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What are obligations of current students to prospective PhD students

Brian Leiter

A PhD student writes:

I just saw the post on visiting prospective graduate students. I think that Prof. Sullivan is right on  with her suggestions. I think talking to people who are in the programs that students are considering is eally the best way to find if the program is a good fit. 

I wonder, however, as a graduate student who is in a program that I think is deficient in several of the respects that Sullivan mentions, what our obligations  to prospective students should be.  

For example, I tend to think that my department is bad at placing its students at good jobs and that there is a general dearth of professional training. I also think that my department is not a great place for women, though I think it is getting better. 

I have two concerns when talking to prospective graduate students. This has also come up for me when chatting with job candidates who come to campus. 

The first is that I am concerned about my own reputation if I am fully honest when people ask how the environment for women is or how well the department takes care of its students. These things tend to get around, and I am worried that I may sully my reputation with my own professors if they realize that I am telling prospective graduate students and faculty about these problems. I also am worried that if it comes off that I am badmouthing my department, that is just bad form. I wouldn't want my reputation in philosophy circles to be linked to complaining about my department.

I am also well known in my own department for raising these issues, and so I think that if professors in the department hear that someone said something negative, they will assume it is me. 

Second, I think that the environment for women, at least in my department, will get better if there are more women around. Thus, it seems self-defeating to discourage women from coming to the program because it is not a great place for women. The problem is similar with job candidates. When they ask what the graduate student life is like and how it can be improved, that seems to be a sign that they would better our department in these areas. I don't want to discourage them from accepting an offer by saying that our department as a whole just doesn't seem to care about professional development for grad students (or environment issues for women). They may not want to come if they imagine that they will be the only ones working on such matters. If they are women themselves, they may not want to come because of the climate issues, even though they might be able to do a lot to change the climate. 

Of course, I see that misleading people by not mentioning real concerns cannot be fair to them. I just don't know how well graduate students themselves are in a position to offer this kind of information. When asked, I usually find myself changing the subject or mentioning the few things that are good and leaving out the bad. 

Anyway, I thought that I cannot be the only graduate student who feels this way, so I thought it might be something worth a mention since you are discussing visiting prospective students. 

Thoughts from readers?  (Because I am still on the road, comments may take awhile to appear, please be patient.)

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11 responses to “What are obligations of current students to prospective PhD students”

  1. anon

    There's an interesting discussion of the second question here: http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/reader-query/

    Reply
  2. Anon east coast grad

    First, the concern about having a reputation for being someone who badmouths her department seems a little odd. Indeed philosophers, like all people, are sensitive to criticisms directed at something they're responsible for. But I would think that the reputation of being a badmouther comes only when the individual doing the badmouthing just complains and otherwise does not offer constructive feedback, or talk with e.g. her Grad Director about possible helpful changes. It is hard to imagine someone who points out, "It'd be nice to have more placement help" getting a bad reputation simply in virtue of noting a deficiency.

    But as for the main thing, I think that current grads have at least a lightweight moral obligation to make incoming/prospective students aware of any potential issues. This is especially important if department issues are more likely to affect some incoming students. I turned down an offer because I had heard that out of several faculty with whom I wanted to work, one prominent member stonewalled students that disagreed with him philosophically, and another was never even available to meet with or advise students. This was communicated to me from multiple grads.

    One thing that Meghan Sullivan alluded to but did not explicitly mention in her OP was the importance of collegiality between grad students. It is worth noting that feeling overwhelmed (and stupidly bad at philosophy!) is a universal experience for those entering PhD programs for the first time. This feeling can be exacerbated if the older grad students tend to be dismissive of younger grads (especially first- or second-years). I would suggest asking the younger students in the department how comfortable their transition into a new department was, especially taking note of support from and a community between the older and younger grads.

    There's a moral obligation to communicate these sorts of things because they can, for better or worse, determine a student's odds on the job market and how happy/miserable she is for 5 years of her life. Of course, many of these problems are issues in potentiality and not in actuality. But I figure it's better to mention them than to have prospectives come in and be flabbergasted by all the things they didn't see or hear about on visiting weekend.

    Reply
  3. Graduate Student

    I have always thought of these things — here and in prior parts of my life — as best dealt with diplomatically. If I have something nice to say, I say it. If I have nothing nice to say, I keep my mouth shut.

