Why I left Academia: Part I(allisonharbin.com)
allisonharbin.com
Why I left Academia: Part I
https://www.allisonharbin.com/post-phd/why-i-left-academia-part-1
83 comments
As someone who was a computer science grad student for a long time, this is horrifying to read. But I'm confused. If I had experienced something like this, I would have immediately spoken with my advisor; my advisor was not as invested in my successful graduation as me, but he was the second-most invested person, academically. Are art history programs different in that students do not have primary advisors?
edit: In part 2, she mentions her advisor. But clearly her advisor was not someone she thought could help her. That alone makes her experience sound awful, and her environment dysfunctional.
edit: In part 2, she mentions her advisor. But clearly her advisor was not someone she thought could help her. That alone makes her experience sound awful, and her environment dysfunctional.
Same here. I cannot believe the amount of organized dishonesty. I have a Ph.D. in CS; if anything remotely similar had happened to me, my advisor would have stepped in strongly. Also, my field is a very small world and such a behavior would have discredited the vilain almost on the spot. Maybe this kind of behavior is more common in liberal arts?
> Maybe this kind of behavior is more common in liberal arts?
It isn't. I've worked in a research group that focused in a specific engineering domain, and once I've noticed that my own supervisor published a paper with the results I got from computer simulations and informally shared with him to ask for his input on the findings. Essentially he took my plots, tweaked their appearance by changing color schemes, labels and ranges, and wrote a paper around those plots.
I couldn't do anything about it because in practice the only proof I had were the plots, and the paper was on a subject that was supposedly the advisor's specialty. Furthermore, back then my tenure track depended directly on that man's say. So, even if I had irrefutable proof that he usurped my results to publish his own paper, blowing the whistle on him would end my career.
It isn't. I've worked in a research group that focused in a specific engineering domain, and once I've noticed that my own supervisor published a paper with the results I got from computer simulations and informally shared with him to ask for his input on the findings. Essentially he took my plots, tweaked their appearance by changing color schemes, labels and ranges, and wrote a paper around those plots.
I couldn't do anything about it because in practice the only proof I had were the plots, and the paper was on a subject that was supposedly the advisor's specialty. Furthermore, back then my tenure track depended directly on that man's say. So, even if I had irrefutable proof that he usurped my results to publish his own paper, blowing the whistle on him would end my career.
Bio is more like humanities, it seems, than CS. I've seen Primary Advisers sabotage students in defenses before, it's not fun, and it's not uncommon (~15% of them, maybe). Don't ask me why, but it happens. I even saw a PI sue a student for 'work not completed' after he graduated and the PI signed the forms. The student just went back to China and nothing came of it, but for a few months there it was pretty hairy trying to educate the student in US laws and calm him down.
They have primary advisors, but (based on experience working in an administrative position at a US university) I get the feeling humanities programs are very different from STEM subjects. The decision on whether one's work is "correct" and worthy of a phD is so subjective, and prevailing theoretical trends are so arbitrary and subject to change, that it's easy to reject a dissertation based on cliquish whims. She may have believed, plausibly given her experience, that her primary advisor would take Dr. Mao's side like everyone else. (If Dr. Mao wasn't her primary advisor, which it kind of sounds like they were, since it was their job - which they did not do - to send the dissertation to the rest of the committee?)
Based on quick Googling, it looks like humanities phD completion rates are around 50% at best - which makes it sound like no one is all that "invested" in these students' successful completion.
Based on quick Googling, it looks like humanities phD completion rates are around 50% at best - which makes it sound like no one is all that "invested" in these students' successful completion.
Former humanities grad student here. This is completely correct. One of the (many) reasons to avoid humanities grad programs is because a single person can so easily block or retard your progress: http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befor...
Based on those sentences, I had concluded Dr. Mao was not her advisor: "I had to email my dissertation mostly un-read by my advisor to my entire committee (a scandal in and of itself), because, as my advisor wrote in a terse email to me, they did not have time to read it. Despite the gross negligence that this brazen declaration signaled, I was relieved by this, because it meant that I would go straight into my defense with a very high chance that Dr. Mao had not discovered what I feared they would."
I took that to mean that since her advisor told her that her committee was unlikely to read her dissertation before the defense, she took comfort in believing Dr. Mao - a member of the committee but a separate person from her advisor - would also not read it.
I took that to mean that since her advisor told her that her committee was unlikely to read her dissertation before the defense, she took comfort in believing Dr. Mao - a member of the committee but a separate person from her advisor - would also not read it.
Yes, the sentence can be read either way (as "the advisor" and "Dr. Mao" both referring to the same person, who had not read the dissertation, or two different people). Dr. Mao's role seems to be kept almost deliberately vague - possibly in response to her lawyer's advice as stated in Part III?
She does seem to state that her defense was conducted by three people - Dr. Mao, Dr. Hortense (who she did "go to" and got an unhelpful response), and "The third person in the room, another professor on my committee" who appeared surprised by the proceedings.
She does seem to state that her defense was conducted by three people - Dr. Mao, Dr. Hortense (who she did "go to" and got an unhelpful response), and "The third person in the room, another professor on my committee" who appeared surprised by the proceedings.
> kept almost deliberately vague
I think it's a mix of lawyer advice and a disavowal of Dr. Mao as her advisor -- a way to maintain some dignity. The member of the dissertation committee who is most likely to be "impossible" to remove is the chair. More evidence for the roles: "I told Dr. Hortense in this November email that I was worried about my ability to pass my defense, especially if Dr. Mao was not going to read it prior to sending it out to the entire committee."
I think it's a mix of lawyer advice and a disavowal of Dr. Mao as her advisor -- a way to maintain some dignity. The member of the dissertation committee who is most likely to be "impossible" to remove is the chair. More evidence for the roles: "I told Dr. Hortense in this November email that I was worried about my ability to pass my defense, especially if Dr. Mao was not going to read it prior to sending it out to the entire committee."
