So I made a mistake last spring. I thought I was being a good department citizen, when I made this mistake. A good teacher, a generous scholar. The warning signs were there that it was a mistake, and yet, I made the mistake anyway.
The long and the short of it is this: I agreed to serve as a reader on a graduate student’s culminating project. Now, being a reader is nowhere near the time commitment of directing a project, and, in theory, the director or directors of the project are really responsible for the thing. Or at least that’s how I understand the work of directing, which, incidentally, is something that I am doing for two students right now. When I took them both on, I took them on knowing that it would be a substantial increase in my workload, and I agreed willingly. The reader is there to come in during the final stages to add a layer of vetting, but the reader is not supposed to be the one who will blast the thing to kingdom come. To agree to be a reader is really not a big thing to which to say yes, in theory.
But I hadn’t worked with the student, and, as I said, the warning signs were definitely there that things could go horribly awry. I registered concerns then, but I said yes anyway. Did I mention that this was a mistake?
Today I looked at the first half of the student’s culminating project and… wait for it… There Are Major, Deal-Breaking Problems. The good news is that I had insisted that I get a copy of the project weeks in advance of when I was supposed to get a copy (if things had gone according to the required schedule, I’d not have seen this disaster until next week or the week after), so I’m not dropping this massive bomb on the student at the last minute. If the student devotes hir entire life to the project for the next three weeks, it’s possible that ze can eke out a pass and graduate on schedule. But seriously: this shit should not happen.
So I feel bad (and angry) for a number of reasons.
- I hate the fact that I had to eviscerate the work of a student who doesn’t know me, really. It’s one thing to eviscerate the work of a student with whom one has developed a working relationship. Those students know that my heart is in the right place, and even if they hate me for being a meanie, they still know what they are in for ahead of time. They also know that I will give them the support to whip the piece into shape, if only they ask. But because there isn’t that working relationship in place with this student, well, I’m feeling like a bad person for calling the student out, even though I know I’m absolutely right to do so.
- I blame, resent, and feel deeply angry at my colleagues who are “directing” this project. Whatever this student’s failings, weaknesses, or errors, I don’t actually blame the student for what has happened here. Yes, ze could have sought me out earlier for advice, but ze had two fucking professionals who were supposed to be giving feedback. They were supposed to take that responsibility seriously, and they were supposed to make sure that this didn’t happen to the student. They were supposed to care about the student, and even if the student doesn’t know me, these jacktards do. At some point, perhaps they should have noticed there was a problem and communicated that to the student? At some point, shouldn’t they have read the student’s work carefully? And communicated to the student that it is in no way, shape, or form acceptable?
- I feel entirely disheartened that a student could have gone through all of the coursework in our graduate program and somehow not learned the expectations of graduate-level work in our discipline.
But so yes, I get to be the uncompromising bitch. Lucky me. And the student gets to be blindsided three weeks from hir scheduled defense date, basically because lots of people over the past two years failed to do their motherfucking jobs. And yes, some of the responsibility lies with the student, but I honestly don’t place all or even most of the blame there. We’re supposed to be teachers, and we’re supposed to push them to meet a standard by the time they are completing the program. If we don’t do our jobs, I don’t know how we can legitimately expect for students to do theirs.
So I spent three motherfucking goddamned hours reading and commenting extensively on the steaming pile of poo that constitutes this half of the student’s project. Three hours that I did not have. And I was hard-core harsh, partly so that the student would have no confusion about the fact that this could make graduation impossible, and partly so that my colleagues would feel ashamed of themselves (though I’m not sure that they understand that they should). And I hated every minute of it. (At one point toward the end I was so angry that I had to leave my office and walk briskly all over the department to give me the strength to continue on to the end.)
Now, the politics of my response to this student are complicated. They are complicated by the need to graduate students from the program, which is administratively important. They are complicated by the fact that these two “directors” are senior to me, and the one who was primarily responsible for this part of the student’s project is a full professor, whereas I am not. So my response to the student is more than just a response to this student: it’s a giant fuck-you to our program, and a giant fuck-you to my colleagues. There’s no way to pretend it’s not that, too, and I’m not sure what the fallout of that will be for me.
At the same time, if tenure provides anything, it provides one with the freedom to take a stand, even if it pisses people off. (One of the problems in our program, I’d argue, is that many committees have been populated with people without tenure, who feel a lot of pressure not to challenge senior colleagues on their estimations of student work. Many tenured people in our department have refused to work with graduate students, and yes, that is fucked up, which is one reason why I ultimately agreed to be on this committee in the first place.) Another thing in my favor is the fact that I’m a better scholar than any of the people I might have pissed off – I’m more widely published, and I’m more respected for my research. Nobody can actually say that I’m “wrong” about the major points that I noted that need to be addressed, and even if they dispute some of the minor points, no one could argue that I’m not qualified to have made those points. So maybe nobody will respond to my fuck-you, though given some of the personalities involved…. I’m not hopeful.
I really hate that I was put into a position in which a student’s work is central to the stand that I really, ethically, had to take. And I do blame myself – if I’d just said no at the outset, as I knew I should have done, then I wouldn’t be complicit in this horrible situation. But then that goes back to my colleagues who won’t work with our graduate students – opting out is as irresponsible and as bad an option as what I’m participating in right now.
But so even though I was harsh with the student, I have spoken with ze and offered to meet after ze has taken a couple of days to process my feedback. Basically, I’ve offered to do the job that a director should do: to provide the student with a map for addressing the problems. And I’m resentful that I have to do that, but leaving the student to twist in the wind is not at all a palatable option to me.
So I will get through this particular situation. And it will be fine, whatever the fallout. But I have sent an email to our DGS that I will not agree to work with any student who has not previously or is not currently taking a course with me. It’s not fair to the student, and it’s not fair, quite frankly, to me. I don’t like being an uncompromising bitch to people who don’t already have a strong working relationship with me. And, quite frankly, I shouldn’t have to be.
I refuse to make this particular mistake again.