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Irresponsible Philosophy Faculty: How Widespread a Phenomenon?

Brian Leiter

A former graduate student in philosophy writes:

I am writing to you because you have appeared in the past–and in sharp contrast to many of your colleagues in the field– to have at least some genuine concern for the well being of graduate students in philosophy. I have completed two masters degrees, a post-bac in classical studies and four years of doctoral work at a relatively well ranked program. I have been enrolled in four different graduate programs, one of them in [Europe], and have taken classes at eight different colleges or universities since I graduated from college. My point is  that I have been around and I know what to expect and what not to expect. And by and large my experiences have been very good. However, the last couple of years have not been so good. I have had professors simply neglect to hand back papers, much less offer any substantive comments, even after repeated requests for them. I have had professors ask me to do some research on a topic and write up short reports or essays for them only to have them drop the the project and move on to a different university without even an email to let me know that they at least were aware of the fact that I did this work. I have had a graduate adviser tell me that she cannot offer me any advice because she does not really know anything about me and has not seen my file–this after a month of just trying to get an appointment with her. She even commented that getting the file would be too much trouble.

There is obviously much more to this story.  But the short end is that I have since left the field of philosophy. I do not feel that I was singled out or the target of some clandestine prejudice. I think I was the victim of something systemic to the field itself.  I hope that faculty members realize that in most cases, however wrong this may seem, a faculty’s feedback and respect for a graduate student is all a graduate student has to work with. A student afloat without any land in sight or beacons to guide them is either an Abraham or a doomed individual. I have had no opportunities to voice grievances at the university nor any other way to try and show those who consider themselves enlightened and critical thinkers just what the human consequences are of their reserved and subconsciously unsympathetic behavior.

What do others think? How common are these problems?  I know of one top PhD program where almost every graduate student signed an open letter to the faculty complaining about these kinds of problems.  But are these incidents anomalous or widespread?  Anyone who wishes to be specific about these problems (e.g., mentioning a particular program) must include their name and e-mail address.  All comments will be pre-screened, as always.

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45 responses to “Irresponsible Philosophy Faculty: How Widespread a Phenomenon?”

  1. anon

    A word of advice to faculty members: we're all busy people, but surely you can hold off checking your email untill after our meeting? A little respect goes a long way.

    Reply
  2. Fritz J. McDonald

    I recently defended my dissertation at CUNY. I have no idea if my experience is typical of philosophy graduate student experiences, but it was nothing like the unfortunate situation described in the post. For all of the 20 graduate classes I took for credit, I received my papers back (sometimes promptly, sometimes not promptly), with comments. Most of these comments were detailed and helpful. I also had a great deal of useful input on my dissertation from all five members of my examination committee. I was also never in a situation where I was asked to produce work for a faculty member who dropped a project or left the school. So–at least in my own experience–I did not find problems such as this to be "systemic to the field" of philosophy.

    It would be interesting to know the research interests of the "former graduate student in philosophy" who wrote the letter, and whether these interests were covered by the faculty at the department in question. In my experience, it is hardest to receive help from faculty members when you want to work on a topic not covered by anyone in the department.

    Reply
  3. anon2

    The only time I have experienced problems like this were with a couple of senior professors. The problem didn't seem to stem from the fact that they were too busy, but from the fact that they were simply disinterested in giving individual attention. Both individuals have no active research programs, and only show up around the department when they are required to teach. This is very problematic in that they are the only people who work in their area of specialization.

    In contrast I've found junior faculty to be very accessible, and helpful, despite the fact that they are under enormous pressure to pursue publishing their own research.

    Reply
  4. anon3

    From what I've seen, both as a graduate student and as faculty, the degree of responsibility varies considerably from faculty member to faculty member. Professors receive almost no honest feedback on their graduate mentoring and are rarely held accountable in any way. As the years go by and they forget what it was like to be a graduate student, their quirks and blindnesses sometimes grow. The advanced graduate students generally know who are the responsible and who are the irresponsible advisors. Before you commit yourself to a particular line of research, it pays to know the weaknesses of your advisor and how best to work with those weaknesses.

    Reply
  5. anon3

    I am in a doctoral program in California. Roughly 1/2 of the professors don't even attempt to get work back to you. The other 1/2 do, but even then about 1/2 of them do it on their own schedule, sometimes several months later.

    In a recent attempt to schedule an oral defense of a paper, it was virtually impossible to get faculty members to commit. One in particular, a junior faculty member, told me he couldn't do it. Come to find out he's teaching at another school on that day. My life is on hold while he makes more money.

    A grad student shouldn't be reduced to begging to defend a paper, a dissertation prospectus, or a dissertation. A fellow grad student who recently defended her dissertation had a professor who kept rescheduling the defense date, although all members had approved the dissertation for defense. She became increasingly frustrated. One of her comm. members actually had the nerve to say to her, "Why is this so important to you to defend right away?" Well geez….decades of schooling and she wants to be done with it. Is that unreasonable? Punish a student who wants to be done, nice.

