Dear Francois,
Of course, responsibilities stretch across and up through
all levels of organisations and societies, BUT attributing
responsibility to institutions or organisations is too
easily used by the people working inside them to ignore
those responsibilities, or to pretend that it's not their
job to exercise them. It is the responsibility of a
government to remain independent of the news media and
it's owners, right? But when we look at the actual
behaviour of the ministers of the UK government,
including the prime minister, we see something rather
different. Yet, these ministers still claim that the
government has at all times acted responsibly. Just to
given one example.
So, yes, the major part of the responsibility for doing
good research training lies with the supervisors of the
PhD students. And it should not, in my view, be otherwise.
These same people are, or will become, the heads of
departments, deans of faculties, vice-chancellors of
universities, and they will be or become the members of
post-graduate boards of study and other relevant
institutional components. So, if they work as good
(responsible) supervisors they are likely to carry their
professional approach with them into these other
responsibilities.
It is in this way, person-by-person from the bottom up,
institutions and societies are made responsible, not by
some kind of top-down policy or management structure. If
PhD students receive good supervision and see responsible
behaviour in their supervisors, they are likely to do
the same when they become research leaders. So, PhD
supervisors do indeed have a heavy responsibility. It's
part of the job of being a good research leader. And,
just like other professional jobs, it requires the
people doing it to be well able to know the quality
of what they do (supervise PhD students, in this case)
and be the keepers of that quality, not pass this off
to some institutional committee, other bureaucratic
component in the organisation, or government assessment
process.
Best regards,
Tim
===========
On Jun 20, 2012, at 17:04 , Francois Nsenga wrote:
> Dear Tim, Charles, Ken, and Colleagues
>
> In this conversation re PhD in Design, the onus seems to be put on the sole
> shoulders of supervisors, and to a limited extend to the supervised who,
> thus far, don't "push and fight for it" (quality of supervision?) hard
> enough.
>
> But what about the teaching institutions, which elaborate programs, hire
> supervisors, and admit students? And what about the responsibility of the
> taxpayer who, through elected politicians, commissions those institutions
> to train experts in Design that the society needs?
>
> By the way, this a follow-up to my interrogation a while ago, in October
> 2011, when I asked what was the rationale to host vocational training
> within universities. I didn't get many satisfactory answers by then!
>
> P.S. Ken, wouldn't this be another useful and timely topic for a PhD (in
> Design History)?
>
> Regards
>
>
> Francois
> Montreal
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