married professor dating a graduate student

[Anonymous]

My goodness a lot of you are covering up affairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL at how many bootlickers in this thread are falling over themselves to defend an authority figure.

Lots of cheaters on here obviously

+1. This thread is full of defensive adulterers.

Spare me, pot stirrer.

Male professor has office door closed with female student...OP jumps to conclusion that they're dating, and he should saying something about it.

What? That's quite the mental leap. I guess OP's PhD isn't going to be in logic and reasoning.

Yeah whatever. You're simplifying everything. When there are numerous students talking about this something is up. Spending 12 or more hours with a second year PhD student is not normal. She hasn't even started research yet and he's not her adviser. He forgets meetings because he's with her. He suddenly cancels meetings for bizarre things. Today he cancelled a few hours before our scheduled meeting because he was out of town. The week prior he did the same thing because he needed to buy a new car. Something is not right with this guy and I am not the first person to notice their weird relationship. My work colleagues say the same thing. They were the ones to point this out to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They're both legal adults - why do you care.

Potential favoritism?

It could really make a work place shitty for most people. I am pretty sure the PPs said MYOB would be pissed if they have to suffer through the bullshit personally.

[Anonymous]

You need a new advisor OP.

If you can get a new advisor, do so sooner rather than later. If his behavior is becoming erratic, the possible "girlfriend" may be the least of his problems, and you don't want this guy to leave you in a lurch right at the end of your dissertation. If he keeps on canceling your meetings for bizarre reasons every week, either he's in crisis or he doesn't want to meet with you.

Talk to whoever you need to, to request someone new. Just tell them you haven't been able to meet with your current advisor, he doesn't seem to want to advise you, and that it's time to switch. Better do so now than to have this professor sabotage your research.

[Anonymous]

And, if you fixate on his weird relationship with the other student, it's not going to help you-it will only hurt you in the long run. Concentrate on your issue with the advisor and ho from there. Eventually, if no one wishes to work with the advisor, the department head will have to step in. Eventually, the advisor's weird behavior with the other student will come out, but it's best if it's unearthed by an equal, not a student. That will always go badly for the student, or for the lower level staff member. I've seen it happen before...

[Anonymous]

That should he "go from there" not ho. Ha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should I submit an anonymous complaint? Why else would my Ph.D. adviser be having closed door meetings for hours on end? He never closes the door when we meet. The student has even finished his qualifying exams so I know they aren't working on research. The fact that he's married really pisses me off too.

I meant to write she hasn't NOT finished her qualifying exams.

You can't seem to even write a grammatically correct/coherent post, so why don't you focus on that rather than your adviser's sex life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a new advisor OP.

If you can get a new advisor, do so sooner rather than later. If his behavior is becoming erratic, the possible "girlfriend" may be the least of his problems, and you don't want this guy to leave you in a lurch right at the end of your dissertation. If he keeps on canceling your meetings for bizarre reasons every week, either he's in crisis or he doesn't want to meet with you.

Talk to whoever you need to, to request someone new. Just tell them you haven't been able to meet with your current advisor, he doesn't seem to want to advise you, and that it's time to switch. Better do so now than to have this professor sabotage your research.

Yes, this is the only really salient advice in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you KNOW they're sleeping together, or are you just making assumptions? If you know it as fact, submit a complaint through whatever administrative mechanism your institution has in place.

I do not know anything. A few students have been complaining about their relationship.

First - if there is something going on, the chances are very good that the university has regulations against this kind of thing. It doesn't matter whether the professor is married. What matters is that he is in a position of power over the graduate student and it is completely inappropriate for him to have a sexual relationship with her because it's too easy to abuse his power. But the fact is that you don't know if that is true - so you have to tread carefully on this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they're really spending 9-16 hours a week in his office, with the door closed, having some kind of sexual encounter, you don't even need to consider reporting them. He is exercising such poor judgment that this whole thing is going to explode before you know it, and you don't want to be anywhere near the shrapnel.

(FTR, I'm the professor above, and my educated guess is that this student will mysteriously drop out of the program in the next 6-9 months, her career ruined, and his career and reputation unblemished. No one will ever know exactly what happened. So, while I still suspect that this whole scenario will explode, I bet it will be entirely at the expense of the female grad student. Not that I've seen this scenario more than once or anything.)

And even if there's no sexual relationship, the prof's chair needs to talk to him about appearances. It's important to not look like you're abusing your power even if you're not abusing it. I had a colleague who had a screen saver with lots of pictures of gorgeous young men. I talked to him about changing his screen saver because of the impression it might give his students. And before people accuse me of homophobia, I would have said the same to a male professor with a screensaver full of gorgeous young women. It's not appropriate for professors to do that regardless of their sexual identity.

[Anonymous]

Tale as old as time. Stop being a narc.

[Anonymous]

Your not going to get anything by trying to uncover their affair at this point.

What you and the 3 others who have concerns need to do is contact this advisor and address his availability. Document your attempts to contact him.

If you get no response or if the response is not satisfactory then the 3 of you go over his head with the same complaint, you are not being adequately advised etc. They aren't going to ignore 4 people with the same complaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your not going to get anything by trying to uncover their affair at this point.

What you and the 3 others who have concerns need to do is contact this advisor and address his availability. Document your attempts to contact him.

If you get no response or if the response is not satisfactory then the 3 of you go over his head with the same complaint, you are not being adequately advised etc. They aren't going to ignore 4 people with the same complaint.

OP here: We have all decided to arrange a meeting with the chairman. This advisor has a history of being like this. We spoke to other people in our department but it didn't help much. There is something wrong with this guy. He doesn't want to advise any of us and we have no choice but to go to the chair at this moment. I will not mention anything about the affair. One of my colleagues may though. There are another 2 PhD students who graduated last year who had problems with him as well. They had to go to the chair for help.

[Anonymous]

I had a friend who once had to go to the provosts because his department kicked him out (they were racists) of his doc program and then tried to ghost him out of being able to sit for exams for a master's degree. After being ignored for weeks, one email to the provost got a same day reply and he had his exam scheduled nearly immediately by the department head who'd been pretending he didn't exist. And yes, he passed, got his degree, and got out of there.

[Anonymous]

He is banging someone during his work hours. And any other industry, he would be fired on the spot.