    In my experience, less than 1/3rd of the professors are actually interested in graduate education and the graduate students. The other 2/3rds plus are worthless in varying degrees.

    Word of advice to potential grad students, ask questions about professors and their habits. I always tell the truth about my experience with a professor. Many grad students don't because they fear the professor will somehow find out. Don't just talk to the students who clearly are liked, talk to the marginalized ones as well. You never know where you will end up on the scale.

    Reply
  6. anonymous

    I'm currently ABD in a philosophy program, and have taken many courses. I can personally say that I Didn't receive a lot of feedback on the papers I've written, but neither did I pursue that feedback to any great degree.

    It's easy to underestimate, I think, how busy some graduate professors may be, especially the sought after ones. Students try the most to work with the professors that are already the busiest: giving and publishing papers, participating in seminars, etc.

    In the end, I have found graduate school (I imagine that philosophy professor's interactions with students aren't that much different than interactions in any humanities, non-lab driven field) to be like my undergraduate experience at a large state university. If you put in the effort to meet with professors, and they respect you and don't think you are wasting their time (I didn't want to accuse the poster of this…but it may be the case) then you can receive a great deal of useful feedback. If that effort isn't put in, or you have a tendency to ignore intimations that they don't respect your work, you may end up spinning your wheels, and eventually your professors may stop responding to you.

    Reply
  7. anon4

    It is not wise to generalize the complaints of "a former graduate student in philosophy". I have been around for a while too, and my impression is that the experiences of this student are neither entirely the norm nor entirely an exception. I have had helpful and enthusiastic as well as indifferent and careless advisors. Needless to say, one can meet careless and indifferent advisors in all (humanities) fields, not merely in philosophy.

    While I think it would be wrong to generalize this student's complaints, or to apply them exclusively to the field of philosophy, I also think it is indeed necessary that each senior faculty member in whatever field should consider carefully his or her responsibilites as graduate advisors. Above all, they should reflect on the time when they were graduate students, and think about the degree to which good advising was conducive to their happiness and well-being then. In my experience, the happiness of a graduate student may not be exclusively determined by the quality of graduate advising, but it is a very, very substantial part, especially in the dissertation writing process.

    This means, of course, that graduate students admitted to a number of programs should be most concerned to find out about the quality of graduate advising at the programs they are admitted to, and treat this as one of the decisive criterions for decision-making (rather than, say, the criterion of whether department x is considered as a "top 10 school" by the Leiter report, whereas department y is not so considered, when the numerical difference between x and y is actually imperceptible: 4.0 instead of 3.7; I'm writing this because people here and at other blogs consistently employ the "top 10 school" terminology as if it were an informative and well-established criterion.)

    Reply
  8. BL

    I'd like to underline the advice in anon4's last paragraph. This advice has been given, of course, in the "Leiter Report" for a very long time, and my anecdotal impression from correspondence is that students follow it. The key is, as others say, to talk to students at the programs to which you are admitted.

    Reply
  9. anon5

    There is a big difference in professors who don't respect your work and thus, don't respond to it; and professors who rarely respond to anyone's work. This isn't about the quality of grad student work; it is about the quality of education. It seems that it is incumbent upon the professor to do what is possible to better the student's writing, not simply give up on the student. It is also incumbent upon the professor to get work back to the student in order for the student to learn. Maybe the work would be better if comments were actually given and done so in a timely manner.

    While graduate faculty have responsibilities, they also have reduced teaching loads, sometimes 1-2 courses per year. Let us not forget it is their job to read the work, even if they don't want to, or have more important things to do like their own research.

    A good graduate professor has a balance of research, advising, and a general concern for the well-being of grad students. In my experience, this last category takes a back seat to the rest.

    Reply
  10. anon6

    I am not sure if this counts as off topic or not, but I had a pretty bad experience with professors writing me references when applying to grad schools. (Since I was applying to several schools in several different countries, I had to ask for references on several different dates). Let me make it clear that this wasn't due to a general reluctance to write me a reference (I was accepted to some pretty good schools – which suggests that my references were ultimately good). I assume this was just due to the fact that they were very busy and that writing references is an annoying task.

    While I fully sympathise with that, it is also important to remember how uncomfortable it is for a student to chase down his professor, or ask for a reference letter. I wish that senior faculty were a bit more sensitive to the power difference here, and would be more forthcoming in this resepct.

    Reply
  11. JCB

    This example will likely be completely useless to generalize from, but here goes:

    As an undergrad, I found my English professors to be extremely available and extremely hepful. My philosophy professors (with one exception for the philosophy professor teaching my senior seminar) were not. I cannot imagine that any professor would be more readily available to undergrads than to graduate students.

    Perhaps those same philosophy professors become involved and concerned when it comes to their graduate students; perhaps they do not. But to disagree with one of the above anons (and my evidence is, after all, just the departments at my school), perhaps not all humanities professors are alike. It would make sense that if Group A received close attention in grad school and Group B did not, Group A would be more likely to return the favor as professors.