Yes, I now agree with you and upvotinglurker. That also explains the mystery, and the hidden horror: her advisor plagiarized her.
She also mentioned that she would have been elated if Dr. Mao had just credited her in a footnote when he published her work. I imagine that this is shitty, but common in student-adviser relationships.
in the humanities, it is often the case that your "advisor" is someone with whom you meet a few times a semester. this is quite unlike STEM fields, where your advisor is often also your employer (usually you're in their research group as a researcher).
>The decision on whether one's work is "correct" and worthy of a phD is so subjective, and prevailing theoretical trends are so arbitrary and subject to change, that it's easy to reject a dissertation based on cliquish whims.
The other half of the double-whammy is there are a lot of humanities degrees with no marketplace value beyond "has a degree" unless you have a PhD, so anybody in the position to impede your doctorate has more power than he would in a STEM field.
The other half of the double-whammy is there are a lot of humanities degrees with no marketplace value beyond "has a degree" unless you have a PhD, so anybody in the position to impede your doctorate has more power than he would in a STEM field.
Another difference between her experience and mine outside of humanities:
defenses that revel in ripping apart at least six years’ worth of work without taking the time to acknowledge its value are shockingly common
I had annual meetings with my committee. This wasn't optional, it was a hard requirement set by the department. That way, when a committee member has a concern, they don't wait until the very end to raise it.
I'm not sure if humanities in general are horribly dysfunctional, or just her school.
defenses that revel in ripping apart at least six years’ worth of work without taking the time to acknowledge its value are shockingly common
I had annual meetings with my committee. This wasn't optional, it was a hard requirement set by the department. That way, when a committee member has a concern, they don't wait until the very end to raise it.
I'm not sure if humanities in general are horribly dysfunctional, or just her school.
It was the first thought that came to me too. I was lucky enough as a PhD student (mathematics) that I never would have had any doubt that my advisor would have jumped in and fought on my (really 'our') behalf on something like this.
I feel for the author, it sounds like a terrible situation.
I feel for the author, it sounds like a terrible situation.
If you've somehow never met someone with horror stories of interacting with their advisor, I'm impressed.
I have, of course. But I had assumed her advisor would at least by the most logical person to help her, but as others in the thread point out, it's likely her advisor was the one who plagiarized her.
> Are art history programs different
I think everything in the humanities is substantially different than anything in STEM
I think everything in the humanities is substantially different than anything in STEM
This seemed so strange to me as a former operations research PhD student. Most people were co-authoring all of their papers with their advisers. There was nothing to steal because the adviser is already an author on all of it. The rare single-author paper was usually a side project of no interest to the adviser.
EDIT: non-adviser committee members didn't usually co-author a paper, but I never heard of a committee member or professor appropriating a student's work. I don't mean to say it doesn't happen, because if it was, it would probably be well hidden. I'm just not sure if it happened in my field and I was oblivious, or it didn't.
EDIT: non-adviser committee members didn't usually co-author a paper, but I never heard of a committee member or professor appropriating a student's work. I don't mean to say it doesn't happen, because if it was, it would probably be well hidden. I'm just not sure if it happened in my field and I was oblivious, or it didn't.
I felt similarly. In computer science, we tend to publish our work as we go, so the dissertation is just weaving all of that work together into a coherent narrative. (Or coherent-ish.) I wonder if the humanities are more susceptible to this kind of abuse, maybe because they don't publish as much during the process? Long turn-around time on publishing articles could exacerbate this.
Seems like you would have known, or at least heard rumors. Word gets around when people do that kind of stuff.
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The expectations around co-authorship vary from field to field.
There is just no comparing a STEM Ph.D. with what the author was doing (Ph.D. in art history). I literally think the STEM degree should have a different name, S.D. or something. Penury, ~8-yr tenure in grad school, book-length thesis, zero job prospects (academic or otherwise).. it's just a totally different world from what you experienced.
It's too bad humanities people tend not to use plain text that are checked into git, with hash codes and time stamps that are hard to fake. That way, she could have shown the various Deans that her work predated that of Dr Mao.
I didn't follow the ideas of Mao's suggesting that she had copied something in the literature. It seemed to be the material that she said Mao copied from her, but if that's the case, wasn't Mao plagiarizing? Or was Mao the author of that earlier work (and therefore a self-plagiarist)?
It's a great read, and I think the author should consider a job as a writer. Maybe all that work paid off, after all, in honing her ability to hold the readers' attention. Writers can do a lot of good for the world.
I didn't follow the ideas of Mao's suggesting that she had copied something in the literature. It seemed to be the material that she said Mao copied from her, but if that's the case, wasn't Mao plagiarizing? Or was Mao the author of that earlier work (and therefore a self-plagiarist)?
It's a great read, and I think the author should consider a job as a writer. Maybe all that work paid off, after all, in honing her ability to hold the readers' attention. Writers can do a lot of good for the world.
> It's too bad humanities people tend not to use plain text that are checked into git, with hash codes and time stamps that are hard to fake. That way, she could have shown the various Deans that her work predated that of Dr Mao.
It is not hard to fake timestamps in git. There are many tools used to generate patterns for the Github contributions graph.
If you want to move a file back in time in git, you just have to do some rebasing and edit the commit times.
It is not hard to fake timestamps in git. There are many tools used to generate patterns for the Github contributions graph.
If you want to move a file back in time in git, you just have to do some rebasing and edit the commit times.
This is something a blockchain is actually good for. Just submitting a hash of the work into a block proves you wrote it before a hash in a later block.
Definitely, a blockchain is just about the only way to do this without trusting a third-party.
Git on a blockchain sounds like an interesting idea. I wonder if anyone has done that.
Git on a blockchain sounds like an interesting idea. I wonder if anyone has done that.
