What to Do When You Are Not Your Dissertation Adviser's Favorite

About Ms. Mentor

Q: My dissertation director, "Zeus," has godlike white hair and a thunderous voice, and plays favorites grossly. Students in the in-group get to give papers with Zeus at conferences in "Athens," "Rome," and other academic citadels, while the outies stay home doing boring Net and library searches, which Zeus collects, harrumphs at, and usually makes us do over for trivial mistakes. I'm an outie. Am I dead?

A: Not quite, for you're wise enough to consult Ms. Mentor, who knows all and has heard many a grievance from unhappy dissertationeers. Melinda's director, for instance, took four years to read her first chapter. Chuck's took seven years to write up their group's research -- by which time Chuck had been denied tenure for lack of publication and was working part-time as a masseur. Natalie was dropped by her director, who declared, "You're just screwing around; you'll never finish" -- while Harold's director, most devastating of all, wrote a hostile report for Harold's dossier, had a stroke, and died. These tales are not comforting, but Ms. Mentor derives a major moral from them: The only behavior that students control is their own.

Melinda could have asked her director, politely, "Would you prefer that I work with someone else?" Chuck might have offered to write up the lab results himself. Natalie should have worked more quickly -- but since she did finally finish and is now writing her memoirs, she can show the world how graciously she rises above adversity. And even poor Harold can re-invent himself, if he cleverly schmoozes and self-promotes (Ms. Mentor tells how in her book): he can find a new mentor to write that glowing letter his dossier needs.

Ms. Mentor, in short, refuses to see graduate students as helpless gobs of jelly. They need to be oaks, not reeds, and they need to plant themselves early. When Jenny was accepted by four Ivy League graduate schools, for instance, she visited all of them (at her own expense), lunched with current students, and interviewed potential dissertation directors. But Oliver, who enrolled at Midlevel Grad School because of its football team, chose for his director a military historian -- the one professor who happened to be in the office late one snowy Thursday afternoon. And so Oliver wrote his dissertation on Pickett's Charge, about which he cared not a whit.

As sage readers might predict, Jenny finished her dissertation with distinction, and landed a tenure-track job at a Big 10 school. Oliver also finished but, always distractable, fell madly in love with another professor on his committee (always a mistake, decrees Ms. Mentor). He even followed his Love Object to Dr. Object's new post in a small mining town in the Far West -- where they had a falling out, and Oliver wound up as a substitute math teacher and wrestling coach in a decrepit nearby village.

"But what about me and Zeus?" you're champing. Ms. Mentor hopes that you chose the best director for you. The best is usually neither the Great Man (too much competition) nor the Great Mom (directors are not mothers, lovers, or Dear Abby).

Ms. Mentor hopes you are self-motivated. "I don't know what you want me to do. Help me, help me" is not a professional stance. She hopes you've defined your own project, and that you're able to set goals, meet deadlines, and read and think and compute productively and independently.

Directors do favor workers over whiners, and opportunities do flow to dedicated, creative students who'll reflect glory on their mentors. Zeus, like all of us, wants to be lauded for the satellites he's launched. Lesser lights, as you've seen, get dim-bulb tasks -- and sometimes even flame out on those.

So what can outies do to change a director's opinion? They can rant and moan that all the professors hate them (rarely true: most profs are too busy with their own careers and digestions to be malicious or devious with students they barely know). Outies can switch directors, seeking professors who are more compatible or appreciative.

Some outies, wisely taking the long view, choose not to be academics and quit -- for there are few tenure-track jobs, and most go to the best-mentored and best-motivated. Or outies like you can decide to "Impress Zeus" by working obsessively, producing better writing and research than anyone else, and making sure that Zeus sees the New Professional You: tough, talented, and terrific. After all, a true outie would never have the good sense to write to Ms. Mentor. She suspects that you are, secretly, an innie.

Q: My major professor and I get increasingly twitchy and amorous when we're together. When should we move from the purely theoretical to a more personal exploration position?

A: Never.

Sage readers: Ever since Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) was published, she has been receiving sincere, comical, weird, and lachrymose epistles from advice-seekers, usually in the larval stage of their academic careers. She has labored to respond with her usual perfect wisdom, but the volume of mail has sometimes inundated her ivory tower (which she never leaves; all her mail is received via her channeler, Emily Toth, in the English department at Louisiana State University). Ms. Mentor therefore applauds the learned worthies of The Chronicle of Higher Education for providing her with a new monthly forum, and she welcomes missives to her at ms.mentor@chronicle.com

Copyright © Emily Toth. All rights reserved.

Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia, by Emily Toth, can be ordered from the University of Pennsylvania Press by calling (800) 445-9880.