    This raises the interesting possibility, at least in my mind, that problems such as the above complaints might vary within the humanities by liberal arts field. How else to explain the fact that the English professors at my school (with doctorates from all over the place, incl.: Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, and Hopkins) are, as a rule, genuinely concerned about the education of their students, whereas the philosophy professors at the same school (possessing, I assume, similar credentials) function merely as disinterested lecturers? (I should add that with one or two exceptions, philosophy classes were no larger than English classes).

    Reply
  12. anon 7

    I received a PhD in philosophy from a decent but not exceptionally high-ranked department in the past 4 years and was incredibly frustrated with my dissertation advisor. This professor basically said that there wasn't time to read my work or offer comments although he had agreed months earlier to serve as my advisor. This left me in the awkward position of having to decide between changing advisors or sticking it out and essentially covering for him. I decided to stick it out in part because I didn't want to cause a stink that might hurt his career and in part because I knew I'd need his letter. It was not a pleasant experience. This faculty member has now developed a reputation as someone who won't submit grades or give feedback. He has made life much worse for many grad students currently struggling to graduate and he will no doubt continue to do so if he is tenured (he might be tenured by now, I don't know). I suspect other faculty members are aware of the problem but they seem to want to pick their fights and have decided this is one fight they don't want to pick. If you are in a small department it really takes only one or two faculty members like this to make life really difficult for grad students. When I looked over his comments on the penultimate draft of the dissertation, he wrote less than 100 words in the margins and there wasn't a single indication that he had read past the first 30 pages. I look forward to sharing some words with him once I'm tenured and my professional career doesn't depend upon his good will.

    Reply
  13. Kris McDaniel

    My experience at UMASS-Amherst was fantastic. The faculty enjoyed engaging philosophically with their students; they were almost always in their offices, with their doors open. I had close relationships with most of my professors there. I always received (and continue to recieve!) helpful and thoughtful comments on my work. It was a wonderful place to learn philosophy.

    Reply
  14. John Turri

    I can only speak to my own experience and, to some extent, that of my graduate student colleagues here at Brown. I'm aware of nothing even remotely resembling the kind of unfortunate experiences described above occurring here. In fact, it's exactly the opposite, with faculty offering consistent, helpful, and measured guidance in a gracious way. Once in a while you get a term paper returned a couple months after term ends, but that's the worst it gets.

    Reply
  15. anon 8

    Sometimes it happens that a professor of type X might not care much for a student's work but another professor of type Y would care much for it. (and this might be so for idiosycratic reasons, or because the professor's lack of philosophical vision). This is good reason to attend a school that has several professors within your field (or at least a few good generalists). If one doesnt like you, you can try someone else. If you go to a school with a small representation (even if excellent), then your career is in trouble if the professor you like doesnt like you or your work (for whatever reason).

    Reply
  16. anon

    I received my MA this July. I loved philosophy going in. Some of the professors in my program were interested in the graduate students, some were indifferent, but there were some who were antagonistic to us. The vast majority seemed indifferent, and there were more who cared than were antagonistic, but those who were antagonistic had a huge impact on us.
    I went to graduate school expecting a collegial atmosphere, a place of learning, philosophical debate, and intellectual give and take. It was none of those things.
    I wrote up a handful of anecdotes, but no number of stories can convey the atmosphere I experiencedand and writing them down just upset me all over again. The end result was that after 3 years I left 2 years shy of the Ph.D., totally disillusioned with academic philosophy, and substantially more depressed than I was when I entered the program. My instructors, over-all, did more to tear me down, discourage me, ignore me, and dishearten me, than they ever did to make me feel like I was even worth their time.

    Is this a problem at other institutions? I don’t know, but I do know that it is not worth the risk to find out.

    Reply
  17. Brendan

    I wonder how much of the problems that people are describing would be remedied if there was a more of a personal relationship between faculty and graduate students.
    I just finished my undergrad at a Canadian school, which fosters an incredibly close relationship between profs and students at all levels. I consider some of my ex-profs close personal friends.
    I found that as these non-academic relationships grew the academic ones did as well.
    Friends who have now gone on to do graduate work have found such close relationships utterly lacking in the departments they ended up at.
    One can hardly ask a prof to "be friends", but perhaps some of the problems mentioned could be mended if, as people have suggested, profs actually cared about their grad students at a personal level.

    Reply
  18. Tad Brennan

    You know the part of this story that strikes me as most offensive? Not the tales of papers unread and uncommented on (though those are bad too), but this one:

    "I have had professors ask me to do some research on a topic and write up short reports or essays for them only to have them drop the the project and move on to a different university without even an email to let me know that they at least were aware of the fact that I did this work. "

    Let me get this straight: the *prof* was working on a project, and asked the *student* to do some research on it and write up a report for them? I.e., in order to facilitate the *prof's* project?