Oh, yeah, none of those committees would have cared, let alone known what git was to begin with. It's not about the truth, it's about the posturing.
This reminded me of the movie: Flash of Genius
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1054588/
Also, I must say I am very surprised of some of the comments made here. It is obvious that the professor stole from his/her student; and some people here are trying to blame the student for that. A little empathy please.
Also, I must say I am very surprised of some of the comments made here. It is obvious that the professor stole from his/her student; and some people here are trying to blame the student for that. A little empathy please.
I have a hard time relating to this story, as it's easy to be public about what you're doing and what you're finding. We also have pre-prints in order to secure a spot.
Can't said I didn't feel nauseous reading this though, I can imagine this happening because of too much isolation.
(That was also really well written.)
Can't said I didn't feel nauseous reading this though, I can imagine this happening because of too much isolation.
(That was also really well written.)
Pre-prints as a way of declaring ownership of your research findings (or whatever the humanities equivalent is) seem to be much less of a thing in the humanities. For example, I've heard the fear of someone "stealing" your ideas before you can get formal credit raised as an objection to libraries' attempts to create open access pre-print databases. At my university, dissertations must be submitted and "published" online (a replacement for the two paper copies that used to be printed and stored in the university library), but some students exercise the option of putting an embargo on the online copy, so it's not readable by the public until after they've found a press to publish the book they plan to turn it into.
In humanities? We barely have them in Bio outside of CRISPR stuff.
I only skimmed through Part I, but why is the author hiding the professor's and dean's name? Nothing is going to change if the guilty aren't publicly outed. (Obviously names should be accompanied by evidence to support the accusation)
http://raceethnicity.rutgers.edu/menu-i/graduate-assistantsh...
Seems to be the Art History dept at Rutgers. She specializes in postcolonial feminism, there is a Ma-o there with a specialization in decolonial feminism.
Seems to be the Art History dept at Rutgers. She specializes in postcolonial feminism, there is a Ma-o there with a specialization in decolonial feminism.
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yah, based on part 3, where it's mentioned that Mao had an exhibition in Los Angeles, it seems like either Zervignon or Flores would fit the profile - both had exhibitions in LA and are in fields that are close enough to Harbin's work. Probably one's Mao and the other is Hortense. Most dissertations are available online (and usually mention the committee members in the front matter), although this one might be withheld for obvious reasons.
EDIT: this is pure speculation, and not of much utility. I just happen to be eating lunch and clicking around.
EDIT: this is pure speculation, and not of much utility. I just happen to be eating lunch and clicking around.
Not to stoke the fire but she's on this [1] page with Flores as advisor.
[1] http://arthistory.rutgers.edu/menu-iii/current-students/curr...
[1] http://arthistory.rutgers.edu/menu-iii/current-students/curr...
In part 3 she states that her lawyer advised her to be vague to reduce the chance of the school bringing a frivolous lawsuit against her (which could bankrupt her even if she "won").
She should contact Ken White at Popehat for free speech legal advice. He likes to help people with finding a first amendment lawyer who will work pro bono.
The fundamental problem, it seems to me, is an academic culture where an advisor doesn't get kudos for an idea that their student came up with. This (again AFAICT) is unique to the humanities. In technical fields, an advisor gets points when their students succeed, to the point where if a student fails a Ph.D. defense it reflects badly on everyone on the committee. Because of that, by the time you get to your defense, it is a foregone conclusion that you will pass unless you screw it up badly. If that is not the case, your committee won't let you defend. (That leads to its own set of dysfunctional dynamics, but it's nowhere near as dramatic or emotionally taxing as what happened here.)
I think the real problem is that a huge proportion of academic research in the humanities is bullshit and deep down the practitioners know it. They survive, then, by insuring that only those willing to Play The Game rise through the ranks. Any hint of dissent is brutally crushed.
I think the real problem is that a huge proportion of academic research in the humanities is bullshit and deep down the practitioners know it. They survive, then, by insuring that only those willing to Play The Game rise through the ranks. Any hint of dissent is brutally crushed.
After reading through the whole story, my biggest question is: where can I find her dissertation (particularly the final chapter where she says the stuff she always wanted to say about her field) online?
Read through the whole story too, and would like to see all three: the paper sent to Dr Mao, the Dr Mao's writing, and then the paper published "a few years back" which Dr Mao was supposedly basing his writing on.
Otherwise, this is a really sad story. Personally, I would have went legally and publicly ballistic immediately, but I know -- people are different.
Otherwise, this is a really sad story. Personally, I would have went legally and publicly ballistic immediately, but I know -- people are different.
Sigh. What happened to her was terrible. But I would have just taken the deal to get the Ph.D. Yes, it's theft, it's a year of work lost. But we live in an unjust world. If you have physical property stolen, sometimes you just have to take the loss and move on.
There was never an effective course for justice for her. Grad students are the least powerful group at universities, she's a woman. Single digit millionaires have no effective access to the legal system, especially in IP cases. She would have done better to take the hit, get into a faculty position, and eventually respond from a position of power.
I feel sorry for her, but unfortunately we're stranded on this planet amongst the rest of our species.
There was never an effective course for justice for her. Grad students are the least powerful group at universities, she's a woman. Single digit millionaires have no effective access to the legal system, especially in IP cases. She would have done better to take the hit, get into a faculty position, and eventually respond from a position of power.
I feel sorry for her, but unfortunately we're stranded on this planet amongst the rest of our species.
It should not. Moral decay is a result of the system itself. Not that it is something new, but it gets more and more adamant when more and more people or employers want a PhD. Standards for post graduate students have been lowered (at least in my country) over the last 30 years to cope with the demand.
Plus the points she mentions in the fourth part of her posts is the one that made me turn my stomach over, because it is the one argument that i always knew myself, but could not grasp. It's the same reason why i left. You are not wanted because you will take the job someone already occupies.
