Chronicle Careers

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Monday, June 5, 2006

Dissertations and Death

By Garry M. Breland

It may sound harsh, but waiting for your spouse to finish her dissertation
is a lot like waiting for a sick loved one to die.

"Is she finished yet?"

"No, not yet, she's still hanging in there."

That she would finish has never been in doubt, because she's no quitter. But
predictions of when she would finish are just that -- predictions. You know
it's going happen but her condition will only end when she produces the
final draft.

No one wants a loved one to die, but if that person is suffering through a
long illness, there may come a point where you just want it to be over.
Likewise, on dissertation watch, there comes a point when the waiting itself
becomes intolerable and you really just want her to be done with it. No
wonder they call them terminal degrees.

My wife has been writing her dissertation for a Ph.D. in English at our
state's flagship university. She has been a part-time student while working
as a full-time faculty member at the small college where I am vice president
for academic affairs. She is also a mom; our children were still at home
when she began her graduate work. When our son was young someone once asked
him what his mom did and he said, "She's a gradual student." How truly
spoken, for the process has indeed been a lengthy one that culminated in
years of living in the grip of "the project."

Three years ago, I, the self-appointed doctor in charge of the case, was
telling people, "She will probably be finished in another year, or the next
at the outside." I underestimated the tenacity with which she could hang on
to the revelations unearthed by her research. As life is its own reason and
will cling stubbornly to the last functioning cell, so the process of
writing a dissertation, once rooted in a doctoral candidate's mind, seeks to
maintain itself. To put the last word on the page brings the process to an
end.

When someone is dying, other activities are suspended for those closest to
the dying person. The focus of life shifts to waiting and caring and seeing
to the comfort of the terminally ill one. No one told us of the need for
hospice care when my wife drew into the final phases of her doctoral
program. With no respite care and insufficient palliative care, we suffered
on together.

My questions to her about her progress -- both the spoken ones and the
no-longer-needing-to-be-spoken ones -- weighed on her, cruelly I suppose,
though that was never my intent. Imagine saying to a loved one lying on
their deathbed, "Are you still with us or not?" Or, "How much longer till
you die?"

And people never know what to say to the dying or their families. It would
be impolite to not ask, but worse yet to convey that you have quit being
mindful that death lingers at the door. Friends and co-workers don't
understand that even though you may walk around looking pretty normal most
of the time, you still have this houseguest who has come for an extended
stay and who will not say when he might leave and that you can't just pick
up and carry on with life as if he weren't there.

It's inevitable that others will not always appreciate the limits on your
movements and especially on your ability to plan for things in the future.
You don't plan vacations when you're waiting for a loved one to die or when
you're in the latter stages of a dissertation. And even if you do manage a
holiday visit with family members out of state, they should be aware that
among the luggage you bring will be a laptop with the rough draft and enough
resource books and files to stock a small library.

It might seem strange to liken writing a dissertation to a death rather than
to a birth, but I'm guessing that those who have been through it understand.

The thing is, with births, you know within a few weeks when it is going to
occur. With death and dissertations, the ability to linger on is much more
pronounced. The fact that an arbitrary deadline may be set for the project
doesn't remove the uncertainty either, for a deadline only becomes part of
the core question: "Will she meet the deadline?" Births have due dates, but
we don't call them deadlines and births don't result in putting something on
a shelf or on microfilm, which can be seen as types of entombment. And,
although some women about to give birth might like to have an extension of
an extra term, they aren't granted one.

Once a lingering death has at last occurred, murmurs of how much better off
the deceased one is also carry the implicit message that the survivors are
better off, too, for no longer having to live a life that is on hold. Now
they can grieve and receive comfort and go on with life. Post-dissertation
people find that a major and sometimes all-consuming part of their energy,
identity, and way of organizing life is suddenly gone. And, sadly, in some
cases, they find that relationships have died along the way, worn down and
overcome by the prolonged process.

When death finally comes, the beloved's remains must receive the
ministrations of the undertaker before interment. And when the dissertation
is done, then comes the defense. The corpus must be delivered to a somber
group who will perform a sort of academic post-mortem. Once all is known
about this work, corrections (mostly cosmetic) will be mandated. Care is
taken to see that the final printing is made on high-quality paper in
preparation for binding and consignment to the library. Arrangements are
made for the public ceremonies that signal the end of the process.

To be sure, the ending of the dissertation usually results in new life for
the career of the Ph.D. candidate. Doors open into a postgraduate afterlife
only dimly seen before. Even judgment awaits, in the form of job interviews
and student loan repayments.

But whatever may be the sense of going forward, the dissertation is mostly
left behind. Even if it gets turned into a book, that will be a new project
-- Frankensteinian in nature as the academic work is dismembered and
reassembled, and then has some kind of commercial life breathed into it.
More commonly, the dissertation becomes a scholarly article donor, with the
most valued parts excised and submitted for publication that will prolong
the life of an academic journal and enhance the new Ph.D.'s CV.

It is noon of the day on which my wife is to submit the five copies to her
committee, and yet I hear her tapping away at the keyboard in the other
room.

Wait, has it fallen silent? Do I now hear the first ragged gasps of the
printer as it at last spews forth the document?

No, she's only gone to the kitchen for another cup of tea. Here she comes
now to tell me she e-mailed her adviser and that turning it in a little
later will be all right.

I think I'll just wait and see. When the end finally comes, it will be
clear, but until then, I'm not getting too excited.

(Author's Note: Mary Beth Breland did, I am happy to report, finish and
successfully defend her dissertation not long after I wrote this column.)

Garry M. Breland is the vice president for academic affairs at
Hannibal-LaGrange College.

Copyright C 2006 by The Chronicle of Higher Education