    This, of course, only really works if others are playing by and aware of this sort of scheme. But it has worked out for me so far, both as a reporter and as an investigator. You can read a lot into the absence of earnest praise. I often think faint praise is more effective for condemning than actually condemning.

    (That, and current students should not burden themselves to promote their department's placement record. They are not particularly well suited to report! Incoming students should look at the public data, here, on department websites, on other aggregated lists, they should talk to the faculty who might be their potential advisors, and they should get in touch with recently placed alumni of those advisors.)

    Reply
  4. Anonymous Grad

    As a (male) graduate student, it seems fine to me (and perhaps even obligatory) to warn others of downsides to joining your department. It may be harmful to your own department in the long run, but I worry that putting people into a toxic situation in order to slowly make it better is not the way to confront a department's problems. I know that there are things that I wish I had known about the department I joined before I accepted the offer which graduate students did not tell me (due to these types of worries).

    For what it's worth – I make an effort to give all information possible to visiting prospectives, including the good and the bad. It seems that they are appreciative of this, and I have yet to see any effect on my reputation in the department. Of course my situation is much different than others (especially women), and I don't want to say that there is never any possibility of harming oneself due to disseminating information. If you think it may have a negative effect on your reputation, perhaps you could create an anonymous email account and send them information that way?

    Reply
  5. Alex

    Regarding the climate of your department, I have two related thoughts:

    1. If the climate for women is bad, it would be very wrong to say otherwise and encourage female prospectives to accept admission to a department where they will be treated poorly.

    2. It is not the job of women to make departments welcoming to women. It's the job of the men in the department to fix the problems that they are complicit in and create a healthy climate before encouraging women to join.

    Reply
  6. Jeremy Dolan

    (1) OP is concerned that speaking honestly about climate issues at their department will sully their reputation among professors.

    A department in which students cannot have an open and honest discussion about climate issues with other students sounds like a department that has a climate that is sufficiently bad as to obligate one to warn prospective students—regardless of the cost to one's own reputation in the eyes of professors who think that matters so central to the well-being of grad students should be swept under the carpet.

    (2) OP suspects climate for women would improve if more women came, so "it seems self-defeating to discourage women from coming."

    The potential for improvement that is contingent on their attendance is a point you can relate to prospective women students *along with* your honest assessment of where things currently stand. It sounds like significant work is required to improve things where you're at—as is the case in many departments. Perhaps a prospective student is interested and able to help do that work, and perhaps they're not. It's not for us to decide.

    (3) OP "just [doesn't] know how well graduate students themselves are in a position to offer this kind of information"

    If we graduate students aren't in a position to offer information on graduate student climate to prospective graduate students, then no one is. That would be a genuine tragedy.

    Reply
  7. anonymous graduate student

    I don't think that we as graduate students can reasonably be expected to warn "prospective students about climate issues regardless of the costs to one's own reputation in the eyes of professors who think that matters so central to the well-being of grad students should be swept under the carpet", as Jeremy Dolan writes. It surely depends on how severe such climate issues are.

    I myself was very active in recruiting prospective students for the first couple years of graduate school. Now that close to nobody has gotten a tenure-track position coming from my department in years, and now that the suffering of the older students who receive close to no support from faculty has reached a considerable degree, I began "hiding out" during prospectives visits. Just as the student raising the question, my department is also well aware of my position. And I had to come to the conclusion after many years of trying that neither my nor other students' input was something the faculty showed any interest in. I was particularly engaged in recruiting female applicants, and if anything, got quite negative feedback once this showed some success.

    Giving my "honest assessment of where things currently stand" could as this point only consist in urging every single applicant not to come and to instead go to an even much lower ranked school. I don't think that any graduate student could afford doing so, especially given how precarious our situation currently is anyway. This is very unfortunate, but shows that we should maybe think of other (anonymous?) ways to give prospective students an honest view on the programs they're considering.

    I wish I didn't have to sign this anonymously. Yet again, I don't think any of us could afford doing so without paying the price in the end.

    Reply
  8. Jeff Heikkinen

    Anon East Coast Grad strikes me as maybe a bit naive about the politics of being seen as a badmouther. And lest what I am about to say be considered yet another PC rant, I speak as someone whose sympathies lie rather more with Tooley and (more tentatively) Ludlow than might be considered politically correct. (If I were still in the profession, I probably would not be prepared to say that under my full real name.)