Plus the points she mentions in the fourth part of her posts is the one that made me turn my stomach over, because it is the one argument that i always knew myself, but could not grasp. It's the same reason why i left. You are not wanted because you will take the job someone already occupies.
I feel sad she couldn't report it because of the consequences. This only gives more power to the people who do it. But it makes me more anger the response of the dean that she couldn't report it or her career would be ruined.
I've heard and read a lot of grad school horror stories, and I've seen some unfold before my eyes, but this one takes the cake. I'm impressed she escaped with her sanity.
It's too long and contain details i am personally not interested in, but i can feel your frustration and the way you want to keep your sanity is by using a detailed description. I ain't gonna read the part 2 hoping the best for you. But no matter what there is some point in everyone's life where they get stuck like this, a strangling situation. Either go with the flow and live like others because normal people live like that, don't they? They adjust and give up in front of the system and people more powerful than them, but sometimes if we want to fight them we will have to put everything on line, our career, relationships and even life. Outcome might be favorable for you but ultimately the system is like that, its the basic nature of power, morally you won't have done that if you were in his place but practically thats not true because he did iy to you, so in real world you can't beat the system! Accept the fact or if you really wanna fight and have some dramatic revenge episodes, go for it but be ready to lose things, but hell yeah you will feel alive more than those normal people
Hello,
A few comments on this. I failed out of a PhD program a few years ago, FWIW.
1) I think that many of the experiences the author had would generalize to non-academic fields -- pretty much anywhere in which there are power imbalances and vested interests. I used to be a teacher's aide in a kindergarten classroom in a rough part of a U.S. city. One day, I watched a teacher hit a kindergartner with a closed fist. It was part of a pattern of violence. This upset me, and I asked my supervisor (not a teacher) whether it was worth reporting to Child Protective Services. The supervisor said that it was ultimately up to me, but that when one of their previous charges had reported a similar situation, it had gone nowhere, hadn't protected any kids, and had seriously damaged relationships between the organization I was a part of and the school district. Sometimes you see something wrong and you can't do anything about it because you're too low on the totem pole. I'd love to be a part of the world where that didn't happen, but I think that's equivalent to hoping that I not work on anything important.
2) This whole thing could have been avoided if she or her discipline had a strong norm of posting preprints online (so her committee member couldn't have scooped her so easily). A commitment to such things is one reason why economics is more influential than other fields [1].
3) Failing out of grad school was the most difficult experience of my life to date. At the time I found it terribly unfair and undeserved. Now I'm glad to be elsewhere. I hope the author feels similarly in time.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-01/economist...
A few comments on this. I failed out of a PhD program a few years ago, FWIW.
1) I think that many of the experiences the author had would generalize to non-academic fields -- pretty much anywhere in which there are power imbalances and vested interests. I used to be a teacher's aide in a kindergarten classroom in a rough part of a U.S. city. One day, I watched a teacher hit a kindergartner with a closed fist. It was part of a pattern of violence. This upset me, and I asked my supervisor (not a teacher) whether it was worth reporting to Child Protective Services. The supervisor said that it was ultimately up to me, but that when one of their previous charges had reported a similar situation, it had gone nowhere, hadn't protected any kids, and had seriously damaged relationships between the organization I was a part of and the school district. Sometimes you see something wrong and you can't do anything about it because you're too low on the totem pole. I'd love to be a part of the world where that didn't happen, but I think that's equivalent to hoping that I not work on anything important.
2) This whole thing could have been avoided if she or her discipline had a strong norm of posting preprints online (so her committee member couldn't have scooped her so easily). A commitment to such things is one reason why economics is more influential than other fields [1].
3) Failing out of grad school was the most difficult experience of my life to date. At the time I found it terribly unfair and undeserved. Now I'm glad to be elsewhere. I hope the author feels similarly in time.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-01/economist...
Such stories always remind me of that one:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-...
Two things come to mind here.
1) This is a fairly extreme but otherwise typical example of a bureaucracy sucking the soul out of someone naive enough to not see the "everyone vs everyone else" adversarial relationships throughout the system.
2) The smaller the scraps the harder they fight over them. In big, wealthy, profit generating departments there's enough recognition to go around. Departments left to pick over what's left are bitter places.
1) This is a fairly extreme but otherwise typical example of a bureaucracy sucking the soul out of someone naive enough to not see the "everyone vs everyone else" adversarial relationships throughout the system.
2) The smaller the scraps the harder they fight over them. In big, wealthy, profit generating departments there's enough recognition to go around. Departments left to pick over what's left are bitter places.
There is definitely some information missing from this story. If the case for plagiarism was as clear-cut as the author makes it sound, the reaction of the university officials was very unusual. There is an email trail for the student's version of the story, and the student had a lawyer, yet all of the university administrators sided with the professor to protect Dr. Mao?
Other things:
She was afraid that Dr. Mao would find out about her dissertation essay. But if Dr. Mao plagiarized it, why wouldn't they already know about it?
Why would another professor beg a student to drop claims that Dr. Mao stole the work if there was an email trail?
The university let her use work that they concluded was plagiarized? She even raises that issue, so they more likely concluded that there wasn't enough evidence that Dr. Mao plagiarized.
"I learned that Dr. Mao had gotten over $300,000 in funding for an exhibition and publication based off of the same idea from the essay that I had originally suspected had been based off my work." But later: "I had found out about Dr. Mao’s exhibition a few months after I had sent them the original paper." So at most a few months had passed between seeing the paper for the first time and getting $300,000 for an exhibit. That seems fast to me.
Things make a lot more sense if the two of them had been having conversations about the topic, the student sent Dr. Mao a copy of the paper when it was done, and then Dr. Mao submitted their own paper. The facts just don't add up given this one-sided presentation.
Other things:
She was afraid that Dr. Mao would find out about her dissertation essay. But if Dr. Mao plagiarized it, why wouldn't they already know about it?
