Dear All,
To add to Tim's comments on where responsibility should be placed, what it means in terms of the PhD experience and what doctoral students take from it, anecdotally, I have just completed a PhD in Design (conventional thesis submission). I was lucky enough to have a supervisor who continually went above and beyond the call to be as sure as he could that what I was doing and how I was doing it would be of value to both design research and practice.
This has indeed instilled a sense of how to conduct the supervision of a PhD (in me) that I will try to emulate as I move through a career in academia. Most of us only have one experience of a PhD (one's enough for me!). When the time comes it is that experience that will, in part, inform how I (others?) handle my (their?) own supervision.
So to all you PhD DoSs and supervisors out there, you can and do make a difference. Keep up the good work...
Best,
James.
James A. Self
Doctoral Researcher | Design Research Centre
School of Design | Kingston University London
Tel: +44 (0) 77 241 91 667
Blog: http://www.designerlytools.blogspot.co.uk/
Site: www.industrialdesignresearch.com
> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:55:47 +0200
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Research Through Design
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> 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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