married professor dating a graduate student

[Anonymous]

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

Nope. I worked in a law firm with rampant banging at work by the partners. Decided not to go into law. Academe was actually better.

Glad OP and other advisees are going to the department chair. The chair may be eventually able to get rid of the guy due to performance issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the professor from upthread and just wanted to remind you that your university may have an ombusperson for grad students. This is exactly the sort of situation that person can mediate. I would consider contacting them before going to your chair.

I'm glad you all are going to focus on the professional issues related to advising and availability, and I'm glad you're going together, but I still think you're playing with fire. If the chair has any loyalty to this faculty member, you could face retribution. Obviously, in an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. And maybe your department is a healthy place where it wouldn't happen. But the ombudsperson's role is to make sure you're treated fairly, so you might as well avail yourselves of whatever services are available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the professor from upthread and just wanted to remind you that your university may have an ombusperson for grad students. This is exactly the sort of situation that person can mediate. I would consider contacting them before going to your chair.

I'm glad you all are going to focus on the professional issues related to advising and availability, and I'm glad you're going together, but I still think you're playing with fire. If the chair has any loyalty to this faculty member, you could face retribution. Obviously, in an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. And maybe your department is a healthy place where it wouldn't happen. But the ombudsperson's role is to make sure you're treated fairly, so you might as well avail yourselves of whatever services are available.

Also, just want to add: you say you don't have any other choice but to go to the chair. You do, presumably, have another choice: switching advisors. I recognize that would introduce its own set of complications (like shifting research focus), but once you go to the chair, you're basically going to have to switch advisors anyway. If this guy has a long history as a loser advisor, the chair isn't going to be able to fix him, and he's going to be sufficiently pissed that you're going to have to switch anyway. So, why not just switch and protect yourself from any drama? (If this guy is the loser you say he is, the chair already knows it. Unless he happens to be coming up on a promotion decision, there's little the chair can do.)

In case i didn't say it upthread, I direct a phd program, and I have handled this sort of complaint more than once, so I know how little can be done within our institutional structure. Maybe yours has some additional mechanisms that will be more productive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the professor from upthread and just wanted to remind you that your university may have an ombusperson for grad students. This is exactly the sort of situation that person can mediate. I would consider contacting them before going to your chair.

I'm glad you all are going to focus on the professional issues related to advising and availability, and I'm glad you're going together, but I still think you're playing with fire. If the chair has any loyalty to this faculty member, you could face retribution. Obviously, in an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. And maybe your department is a healthy place where it wouldn't happen. But the ombudsperson's role is to make sure you're treated fairly, so you might as well avail yourselves of whatever services are available.

Also, just want to add: you say you don't have any other choice but to go to the chair. You do, presumably, have another choice: switching advisors. I recognize that would introduce its own set of complications (like shifting research focus), but once you go to the chair, you're basically going to have to switch advisors anyway. If this guy has a long history as a loser advisor, the chair isn't going to be able to fix him, and he's going to be sufficiently pissed that you're going to have to switch anyway. So, why not just switch and protect yourself from any drama? (If this guy is the loser you say he is, the chair already knows it. Unless he happens to be coming up on a promotion decision, there's little the chair can do.)

In case i didn't say it upthread, I direct a phd program, and I have handled this sort of complaint more than once, so I know how little can be done within our institutional structure. Maybe yours has some additional mechanisms that will be more productive.

I am also a professor, and completely agree with this advice. You are taking a huge risk, and the possibilities of retribution are huge. No matter what happens, some kind of negative effect for you is likely - even just damning with faint praise or not giving you all the support that is needed in today's tough academic market. I'd say you are making a huge mistake. What's going on isn't affecting you directly, but you're going to cause it to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the professor from upthread and just wanted to remind you that your university may have an ombusperson for grad students. This is exactly the sort of situation that person can mediate. I would consider contacting them before going to your chair.

I'm glad you all are going to focus on the professional issues related to advising and availability, and I'm glad you're going together, but I still think you're playing with fire. If the chair has any loyalty to this faculty member, you could face retribution. Obviously, in an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. And maybe your department is a healthy place where it wouldn't happen. But the ombudsperson's role is to make sure you're treated fairly, so you might as well avail yourselves of whatever services are available.

Also, just want to add: you say you don't have any other choice but to go to the chair. You do, presumably, have another choice: switching advisors. I recognize that would introduce its own set of complications (like shifting research focus), but once you go to the chair, you're basically going to have to switch advisors anyway. If this guy has a long history as a loser advisor, the chair isn't going to be able to fix him, and he's going to be sufficiently pissed that you're going to have to switch anyway. So, why not just switch and protect yourself from any drama? (If this guy is the loser you say he is, the chair already knows it. Unless he happens to be coming up on a promotion decision, there's little the chair can do.)


In case i didn't say it upthread, I direct a phd program, and I have handled this sort of complaint more than once, so I know how little can be done within our institutional structure. Maybe yours has some additional mechanisms that will be more productive.

I am also a professor, and completely agree with this advice. You are taking a huge risk, and the possibilities of retribution are huge. No matter what happens, some kind of negative effect for you is likely - even just damning with faint praise or not giving you all the support that is needed in today's tough academic market. I'd say you are making a huge mistake. What's going on isn't affecting you directly, but you're going to cause it to.

Of course professors chime in and tell me not to do it. There have been 2 students who did this last year and they finished within 6 months of complaining. We can't switch advisers now. It's too late. We're all almost at the end of our dissertations. There's a reason this guy has 6 students complaining about him. He's a lazy piece of sh**

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the professor from upthread and just wanted to remind you that your university may have an ombusperson for grad students. This is exactly the sort of situation that person can mediate. I would consider contacting them before going to your chair.

I'm glad you all are going to focus on the professional issues related to advising and availability, and I'm glad you're going together, but I still think you're playing with fire. If the chair has any loyalty to this faculty member, you could face retribution. Obviously, in an ideal world, that wouldn't happen. And maybe your department is a healthy place where it wouldn't happen. But the ombudsperson's role is to make sure you're treated fairly, so you might as well avail yourselves of whatever services are available.

Also, just want to add: you say you don't have any other choice but to go to the chair. You do, presumably, have another choice: switching advisors. I recognize that would introduce its own set of complications (like shifting research focus), but once you go to the chair, you're basically going to have to switch advisors anyway. If this guy has a long history as a loser advisor, the chair isn't going to be able to fix him, and he's going to be sufficiently pissed that you're going to have to switch anyway. So, why not just switch and protect yourself from any drama? (If this guy is the loser you say he is, the chair already knows it. Unless he happens to be coming up on a promotion decision, there's little the chair can do.)


In case i didn't say it upthread, I direct a phd program, and I have handled this sort of complaint more than once, so I know how little can be done within our institutional structure. Maybe yours has some additional mechanisms that will be more productive.

I am also a professor, and completely agree with this advice. You are taking a huge risk, and the possibilities of retribution are huge. No matter what happens, some kind of negative effect for you is likely - even just damning with faint praise or not giving you all the support that is needed in today's tough academic market. I'd say you are making a huge mistake. What's going on isn't affecting you directly, but you're going to cause it to.

Of course professors chime in and tell me not to do it. There have been 2 students who did this last year and they finished within 6 months of complaining. We can't switch advisers now. It's too late. We're all almost at the end of our dissertations. There's a reason this guy has 6 students complaining about him. He's a lazy piece of sh**

The professors complaining are likely just like your advisor.
Document.
Stregth in numbers
If needed media can be your friend.