Why would another professor beg a student to drop claims that Dr. Mao stole the work if there was an email trail?
The university let her use work that they concluded was plagiarized? She even raises that issue, so they more likely concluded that there wasn't enough evidence that Dr. Mao plagiarized.
"I learned that Dr. Mao had gotten over $300,000 in funding for an exhibition and publication based off of the same idea from the essay that I had originally suspected had been based off my work." But later: "I had found out about Dr. Mao’s exhibition a few months after I had sent them the original paper." So at most a few months had passed between seeing the paper for the first time and getting $300,000 for an exhibit. That seems fast to me.
Things make a lot more sense if the two of them had been having conversations about the topic, the student sent Dr. Mao a copy of the paper when it was done, and then Dr. Mao submitted their own paper. The facts just don't add up given this one-sided presentation.
The inability for even well-known universities to hold accountable their own is well-documented and discipline-independent. Whether pertaining to sports, sexual assault, or plagiarism, universities muster an incredible institutional inertia that smothers and insulates the university from any claims of wrongdoing, no matter how blatant.
To be fair, though, I've seen horror stories that work in the opposite direction as well.
As a tenured prof thinking hard about how to make a career transition out of academics into a slightly different field, I have plenty of stories of corruption and rewarded incompetence. This essay is a good read, but at this point I'm kind of desensitized to it.
However, universities are cautious for the same reason that justice often moves slowly and deliberately, and sometimes the guilty are not punished: because the innocent are also falsely accused.
I'm not saying this to defend universities that protect pervasively corrupt individuals or communities, which does deserve criticism. But for every story I've heard like this, where you have researchers taking credit for work not theirs, or plagiarizing, or falsifying data, or engaging in physical or sexual assault, I'm aware of other stories, where someone has falsely been accused of sexual harassment or assault, or is the victim of slander or lies. I've had colleagues who had their research labs wrongly entirely shut down because of attention-seeking behavior from another faculty member, wanting to play the role of savior. In situations like those it doesn't matter if some lawsuit procures some settlement or compensation, because a different, more pernicious type of damage has been done.
Because of things like that, I think universities often tread very lightly, because if someone comes forward with a claim it's difficult to know where it will lead. Administrations have their own problems (especially with being top-heavy) but they should be cautious, given the crap I've seen.
As a tenured prof thinking hard about how to make a career transition out of academics into a slightly different field, I have plenty of stories of corruption and rewarded incompetence. This essay is a good read, but at this point I'm kind of desensitized to it.
However, universities are cautious for the same reason that justice often moves slowly and deliberately, and sometimes the guilty are not punished: because the innocent are also falsely accused.
I'm not saying this to defend universities that protect pervasively corrupt individuals or communities, which does deserve criticism. But for every story I've heard like this, where you have researchers taking credit for work not theirs, or plagiarizing, or falsifying data, or engaging in physical or sexual assault, I'm aware of other stories, where someone has falsely been accused of sexual harassment or assault, or is the victim of slander or lies. I've had colleagues who had their research labs wrongly entirely shut down because of attention-seeking behavior from another faculty member, wanting to play the role of savior. In situations like those it doesn't matter if some lawsuit procures some settlement or compensation, because a different, more pernicious type of damage has been done.
Because of things like that, I think universities often tread very lightly, because if someone comes forward with a claim it's difficult to know where it will lead. Administrations have their own problems (especially with being top-heavy) but they should be cautious, given the crap I've seen.
I started off reading this with the expectation I'd be right in joining the fight with her. It is, after all, a pretty bad allegation, us ladies have to stick together, and I'm ready to take a side!
But oh my gosh THE FEELS. This is so emotionally written that it's almost impossible to derive any legitimate facts from the story. It's like a bad romance-gone-wrong novel written from the perspective of a perpetual victim.
Parts 1-3 are bad enough. Her follow-up is even worse. Oh yes, everyone is terrified of millennials. Haha. No. You're not qualified to scare us. You just think you are, and every stupid little setback sends you into a deluge of tears (how many times did she describe her crying in this story?).
She might have been entirely in the right with her allegation, I don't know. It's too hard to tell amidst her poor me inner dialogue of pain and suffering and tragedy.
One thing her college life didn't teach her was any semblance of resilience. That life isn't always fair. That some times you suck it up. I mean, no one died, her career wasn't over (unless she insisted it be over, which apparently she did), and she got her PhD.
And she got her PhD AND got to keep her integrity. So, why's she quitting again?
But oh my gosh THE FEELS. This is so emotionally written that it's almost impossible to derive any legitimate facts from the story. It's like a bad romance-gone-wrong novel written from the perspective of a perpetual victim.
Parts 1-3 are bad enough. Her follow-up is even worse. Oh yes, everyone is terrified of millennials. Haha. No. You're not qualified to scare us. You just think you are, and every stupid little setback sends you into a deluge of tears (how many times did she describe her crying in this story?).
She might have been entirely in the right with her allegation, I don't know. It's too hard to tell amidst her poor me inner dialogue of pain and suffering and tragedy.
One thing her college life didn't teach her was any semblance of resilience. That life isn't always fair. That some times you suck it up. I mean, no one died, her career wasn't over (unless she insisted it be over, which apparently she did), and she got her PhD.
And she got her PhD AND got to keep her integrity. So, why's she quitting again?
You don't finish a PhD without being resilient. Seeing as how her work is about postcolonial feminism, she's probably very aware of how unfair life is.
Read the post less as an argument in court and more as a therapeutic response. And don't be a dick. If you had worked for years (grading lame papers and eating ramen for real because you don't get paid anything) and someone was about to steal or did steal the only thing of value you've got due to that work, you'd be upset, too.
Read the post less as an argument in court and more as a therapeutic response. And don't be a dick. If you had worked for years (grading lame papers and eating ramen for real because you don't get paid anything) and someone was about to steal or did steal the only thing of value you've got due to that work, you'd be upset, too.