    I find that bizarre. I don't see how a professor has any right to ask a student to do research on a topic for any reason other than the student's own pedagogical needs. The student certainly has no obligation to do research to serve the professor's research agenda. And the prof has an obligation to do their own work, fer god's sake–if they are going to write a paper or a book, it ought to be based on their own research, not on research that they made a student do.

    I have never heard of anyone doing this, in any philosophy department I have been associated with. ("This"=asking a student to do some research and writing solely in order to facilitate the prof's research agenda, which is what the part about "dropping the project" strongly suggests).

    I have heard about grad students doing some xeroxing for a prof's research, for work-study money, and that does not bother me. And I remember seeing the "Paper Chase" long ago, in which a law prof asks a law student to write up some material–I found that weird at the time, but then the standards for originality are different in law schools than in philosophy programs. ("Originality" both in the sense of: is it permissible to publish things that have no original thoughts in them? and in the sense of: is it permissible to publish as your own work material that originated with a student?)

    The other stuff that the original complaint recounts–the irresponsibility, laziness, inconsiderateness, etc.–that all seems lamentable and in need of correction, but not too surprising, given the wickedness of humanity in general and philosophers in particular. But asking someone to do your research for you? I find that extremely weird behavior on the part of any philosopher.

    Reply
  19. carl

    "The short end"? Is that an expression?

    Reply
  20. Andrei Buckareff

    I am currently a visiting assistant professor at Franklin & Marshall College. I received my PhD in May 2005 from the University of Rochester. Before that, I earned my M.A. at Texas A&M University. My experience at both schools was totally unlike that of the former graduate student. Professors at both schools were always very helpful and happy to meet with me. This was not only true of my dissertation advisor at Rochester and thesis advisor at TAMU, but of all of the professors I took courses with. Furthermore, the feedback I received from my professors was typically helpful. This is not to say that I never heard folks grumbling at either institution. In my experience, however, the problem at both schools was often with the students and not (just) the professors. This is not to say that I am skeptical of the truth of the claims of disgruntled grad students (or that professors in grad programs are all saints), but there are two sides to every story.

    My advice to students who are considering a grad program and are particularly interested in working with an individual professor or more than one professor is this. Email students in the department. Ask them for their honest impression of the department and the accessibility, etc., of the professors. In particular, email students who are writing dissertations under the person or persons you are interested in working with. Don't just pick a program on the basis of its ranking. That should be a criterion; but it should not be decisive. There's much that can be done to ensure that you do not get stuck in a program that fails to be a good fit for you.

    Reply
  21. Thornton

    At the risk of attacking the messenger: the source of your post strikes me as the sort of perpetual student whom faculty members might not take seriously precisely because the person has decided to accumulate class hours apparently without ever arriving at the sort of research that results in a terminal degree, publications, and a job. Without further information about this person it is impossible to evaluate this person's complaints; but the notion that faculty would treat different graduate students with different degrees of seriousness based on the students' potential and past performance hardly strikes me as a source of complaint. If after attending a half dozen graduate programs someone has yet to truly make oneself worthy of mentorship, then the person really has no grounds for complaint if faculty do not treat him or her as a serious candidate for mentoring.

    Reply
  22. anon8

    I have had a philosophy adviser on two occasions. One was a dream, the other a nightmare. If I had to generalise on the difference I'd say the latter thought his responsibility terminated with his opinions. Maybe that's why the problem is endemic to philosophy. Where else will you find so many solopsists who think they personify everything reasonable in their peerage? They only need to read the first few pages (or better still, exchange a few words) to find the key to everything wrong with your approach, and that's all they need to advise you on.

    Reply
  23. Charles

    "It is not wise to generalize the complaints of 'a former graduate student in philosophy'."

    Generalization is not exactly what is at issue. Even if this sort of situation is an exeption to the norm, the facts still remain: that such instances do in fact occur; that these instances result in capable, talented students from leaving the field of philosophy (or not entering in the first place); and that this type of behavior would be severely reprimanded by any self-respecting, self-policing business/institution that has any reasonable measure of accountability. Students are already expected to undergo five to seven (7!) years of training, often at great personal and monetary loss/risk to enter into the field, for much less security, opportunity, and compensation than they could expect almost anywhere else. To ask students — even if only a minor subset of them — to weather or take strong precautionary measures to avoid outright mistreatment is unncessary, to say the least.

