Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 19:30:22 -0500
From: tombrown@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Thomas F Brown)
Subject: Re: Time limits and funding constraints
To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
Message-id: <199712110030.TAA12134@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
>When my students come to me with personal problems, I tend to cut them
>some slack.  I'll give them incompletes if necessary, BUT I also give
>them a considerable amount of support and structure to assist them in
>completing the requirements for my course.

One would hope that such sympathy and leeway could be built into
every institutional structure. On the other hand, at some point
the problem will exceed the leeway built in. Then the grad
department becomes a counseling center or welfare hotel. But
I doubt that situations reach such extremes very often, and
this is probably not the reason that administrators think
about implementing time limits. I think that argument is
a bit of a red herring. (I'm not suggesting that you made it.)

>To translate this into
>graduate student experience, I must ask:
>If graduate students are facing personal problems, don't they need
>MORE than financial assistance?  

Depends on their problem. Money can solve a lot.

>If the students in my department received more academic guidance, we 
>would not take an average of *eight* years to complete the PhD 
>program.  And please, Tom, do not misconstrue what I am asking for - 
>I am not asking for "hand-holding."  I am asking for more thorough 
>explanations of how to write publishable papers, how to write the 
>dissertation, how to obtain grants, how to manage time, etc.  I am 
>talking about "career development" and the teaching of skills, NOT 
>"hand-holding" or doing the work for the student.  

In my limited experience, I would have to agree with you that lack
of mentoring is a major weakness in the system of graduate education,
at least in sociology departments. Even if one supports a highly meritocratic 
model, it seems to me that Darwinian selection may not be the most 
effective way of producing the top scholars.

On the other hand, I have found that simply asking questions about those
topics will get you answers. It is not secret esoteric knowledge that
is being kept hidden out of sight. It's simply that there is no
institutional structure for disseminating it. But shouldn't people
who are learning to be scholars--which is an inherently entrepreneurial
occupation--take some responsibility for seeking out information? Isn't
that what scholars are supposed to be good at? 

And the specific topics you raise--writing a journal article, a grant
proposal, or a dissertation--are all addressed in a number of books.
I have never asked anyone about this stuff. I have asked about which
journal or which funding source I should go to, or who I should talk
to. But to have to ask about the basic mechanics of writing a paper
would be wasting my informants' time. Asking them to look over my
draft, on the other hand, is a common request. Students need to take 
at least some initiative for learning the ropes.

>In all of the
>in-department coursework that I have taken, we were supposed to write
>a "publishable" paper.  Yet HOW to write the paper was never
>explained.  We were told to look at academic journals and emulate
>them.  Okay, fine - but HOW?

I'm not sure what answers you are looking for. Writing for publication
is hard work. There is no easy answer. You just do it, then you get
feedback, then you go back and try to make it better. What more
can anyone tell you about the process? 

>The same thing happens with
>dissertations.  No one told us what a prelim was and it took me three
>years of networking and asking graduate students to finally figure out
>the process.  
>
>Arriving at dissertation time with no clue is very easy - when you do
>not have any guidance!  Almost all of the faculty members in my
>department are so self-focused that they do not take advising
>seriously.  A rare few take the time to nurture student's individual
>work.  A RARE few.  And these few are difficult to discover and then
>score for an advisorship.

Here we do have a seminar for beginning dissertators in which people
bring in their ideas and we all discuss them and give suggestions
and other support to one another. It's built into the course structure,
but at many other places students form such informal support groups.

>I too "wove your words into a straw man".  Hmph.

No, you didn't do that at all. You directly addressed the questions
I raised. Thank you. Give yourself more credit.

>Don't you think it
>is interesting that so many of us misunderstood your intentions?! 
>Even though you think you are being clear, you might want to backpedal
>a little and rethink how you say things.

Yes, when three people in one day attribute a straw man to me, then
I take some responsibility for being unclear. But this is email,
and I'm not going to spend any time rewriting it. That's just
one of the things that happens in this kind of communication.
I'm used to it.