It's also an enormous betrayal from a part of her life from what she probably viewed as the most significant part of her life (assuming the facts are as described). That sort of betrayal is really hard to handle.
"how many times did she describe her crying in this story?"
Twice.
Once the evening after she'd be savaged during her dissertation defence. The second when she was attacked over her late submission by the Dean who'd she'd earlier gone to for help.
Maybe try using your fingers if you find counting so difficult.
Twice.
Once the evening after she'd be savaged during her dissertation defence. The second when she was attacked over her late submission by the Dean who'd she'd earlier gone to for help.
Maybe try using your fingers if you find counting so difficult.
The commenter was trying to portray her as weak or too emotional, basic logical fallacy used for centuries for weakening an argument they have already lost inside their inner souls.
Agreed, sounds like she had a lousy experience but indicting the whole academy for "failing those at its highest levels" (her words) seems like a bit of a stretch. The warning signs were all plainly visible when she signed up for this debacle six years ago. Some acknowledgment of the role she herself played in this would be refreshing. (Disclaimer: I read all 3/4/6 posts, so maybe she does somewhere.) Reminds me of what the bottom fell out of the legal industry 10 years ago, and the students all sued their law schools.
I just can't understand why she didn't ever go to this Dr. Mao FIRST.
What could she have gained from that conversation? A written admission of plagiarism from the adviser and a lollipop? Very unlikely. I'm inclined to believe the OP verbatim, well, ok, 90% of it at least. I doubt Dr. Mao would have done anything but try to throw the student under the bus even more. I mean, come on, they flippin published the material while knowing that there were tons of emails proving they plagiarized the material. They knew they were untouchable and they were right
If you spent 7 years of your life on a project only to haven it stolen out from underneath you by an unscrupulous "mentor", you're saying wouldn't get emotional about it? As far as I can tell, her story reveals exceptional resilience: She did, after all, get her Ph.D., despite having a normal emotional response to the revelation that people she trusted for a substantial proportion of her adult life were conspiring to screw her over.
And what is wrong with being emotional?
After reading parts 2 and 3, here are my thoughts.
>Petty accusations were leveled at me, critiques of why I hadn’t used certain scholars, and even the very foundation of my entire dissertation was brought into question.
If she thinks those things are "petty," she is not a rigorous scholar at all. The omission of references to certain scholars, especially if those scholars have relevance to her own subfield, should absolutely be questioned. These sort of questions test the depths to which she has gone in her own research. As a contrived example, if an art history student doesn't reference David Hume in a dissertation about aesthetics, I would absolutely question why. If said student did not cite Hume because they did not know of Hume, it is then obvious that the research was not rigorous at all.
If she wants to be considered an expert in her field then she should be able to answer these questions precisely and with good reasons. I also thought it was funny that she complained about the committee not raising those questions when she submitted her proposal years ago. That's the whole point dummy... a proposal is just a proposal, if it sounds halfway decent it gets an approval. The expectation is that you will delve into all the background and research necessary to address any critiques that may come up at your defense. An approved proposal does not in any way imply a seal of approval for every detail of the dissertation... come on now.
Also, this quote from the third part of the story:
>The similarities between the two papers were instead attributed to a paper written a few years prior by a colleague of Dr. Mao. It was then suggested that I had plagiarized that essay in my paper, as evidenced by my paper’s ‘similarity’ to this essay, as well as to the fact that I had not cited the essay. I had never heard of this essay of which I was now accused of plagiarizing, much less read it.
I wonder if the author even read this earlier paper after she received this letter? She notably does not go into it. I also can't believe how she says "I had never heard of this essay ... much less read it." As if that is a valid response to this sort of response? Consider the following (oversimplified) back-and-forth:
>A. Hey, this person plagiarized me because he said the same things I did, but he said it after I did.
>B. Actually, we think both of your papers are similar to a paper that came before either of you.
>A. But I didn't read that paper so I didn't plagiarize that paper. Therefore, since Dr. Mao read my paper and I didn't read the earlier paper, he must have plagiarized me, and not the other paper.
Do you see the gap in logic??
Obviously if she never read the earlier paper she is innocent of plagiarism, but if the earlier paper is legitimately similar to hers, then she has no claim to say that her work was plagiarized. She doesn't seem to understand the fact that simultaneous, independent development of similar ideas is in fact, very common in academia. Newton and Leibniz independently created calculus at the same time, which is well known.
A more recent example is that in 1964, three different papers were published, independently, in the same year predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, which we have all heard about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_PRL_symmetry_breaking_pap...
While I fully believe that she did indeed face an extremely hostile academic environment, I don't think the facts, as they are presented by the author, are enough to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt that there was indeed plagiarism with ill intent. She seems unwilling to face the prospect that someone else might have thought of her ideas before she did. If she is serious about her claims, she will provide references to each of the three papers in question: her own, Dr. Mao's, and the earlier unnamed paper which is cited as pre-empting both of them. Then we can see if there is real merit in her claim. As it is now, this is just whining.
>Petty accusations were leveled at me, critiques of why I hadn’t used certain scholars, and even the very foundation of my entire dissertation was brought into question.
If she thinks those things are "petty," she is not a rigorous scholar at all. The omission of references to certain scholars, especially if those scholars have relevance to her own subfield, should absolutely be questioned. These sort of questions test the depths to which she has gone in her own research. As a contrived example, if an art history student doesn't reference David Hume in a dissertation about aesthetics, I would absolutely question why. If said student did not cite Hume because they did not know of Hume, it is then obvious that the research was not rigorous at all.
If she wants to be considered an expert in her field then she should be able to answer these questions precisely and with good reasons. I also thought it was funny that she complained about the committee not raising those questions when she submitted her proposal years ago. That's the whole point dummy... a proposal is just a proposal, if it sounds halfway decent it gets an approval. The expectation is that you will delve into all the background and research necessary to address any critiques that may come up at your defense. An approved proposal does not in any way imply a seal of approval for every detail of the dissertation... come on now.