    Reply
  24. anon8

    I went to a phd program where the faculty to student ratio, where the number of students includes all matriculated MA and phd students, was about 1:35. It took me ten years to complete my degree and while I recieved all twenty of my papers back, there were three occasions in which there were no comments. My experience there was a mix of frustration and incredible intellectual formation and stimulation. While my advisor , an internationally renowned philosopher, taught a full two and two, he also managed to return chapters of my dissertation within two weeks of my handing them in. It is true that if I did not make myself heard, there would be no interaction. But in that circumstance, my cohort and fellow students developed a serious bond of solidarity and developed our own outlets for intellectual work. We acknowledged grudgingly the shortcomings of our department and made the most of it. Not a typical situation, I don't think.
    Though I believe that I could have received better instruction and guidance at the dissertation writing stage, i am not bitter and I don't believe that the demands of my professor's careers and the overwhelming demands of my fellow students upon them prevented me from flourishing ( I received a tenure track offer ABD last march and finished my phd last may).
    While I sympathize with the student who 'quit' philosophy (and fantasized doing so myself but for other reasons), am I right to detect a tad bit of narcissistic injury? How bad do you want to study, teach, and write philosophy with your life? Do you want it bad enough to put up with the irresponsibilities of fellow colleagues? If your expectations were disappointed by your advisor and committee, do you just quit and go home?
    Abandoned research assistants, ill-suited and ungracious student advisors, a few papers that receive no extended comment are unpleasant. But I think they are par for the course, and either they were trying to drop you a hint as to your promise in the field or you just don't want it bad enough. Sorry.

    Reply
  25. Andy Streich

    One thread in these comments is especially troubling. For example,Thorton writes, "…but the notion that faculty would treat different graduate students with different degrees of seriousness based on the students' potential and past performance hardly strikes me as a source of complaint." And similarly from anon8: "Abandoned research assistants, ill-suited and ungracious student advisors, a few papers that receive no extended comment are unpleasant. But I think they are par for the course, and either they were trying to drop you a hint as to your promise in the field or you just don't want it bad enough. Sorry."

    While acknowledging that varying quality of work and productivity incur varying levels of academic respect, is it not the responsibility and duty of graduate faculty to treat all students with equal respect as human beings? Underperforming students deserve to be treated as adults and explicitly told when they are not making the grade — not dropped into some lower class of beings who are given "hints" or treated with less "seriousness." Professors who do not give timely feedback or avoid giving straightforward, honest negative feedback are simply not doing the job they are paid to do.

    While I have a great appreciation for those professors that encouraged and guided my better work, I am forever grateful for being shown (with some compassion) that in one particular area I appeared to have only modest ability.

    Reply
  26. anonymous

    This phenomenon is not entirely limited to graduate programs. Personal and anecdotal experience seems to indicate that there is no major difference between professors at liberal arts colleges, big state schools and grad schools. And within departments, there is tremendous variety amongst faculty. I know of students who have horror stories about experiences in liberal arts colleges and great experiences in grad school. The answer to whether this is a problem is, like the answer to so many questions (as I have seen as I've aged and gained experience), "it depends."

    Reply
  27. the krusty old kvetch

    Reading everyone's comments to my letter has been very enlightening. I think people have made some good comments on both sides of the fence. I think the accusation of being a perpetual student is absolutely correct. I have not always been the most practical person and it was in fact my broad interests that led me to philosophy. However, I have only been in one PhD program and I was curious to see what kind of experiences others have had. I know that at the PhD program I was in, there were many others who had similar complaints. This was one factor that led me to have the confidence to send the letter in the first place. As just one example, I will offer the following. An older graduate student who was working in the same field as I was sufferd at the hands of one of the same professors who would not return any of my work. This other graduate student made some comments to the professor about how s/he was teaching a class. The professor was apparently angry enough to resign from this student's dissertation committee. This was a particularly difficult setback for this student who has been nothing but one of the nicest and kindest persons I have ever known. Another good comment that has been made above is that I "just didn't want it bad enough." This too I think is absolutely correct. I certainly did not want it bad enough if wanting it bad enough meant continuing to live in what was for me, personally anyway, a repressive environment. Life is simply too short and there are many good and helpful things that we can do with our lives that do not involve contributing to an atmosphere that one finds personally unrewarding. I am very grateful that I did in fact have these other options. If I had not had these other options, I would probably still be "wanting it bad enough". Another factor that adds to my confidence in this matter is the atmosphere that I currently find myself in. I am working on yet another masters degree, this time in the field of education. I am working on credentials that will allow me to teach elementary school. The difference between my current environment and the old one is like that between day and night. My teachers are very supportive, encouraging and personal. I have even been referred to as "a very good friend" of one of the senior teachers in the program. And here is the real catch: they are like this BEFORE they have any idea of how promising a teacher I will or will not be. Their acceptance of me is unconditional and not dependent on my quality of work. However, if they thought that I was not doing good work, and this is another major difference, they would most certainly tell me. But they would tell me because they wanted to help me do better or find something else to do that would be more suitable. In response to the comment above that perhaps the behavior of the professors in my old philosophy department was justified as a means to hinting that I was not good enough, I would like to respond by saying that I did in fact ask several of the professors point blank whether they thought I should continue in the program and not one of them said that I should move on to something else. What they did say was that they either just did not know or that I should wait and see. Perhaps a sort of "pass the buck" mentality? If what they were really trying to say was that I should move on, then why not just say it. What is the big deal? Is telling someone that they cannot do philosophy like telling them that they are only half alive?