    Since it's on everyone's mind anyway, let's consider climate for women. Suppose a department has a chronic sexual harasser in its upper ranks, or a prof who regularly disparages women's ability to do philosophy. Sadly, these are far from implausible scenarios – I've seen the latter first-hand. Now, say current grad student A pulls visiting prospective student B aside and points this problem out. Word of this conversation gets around, and subsequently B, who the faculty viewed as especially promising, ends up somewhere else.

    (Note that I haven't said anything about either student's gender. A's gender doesn't matter. B's matters a lot less than people seem to think.)

    Even with no explicit indication that the conversation did or didn't affect B's decision, I think A is likely to be in for a rough ride. Heaven knows I've seen workplaces suddenly become extremely chilly for people over much less. Wagon-circling, often for the pettiest of reasons, is just part of how organizations behave. Not all organizations, but probably most, and in my time in academia I saw no indication that academic departments were exceptions, on the whole. It's a serious problem and I have no idea what to do about it, other than try to set a better example now that I'm trying to go into business myself.

    I know one thing that *doesn't* work, though, and that's expect everyone to be an ideally fair-minded epistemic agent and hope everything will work out. You'd think philosophers specifically might come closer to this than others, but again, such empirical evidence as I have suggests otherwise. We aren't any better than anyone else at practising what we preach.

    Reply
  9. Non-Philosophy PhD

    I did my doctorate in a humanities field and was in a similar situation. On multiple occasions I very honestly described some issues of sexual harassment that had happened in my department to prospective female students who wanted to work with a particular professor. I was even once put in the very awkward position of having to clarify why some of the other professors were making coded suggestions to a very promising undergrad that perhaps she should do her PhD elsewhere rather than continue working with this professor in grad school. Outside of this one professor, the culture was great. It was never clear how many other professors knew there were issues, although there were some who just stopped interacting with him and were largely successful in limiting his influence over the general culture of the department. I didn't want to gossip about it with people outside of the department, especially because the field is not large and there was a very real chance that such gossip could get back to him, but I felt like it was important to explain things clearly and non-euphemistically to prospective students who wanted to work with him.

    Incidentally, I think having independent auditors is very important. If women who are harassed don't file complaints (and I think there are very legitimate concerns about such complaints coming to dominate their lives when all they want to do is get on with things), then it is almost impossible for other faculty to know what is going on. This is even true for departments that feel they have a good climate for women. I hope the APA site visit program takes off and that the practice spreads to other disciplines in the humanities as well.

    Reply
  10. UK PHD student

    Perhaps one concern to bear in mind that has not been raised above is the potential benefits and hazards of highlighting the competency of certain members of staff 'as supervisors'. I have generally been quite outspoken in my department to other grad-students and those considering undertaking a PHD (after having completed an BA/MA) about what i perceive to be very lazy supervisory practice of one particular member of staff (thankfully no longer my own supervisor). Without going into the details this member of staff is for a cavalcade of reasons a very unhelpful and in the end deleterious supervisor to have for one's PHD.

    Given that i possess this knowledge it is further question as to whether or not i should say something to potential prospective PHD's visiting the department or inquiring from the 'outside' as it were (note that this academics pseudo-celebrity status means he always takes on a couple of new PHD students each year). Whilst i don't mind voicing my opinions to other students already in the department, i imagine it could land me in some fairly hot water if i was vocal about my concerns to those i believed to be considering undertaking a PHD under this academics supervision.

    (note: none of this relates to 'climate issues')

    Reply
  11. Kirk

    I would like to echo Alex's comment (#5). If information provided by a current student could possibly prevent a prospective student from being sexually harassed or assaulted then the current student has a moral obligation to disclose such information. As a graduate student myself, I understand the pressure not to ruffle feathers. This is especially so when the professors you might upset possibly have the power to end your career in philosophy. There are probably smaller issues that don’t warrant taking risks over. But sexual harassment is not one of those smaller issues. Of course, what I say here might not apply to the OP’s situation. But it’s hard to imagine that this isn’t an issue for a current student somewhere.

    Also, prospective students could make things easier on current students when asking for information about a program and department. Most programs list graduate student names and emails somewhere on their website. Prospective students could quietly email a handful of current students and promise to keep the correspondence confidential. In some cases this would help alleviate the worries current students have about disclosing negative information.

    Reply

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