Also, this quote from the third part of the story:
>The similarities between the two papers were instead attributed to a paper written a few years prior by a colleague of Dr. Mao. It was then suggested that I had plagiarized that essay in my paper, as evidenced by my paper’s ‘similarity’ to this essay, as well as to the fact that I had not cited the essay. I had never heard of this essay of which I was now accused of plagiarizing, much less read it.
I wonder if the author even read this earlier paper after she received this letter? She notably does not go into it. I also can't believe how she says "I had never heard of this essay ... much less read it." As if that is a valid response to this sort of response? Consider the following (oversimplified) back-and-forth:
>A. Hey, this person plagiarized me because he said the same things I did, but he said it after I did.
>B. Actually, we think both of your papers are similar to a paper that came before either of you.
>A. But I didn't read that paper so I didn't plagiarize that paper. Therefore, since Dr. Mao read my paper and I didn't read the earlier paper, he must have plagiarized me, and not the other paper.
Do you see the gap in logic??
Obviously if she never read the earlier paper she is innocent of plagiarism, but if the earlier paper is legitimately similar to hers, then she has no claim to say that her work was plagiarized. She doesn't seem to understand the fact that simultaneous, independent development of similar ideas is in fact, very common in academia. Newton and Leibniz independently created calculus at the same time, which is well known.
A more recent example is that in 1964, three different papers were published, independently, in the same year predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, which we have all heard about:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_PRL_symmetry_breaking_pap...
While I fully believe that she did indeed face an extremely hostile academic environment, I don't think the facts, as they are presented by the author, are enough to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt that there was indeed plagiarism with ill intent. She seems unwilling to face the prospect that someone else might have thought of her ideas before she did. If she is serious about her claims, she will provide references to each of the three papers in question: her own, Dr. Mao's, and the earlier unnamed paper which is cited as pre-empting both of them. Then we can see if there is real merit in her claim. As it is now, this is just whining.
>I also thought it was funny that she complained about the committee not raising those questions when she submitted her proposal years ago.
At least in the sciences, your thesis committee is supposed to continually/regularly keep tabs on your progress, and help ensure you're making progress towards a passing dissertation. This is the committee's responsibility.
>An approved proposal does not in any way imply a seal of approval for every detail of the dissertation... come on now.
For sure, but the committee should know how things are progressing. In the sciences, the thesis defense is not really a "defense". It only gets scheduled when everyone basically agrees you will pass, and it's more of a celebration. It's very rare to have hostile defenses, and extremely rare for someone to fail. (If that happens, it's usually due to politics.)
>As if that is a valid response to this sort of response?
True, but it is concerning if they're bringing up possible plagiarism by her and Dr. Mao, while not following through on any kind of punishment/censure of the two of them.
At least in the sciences, your thesis committee is supposed to continually/regularly keep tabs on your progress, and help ensure you're making progress towards a passing dissertation. This is the committee's responsibility.
>An approved proposal does not in any way imply a seal of approval for every detail of the dissertation... come on now.
For sure, but the committee should know how things are progressing. In the sciences, the thesis defense is not really a "defense". It only gets scheduled when everyone basically agrees you will pass, and it's more of a celebration. It's very rare to have hostile defenses, and extremely rare for someone to fail. (If that happens, it's usually due to politics.)
>As if that is a valid response to this sort of response?
True, but it is concerning if they're bringing up possible plagiarism by her and Dr. Mao, while not following through on any kind of punishment/censure of the two of them.
>I also thought it was funny that she complained about the committee not raising those questions when she submitted her proposal years ago. That's the whole point dummy...
She also mentions submitting multiple drafts and requests for feedback, over the course of years, which Dr. Mao (who based on the description appears to be her thesis advsior) ignored. E.g. when she says "Dr. Mao had provided me with next to no feedback on my dissertation--- nothing substantial anyway. Emails with drafts went unanswered. There was the occasional promise to read it the following month, which always went unfulfilled."
If the very basis of the dissertation "had no validity" or the missing references were so fundamental as you imagine, her thesis advisor should have mentioned those things before the day of the defense.
She also seems to state (though she is less clear about this) that actual substantial wording from her essay (not just ideas) were copied. Several credible people she consulted (including her fellowship director) seemed to concur. I suppose it's possible for substantial amounts of exact wording to be "accidentally" plagiarized, but it's a lot less likely.
She also mentions submitting multiple drafts and requests for feedback, over the course of years, which Dr. Mao (who based on the description appears to be her thesis advsior) ignored. E.g. when she says "Dr. Mao had provided me with next to no feedback on my dissertation--- nothing substantial anyway. Emails with drafts went unanswered. There was the occasional promise to read it the following month, which always went unfulfilled."
If the very basis of the dissertation "had no validity" or the missing references were so fundamental as you imagine, her thesis advisor should have mentioned those things before the day of the defense.
She also seems to state (though she is less clear about this) that actual substantial wording from her essay (not just ideas) were copied. Several credible people she consulted (including her fellowship director) seemed to concur. I suppose it's possible for substantial amounts of exact wording to be "accidentally" plagiarized, but it's a lot less likely.
Hey now, no need to resort to name calling ("dummy"). I think you are reading far to much in her statements about her worth as a researcher to be charitable. "Petty" is easily read as being attached to "accusations" and not the rest of the sentence. Her point in that passage is that she wasn't given a chance to present her work and they decided to ruthlessly attack it. She said she was able to fend off attacks politely -- I see no reason to assume that she was not "able to answer these questions precisely and with good reasons."
> If she is serious about her claims, she will provide references to each of the three papers in question: her own, Dr. Mao's, and the earlier unnamed paper which is cited as pre-empting both of them. Then we can see if there is real merit in her claim. As it is now, this is just whining.