    Reply
  28. anon4

    @charles

    I just wanted to make the point that the situation described by the 'complainant' is not entirely the norm, and moreover, I fail to see why it should be regarded as a problem of professional PHILOSOPHY rather than, say, a problem of graduate studies as a whole. Go and ask graduate students in the literature departments at Yale and you will find out that most of them are profoundly unhappy as far as their advising (as well as their general) situation is concerned.

    I agree with your condemnation of such practices, it's just that I'm afraid that there is not much to be done about that. The single most characteristic feature of the professor – grad. student relationship, in philosophy and anywhere else, is this: a total imbalance of power. The graduate student is entirely dependent on the professor: the quality of his work, his enthusiasm for the project, his job prospects etc. all depend partly if not entirely on the professor's efforts. To the professor, by contrast, the graduate student is a mere nuisance: he (the student) distracts him (the professor) from his research, teaching duties, and family; he writes stuff he (the professor) has read a million times before; and he is constantly begging for a mild sign of appreciation or respect. While the professor is of utmost importance to the professor, the professor couldn't care less about the grad student. The grad student lacks entirely in power, the professor has all the power.

    What this means, to me, is that the grad student-professor relationship is doomed from the start, both profesionally and personally. All you can hope for, as a student, are extraordinarily enthusiastic, responsible and well-meaning professors who have not forgotten what it was like when they were grad students themselves. I have had a few such professors, but this is not and will never be the norm.

    Nor do I think that institutional constraints (interference by other professors, rankings by students, and all that) could remedy this situation. What would be the point? Can you FORCE someone in the age of 40-60 to be a good advisor? Certainly not.

    Sometimes I think that the real source of this problem is the very structure of graduate study itself, with all the power issues and inhuman structures to which it gives rise. But I never came up with a reasonably good alternative, so I'll better shut up here.

    Reply
  29. another anon

    Another thing worth pointing out. Professor Leiter mentions a top program at which almost all graduate students signed an open letter complaining about these types of problems. It should be noted that people's motivations for signing such things are often diverse. The fact that many students signed the open letter cannot (necessarily) be taken to mean that each student felt she was receiving poor advising. One might sign an open letter because she notices great inequality between the attention given to students of Professor X and Professor Y.

    Reply
  30. Tim

    I echo those above who have noted the the prevalence of irresponsible faculty is *really* variable, and that potential students should do everything they can before going to a program to find out how good a job the faculty there do of mentoring their students, what sort of community the grad progam has, etc.–all of the things that are *not* covered by the Leiter Report. When it came out, I thought that the National Doctoral Survey did a nice job of covering these aspects of graduate school. I wasn't surprised, for instance, to see how well Arizona did; it confirmed my own anecdotal evidence. But sadly it's now probably of limited value, since the survey was conducted in 2000.

    Once you get to a Ph.D. program, it might make sense to do an M.A. thesis along the way with the person you're thinking of doing your diss. with; it will allow you to see how the person is with giving feedback and the like.

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  31. Eric Rovie

    While I personally have had good experiences in my MA and PhD programs, I think Andrei offers excellent advice: contact students, get some ground-level feedback on the people you want to work closest with, and, where possible, visit programs and meet people face to face. I visited several programs as a prospective or accepted PhD student and found the students apathetic or even bitter about their programs and advisors. I chose a program that might not have been as reputable, but I fit in well and the people I was working with wanted to work with me. Ask practical questions: "do professors return papers, with feedback, in reasonable amounts of time?" "Does faculty member X work well with students on dissertations?" I think a lot of students are afraid to ask these questions, but they may save a ton of heartbreak in the long run.

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  32. David Hunter

    I'm presenting lecturing in Bioethics at the University of Ulster, but I hail from (and am still finishing my PHD there) the university of Auckland. The supervision I have had has been excellent and as others have mentioned above part of that has been the congeniality of the staff involved (I still think my first class masters is in part due to the picture I have of my masters supervisor with a rose between his teeth at my wedding 🙂

    That said I have known others there to struggle with some supervisors, who became well known amoung the graduate students as difficult to work with.

    So I want to reiterate email or preferably speak to other graduate students before you choose a supervisor.

    Furthermore if you can contact some previous graduate students from that school, they may be in a position to give you more honest feedback.

    Finally I guess some advantages might be had by attending a department which has many staff, since that way if things do break down between you and your supervisor you can hopefully be supported by another member of staff…

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  33. anon y mous

    I'm a junior faculty member in a middling PhD granting philosophy department. I sympathize with students who must deal with professors who are lazy, incompetent, or whatever. My department houses a handful of reputable senior faculty, a couple of whom are energetic and dedicated advisors. But there are others who are "checked out," holding the view that the students, who, on the whole, have gotten better over the last several years, are just not good enough to justify any effort. The result is that these faculty work begrudingly with the students, putting in the least amount of effort possible and, in the end, putting out unemployable PhDs who are under false impression –so it seems in observing them– that they aren't unemployable.

