Dear Friends,
This list is somewhat addictive. Perhaps I need a 12-step program. Just in
my office for a few minutes, I read Tim's note and Rosan's response. I
understand Tim and I empathize with Rosan.
Rosan has been raising important points on bad supervision. I agree
completely with her on the importance of this issue. I share her outrage
over bad supervisors and the damage they shape in human lives, and I am
always perplexed and angered by the damage they create in a young and
developing field such as ours. This accounts for some of the sharp comments
I posted in the Picasso's PhD debate to which I earlier referred.
Where I diverge slightly is in the solution of self-supervision. If a PhD
is a singular research degree, then it would be right to say that a
candidate could self-supervise. It remains legal in many European
universities for a candidate to deliver the thesis to a faculty for
evaluation. It is rare, but such doctorates are awarded. I know of one such
degree awarded in art history a few years ago. The thesis was brilliant,
quirky, and entertaining. Unfortunately, the graduated doctor has not been
a brilliant or entertaining supervisor for the students later entrusted to
his care. This brings us to Rosan's key question and to Tim's point.
Since the first doctoral degree was awarded centuries ago, it was -- and
has always been -- a license to teach and to supervise the research of
younger scholars. This is the origin of the title "doctor," a term that
derives from the Latin word "docere," to teach. The doctorate was always
the highest degree in any learned faculty. As the license to teach and to
supervise research at the highest level, it was a requirement that those
who earn a doctorate receive a research training.
Rosan noted the fact that some universities permit a student to show up and
hand in a thesis for evaluation by the faculty. If the thesis is found
worthy, the university may award its doctorate to a person who has never
been enrolled in that school. This is correct. It remains a legal option in
many European universities.
The European traditions of earning a doctorate by submission or publication
go back to an era in which complex social conditions shaped multiple paths
to a degree that was far more arduous than today's PhD. In that world, one
could not get a thesis accepted without thorough and extensive proofs of
methodological preparation and skill. These proofs were taken as prima
facie evidence of solid research training. It was nevertheless presumed
that research training is the foundation of the PhD or the other learned
doctorates, and it is often the full faculty rather than a small committee
that reviews and awards degrees by submission. In most, the award is only
given after thorough review and examination of the submission and the
candidate. The doctorate by submission generally requires the defense or
the viva, and when a faculty does not know the candidate, questioning at
the defense is likely to be particularly careful. This award, in any good
university, is the needle's eye, and few pass through it.
Rosan is right about an original contribution to knowledge, but it is the
thesis that constitutes the original contribution to knowledge and not the
PhD itself. The PhD is a license awarded to the candidate. The thesis is
only one of the requirements for earning the license. This is why so many
universities place the words, "in partial fulfillment of the requirements"
on the title page of every thesis. Other requirements include research
courses, language requirements, methods courses, seminar, major and minor
fields, and often much more.
There are two difficulties with self-supervision. The first is that it is
difficult for a fledgling researcher without a research background to
master the many skills on his or her own. The second is that writing a
thesis (which may itself require only one research method) and graduating
with a PhD will not prepare the graduate to teach or supervise research.
We do not award two kinds of PhD, one for futurte research supervisors and
one for everybody else. The PhD is presumed to be a license demonstrating
the ability to teach and supervise research. This is why a school that
graduates doctors who become bad supervisors soon gets a bad reputation.
Other schools stop hiring graduates from a school with a bad reputation.
So far, I have yet to meet a self-supervised PhD who is adequately prepared
to teach and supervise research. If the PhD meant only that a doctor is
able to conduct his or her own research, self-supervision might be an
acceptable solution in preference over bad supervision. Since the PhD is
also a license to teach and supervise research students, self-supervision
is insufficient.
In reviewing the thesis projects of many graduates from young doctoral
programs, I see mistakes that would not get through solid programs at good
goods. Since supervisors approve the thesis before submission, I attribute
these mistakes to inadequate supervision. For all practical purposes,
inadequate supervision meant that these students were self-supervising
while neglectful supervisors signed the proper forms to move them through
the system.
Minor mistakes in a thesis are not a serious issue, but many mistakes are
serious enough that one can not only predict that the graduate will be a
poor supervisor -- one can often predict the specific kinds of supervision
problems that will result.Some readers who remember the Picasso's PhD
debate will recall the back-channel discussion we had on a few specific
cases and my predictions at that time of the likely future results. At
least two or three of those predictions have been amply demonstrated to the
rescue supervisors who took on the task of helping good students recover
from bad supervision.
This is a genuinely difficult dilemma. Rosan is absolutely right about the
importance of leaving a bad supervisor or an abusive relationship. It seems
to me that Tim agrees with her. His answer is that we must emphasize the
requirements of good supervision before we entrust people with doctoral
supervision responsibility.
These issues are particularly difficult to discuss in an open forum because
of the fact that human sensitivites and libel law make it impossible to
discuss examples and specific cases, or even to discuss specific schools.
This is a matter of principles.
I agree with Rosan's viewpoint on the problem of bad supervision. I join
her in using the word abuse. I share her anger and I have felt much anger
myself over the cases that have touched my life, close up or at a distance.
What's needed is better solution than self-supervision, though. That's
where I agree with Tim. In reading Tim's post, I wish I had myself
discussed more deeply some of the points he raised.
In the world that Tim and Johann describe, we'd cure many of the problems
that Rosan identifies before they fester into abusive situations.
I'm going to be quiet about this for a while now. I would welcome the views
and experiences that others may have on these issues.
Warm wishes,
Ken
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