boss (lots of bosses, as I said), and if they don't do their job they can still get fired (I've seen it happen), or their lives can be made miserable. If there's an issue of academic dishonesty then there there are processes at journals, conferences, and funding agencies to address concerns. I've also witnessed these processes work as intended.
  - logifail 5y ago
    > Tenured professors still have a job to do and they still have a boss (lots of bosses, as I said) We are apparently talking about very different kinds of professors at very different kinds of institutions. Unless he were to actually commit a crime, I don't think there is anything my ex-boss could have possibly done which could have ended up with him being removed from his post. He was simply too important to the institution in terms of his reputation and his ability to attract external funding. How he treated his students was really neither here nor there, as long as the money and the citations kept rolling in.