    It's obvious that these faculty members are just dishonest both with themselves and with the students. If a potential advisor thinks a student is not good enough to work with, then she/he ought to have the guts to say so. It's painful to see students go through a course of study with the ultimate end being a worthless PhD. And it's painful to not call these students into my office and frankly tell them what's going on. I do my best to work with every student who really wants to do the work. And when I'm on a committee with "checked out" faculty, I make an extra effort to guide the student through, though my efforts don't repair what is a very serious problem. It's sometimes apparent to the students what I'm doing, and I sometimes unofficially become their advisor. If it's apparent to any faculty, I can't tell.

    My advice to students who are in a situation with an apparently irreponsible professor is to politely call them on it. I realize there is some risk involved, but the risk to one's education of being passive is much worse. (My advice to students in middling PhD programs is to go to a better program if at all possible.) My own lesson, as a faculty member, has been this: If I can't move to a department with a better PhD program, then I've got to move to a department without a PhD program. Although, I realize that accomplishing the former won't fix all of the problems.

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  34. mark lance

    As many folks have said, these things vary from professor to professor. But it is important to note that there are institutional things that can be done. It's true that it is very hard to force someone to mentor, grade seriously, take courses seriously, etc. if they are committed to not doing so. But it is also clear that there are departments which have taken on graduate education as a serious responsibility and taken steps to create a culture within which professors are responsible. I graduated from Pittsburgh 17years ago, and while some students had complaints of various sorts, no one I trust would say that faculty were generally inattentive, did not give us detailed comments on work, did not advise us, did not work hard to see to it that we got through in a reasonable time, etc.

    Though I'm not at as prestigious a place now, I can say with fair confidence that Georgetown has the same culture. Most of the complaints in this thread are simply things that would be considered unacceptable in our department — at either the graduate or the undergraduate level. We do not take teaching and mentoring to be optional. Of course some faculty spend more time in one thing or another, but there would be very serious pressure indeed on anyone who behaved in some of the ways detailed here.

    So all in all, I don't think people can get off the hook so easily with the "what can you do?" excuse. There are things that can be done, which we know because departments have done them.

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  35. CH

    I've been enrolled in three graduate departments in two different disciplines. By far, the best education/attention/feedback was provided by the lowest-ranked department I attended (not in philosophy). By far the worst attention I received was from my present depeartment where I will be defending my thesis shortly (philosophy) – a department ranked fairly highly.

    By far, the worst mistake that I made was to become ill and take a leave of absence from the department in order to seek life-saving treatment. Upon returning, I was simply forgotten. Several faculty members were visibly surprised to see me re-enter the program, and when word spread that I had written a draft of my dissertation, there was nothing short of astonishment.

    Unfortunately, I doubt that my experience is unique. All too often I have seen TA-ships go to the last person to pester the person who rations them, dissertation feed back dependent on the jet-setting schedule of those involved, and the complaining session could, I suppose go on at some length here.

    Although there is, I think, simple negligence involved here, there might be more. My perception is that our discipline consistently succedes in training philosophers to do philosophy, but almost universally fails to train philosophers to succede in Higher Education. Esteem, and thus graduate teaching posts, are granted on the basis of philosophical production, not collegiality.

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  36. Jonathan (aka the krusty old kvetch)

    I would like to second Mark's comment above that there actually are things that can be done. One idea that just occurred to me is a letter or document of some sort that could be e-signed by people (even anonymously perhaps?) much in the same way that moveon.org gathers signatures for petitions. Of course, this would probably not be anywhere near the scale of moveon.org's petitions. But it is an interesting idea to float. Perhaps a graduate student bill of rights?? I would be willing to absorb all of the costs and labor involved in such an enterprise–and I am moderately handy with the web. However, it would probably be more appropriate if others wrote the document, though I would not mind creating a draft as a starting point for others to edit.

    What do others think about such an idea? Is it too ambitious? Are there better ideas? Have others already atttemped/accomplished such a thing?

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  37. AnonXXVII

    To the person who suggested that people applying to graduate programs contact students in those programs and ask them questions about the advising, and to anyone applying to programs: Keep in mind that the students in those programs might feel compelled to praise the faculty because they don't want criticism to get back to the faculty members in question. I'm a nonymous blogger, so I feel like a sitting duck for questions from any student who's applying to my program (which is not philosophy, but is in the humanities).

    I'm honest with them, though, but in an oblique and diplomatic way: "The students who do best in this program, and who have the highest levels of satisfaction, are the most independent ones, the ones who just want to go off and do their research and be left alone." I explain that every program has strengths and weaknesses, and frankly this is my program's greatest weakness. The faculty members treat us like we're a burden. They do the absolute minimum that they're required to do (e.g. they return papers with comments), but that's it. I'd love an advisor like the one from my master's program. We went out for coffee together regularly, and I always felt free to meet with him in his office and run ideas for papers and outlines for thesis chapters by him.