I'm sure she would love to, but is afraid of having to deal with a frivolous lawsuit, as her lawyer warned her about.
> "I had never heard of this essay ... much less read it." As if that is a valid response to this sort of response?
A big question is why didn't Dr. Mao mention this essay during the defense. I read the "why had this not been brought up to me four years prior when I submitted my dissertation proposal" as just one example of Dr. Mao's continual poor advising. Others are mentioned throughout the series.
> She doesn't seem to understand the fact that simultaneous, independent development of similar ideas is in fact, very common in academia.
Maybe she understands, maybe she doesn't -- I found this part of the series to be more rushed, and I believe it would be a gap in logic to assume she doesn't. She talks about how the university suggested that she might have plagiarized the essay herself, which is probably why she focused on this line of narrative. "[My lawyer] pointed out that if the department really believed that I had plagiarized this new essay, it seemed ridiculous that they would agree to grant me my Ph.D. Further, he reasoned, if I had been the one doing the plagiarizing, why did they agree to let me keep the portion of my dissertation that contained the now infamous content?"
It's true that there are many unanswered questions, but I don't think it's right to read her series as an attempt to prove her case. It's telling a story that's well within the realm of believability. This professor also has a history of at least one such case brought against them just a year before.
> If she is serious about her claims, she will provide references to each of the three papers in question: her own, Dr. Mao's, and the earlier unnamed paper which is cited as pre-empting both of them. Then we can see if there is real merit in her claim. As it is now, this is just whining.
I'm sure she would love to, but is afraid of having to deal with a frivolous lawsuit, as her lawyer warned her about.
> "I had never heard of this essay ... much less read it." As if that is a valid response to this sort of response?
A big question is why didn't Dr. Mao mention this essay during the defense. I read the "why had this not been brought up to me four years prior when I submitted my dissertation proposal" as just one example of Dr. Mao's continual poor advising. Others are mentioned throughout the series.
> She doesn't seem to understand the fact that simultaneous, independent development of similar ideas is in fact, very common in academia.
Maybe she understands, maybe she doesn't -- I found this part of the series to be more rushed, and I believe it would be a gap in logic to assume she doesn't. She talks about how the university suggested that she might have plagiarized the essay herself, which is probably why she focused on this line of narrative. "[My lawyer] pointed out that if the department really believed that I had plagiarized this new essay, it seemed ridiculous that they would agree to grant me my Ph.D. Further, he reasoned, if I had been the one doing the plagiarizing, why did they agree to let me keep the portion of my dissertation that contained the now infamous content?"
It's true that there are many unanswered questions, but I don't think it's right to read her series as an attempt to prove her case. It's telling a story that's well within the realm of believability. This professor also has a history of at least one such case brought against them just a year before.
>A big question is why didn't Dr. Mao mention this essay during the defense. I read the "why had this not been brought up to me four years prior when I submitted my dissertation proposal" as just one example of Dr. Mao's continual poor advising. Others are mentioned throughout the series.
Mao and the department have a strong motivation to find work that predates both the papers in question so they can present a possible sequence of events in which neither parts consciously copied the others work.
Mao and the department have a strong motivation to find work that predates both the papers in question so they can present a possible sequence of events in which neither parts consciously copied the others work.
Yes, thanks for clarifying what I said into what I meant. If this essay was really such a problem, it is rather suspicious that it suddenly appeared as the basis for both of their respective works. "I'd never heard of it" could indirectly mean "and I doubt Dr. Mao had, either." I'm curious whether this essay was cited in Dr. Mao's work...
"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis should be essential reading for grad students.
This author's story sounds pretty familiar, but without the comedic revenge denouement.
This author's story sounds pretty familiar, but without the comedic revenge denouement.
Great writer, but very sad story. The support she has from the academia community as a whole tells me something really does need to change here
[deleted]
squarespace is not handling the load for this article...
nice problem to have.
>When the day of my defense came, I got to campus early—far too early—and spent most of my time perched underneath some monument to a long-dead white man while chain-smoking and obsessively texting everyone I knew.
No reverence for the dead or their legacy or any help they provided.
No reverence for the dead or their legacy or any help they provided.
Things like that happen in all fields, but some are worse than the other. On average, humanities are worse than scientific disciplines. Biology is worse than computer science. Computer science is worse than physics. In pure mathematics, hardly anybody cares about politics at all — it either checks out, or it doesn't.
> The fresh hell I’d suddenly found myself in ... a graduate student going up against a tenured professor who had everything to lose should the allegations be proven true.
> I remembered that all of my friends had told me Dr. Mao took advantage of me, and their increasingly exasperated suggestions that I try to stand up for myself in some way.
>I had just been academically f*cked over. And there was nothing I could do about it.
>Her outrage only fueled my sense of injustice.
My impression after having read this article is that she seems have a strong victim hood mentality. I don't know if this says more about her, or academia. Humanities should help you discover yourself and build you into a strong individual, her experience seems to have done the opposite. I also believe she should leave academia, but she's going to be in for quite the shock when she faces the free market.
> I remembered that all of my friends had told me Dr. Mao took advantage of me, and their increasingly exasperated suggestions that I try to stand up for myself in some way.
>I had just been academically f*cked over. And there was nothing I could do about it.
>Her outrage only fueled my sense of injustice.
My impression after having read this article is that she seems have a strong victim hood mentality. I don't know if this says more about her, or academia. Humanities should help you discover yourself and build you into a strong individual, her experience seems to have done the opposite. I also believe she should leave academia, but she's going to be in for quite the shock when she faces the free market.
However, if you do not have time I would strongly suggest reading her synopsis and critiques that appear after the end of the core story [1-2]
[1] https://www.allisonharbin.com/post-phd/2017/8/1/a-field-wher... [2] https://www.allisonharbin.com/post-phd/mob-mentality-and-tox...