    What are reasonable expectations for advisors? Besides the bare minimum, I'd like an advisor to:

    * read and comment on drafts of papers I'm looking to send to journals. I'd like an advisor to look at all my job search materials (letter, cv, writing sample, teaching philosophy, research agenda, etc.)

    * provide feedback at the brainstorming phase of a project

    * walk around with me at conferences, introduce me to other scholars in the field, and promote me when/if appropriate

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  38. Ravi Malhotra

    I am not a philosophy student nor prof (I am a law prof as of 2006) but with respect to poor distribution of TAships at least, and being Canadian, has anyone explored collective bargaining? I realize this is probably impractical and the recent NLRB case law does not particularly help but there is a struggle going on at this very moment at NYU. It seems to me collective bargaining would solve at least some of these problems.

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  39. AnonXXVII

    Tons of people have thought of a graduate student bill of rights:

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=graduate+student+%22bill+of+rights%22&btnG=Google+Search

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  40. Tim O'Keefe

    What to do? One thing that might be useful (to follow up on my comment above) is to revive something like the National Doctoral Survey, just for philosophy Ph.D. programs. (You can go to http://survey.nagps.org/ to see more about it.) It anonymously surveyed current and recent PhDs on questions broken into the following categories:

    – Information for Prospective Students
    – Preparation for a Broad Range of Careers
    – Teaching and TA Preparation
    – Professional Development
    – Career Guidance & Placement Services
    – Controlling Time to Degree
    – Mentoring
    – Program Climate
    – Overall Satisfaction

    People were willing to be quite frank.

    If this sort of thing were conducted biannually, and the results posted and widely publicized, a la the Leiter Report, it would generate the same sorts of pressures on departments to improve their rankings on the metrics above as they currently have to make hires that improve their ranking in the Leiter Report. After all, if the word gets out that department X might have eminent faculty but is terrible at mentoring its grad students, that looks bad and might lead to a decline in the quality of the people who decide to go there.

    Reply
  41. Tim O'Keefe

    What to do? One thing that might be useful (to follow up on my comment above) is to revive something like the National Doctoral Survey, just for philosophy Ph.D. programs. (You can go to http://survey.nagps.org/ to see more about it.) It anonymously surveyed current and recent PhDs on questions broken into the following categories:

    – Information for Prospective Students
    – Preparation for a Broad Range of Careers
    – Teaching and TA Preparation
    – Professional Development
    – Career Guidance & Placement Services
    – Controlling Time to Degree
    – Mentoring
    – Program Climate
    – Overall Satisfaction

    People were willing to be quite frank.

    If this sort of thing were conducted biannually, and the results posted and widely publicized, a la the Leiter Report, it would generate the same sorts of pressures on departments to improve their rankings on the metrics above as they currently have to make hires that improve their ranking in the Leiter Report. After all, if the word gets out that department X might have eminent faculty but is terrible at mentoring its grad students, that looks bad and might lead to a decline in the quality of the people who decide to go there.

    Reply
  42. BL

    I very much doubt Professor O'Keefe's suggestion is workable for a variety of reasons. When, several years ago, I tried to solicit from grad students this kind of information, two things happened: first, some departments mobilized their grad students to e-mail cheerleading messages to me; second, from other departments, I'd hear from only one student, who of course wanted to remain anonymous, and who had nothing but bad things to say. Was this student representative? Hard to know. Should one publish one (malcontented? representative?) student's derogatory remarks about particular faculty, while permitting that student to remain anonymous? Will anonymity, obviously important for candor, not also encourage score-settling and vindictive postings, unrelated to the merits?

    The National Doctoral Survey had *some* safeguards for some of these problems, though they were imperfect, and also hugely labor intensive. Even its results were, in several cases where I had independent information, a bit suspect.

    I still think the best bet for students is to pursue current grad students with lots of questions, much like those described above by other commenters.

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  43. jonathan (aka the krusty old kvetch)

    I think Tom's idea is a very good one. In fact, if Tom does not mind, I would like to take the idea and run with it and see what happens. For anyone interested, I set up a website just for this purpose: http://graduatestudentrights.org

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  44. Anon

    I thought I'd raise the following question: To what extent is having junior faculty as advisor a possible drawback compared with having a well-established (internal to the department) senior faculty? My experience is that this matters quite a bit. My advisor is junior faculty and has generally had the best students in the department (the advisor is a quite good philosopher, and therefore seems to attract those with potentiality), but the advisor has been unable to generate the finacial support that one would expect the advisor's students deserve.

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  45. Dr. R. Cummings, PhD

    The bad disserationexperiences that PhD students have in graduate school happens in every discipline with a PhD program. May I suggest a good novel that deals with the mind games that dissertation committes play on doctoral students. It's called A Rage in Chicago by Helen Joyce and Regina Dionne (RoseDog Books Published in April 2005)

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