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How junior faculty can become good supervisors to discouraged grad students?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

How can junior faculty become good supervisors, especially when the students they are supervising are not optimistic/enthusiastic about their degrees?

I am tenure-track faculty in a department which requires regular supervision of MA and PhD students. I care deeply about philosophy and about my students, but many of my students seem unable to prioritize their own research and writing – indeed, several seem indifferent to their own thesis (even while expressing sorrow and regret at not being more productive/better philosophers). I have tried various things, including being very involved, very uninvolved, and strategies I experienced as a PhD student myself. Nothing seems to be working. The quality and quantity of work is not commensurate with what they (or I) expect/believe possible.

I know the job market is tough. I know that many grad students need to take paying work elsewhere, have family obligations, etc., and I am not unsympathetic – grad school is pretty recent for me, so I remember. None of this changes the fact that they are in this program and I need to help them get through it with a good, well-written thesis/dissertation. I worry that I am not doing the right thing(s) to help my supervisees (maybe it is a matter of time and experience, but I don't want to short-change my current supervisees while I learn how to be a better supervisor!). Any insights would be much appreciated!

This is a great query, and my first reaction is that the OP is already doing a lot right by caring about this. My own sense is that sometimes grad faculty can write off students like this, deeming them unsuitable for academia/professional success. As someone who struggled a lot in grad school–in significant part because of personal issues (like many people do in their mid 20s)–I'll forever be grateful to the faculty in my program who were simply patient with me and continued supporting me. That alone is really all that I needed. But, of course, I'm only one case. So, it would be great to hear both from faculty and grad students with experience in these areas.

Do you have any helpful tips or experiences to share with the OP?

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6 responses to “How junior faculty can become good supervisors to discouraged grad students?”

  1. grad student

    I would say that one thing that’s really challenging about being a graduate student doing independent work (that can cause the discouragement you’re dealing with) is that it’s extremely lonely work — much lonelier than most jobs (or even other academic jobs in the sciences). Especially given that it’s a job where failure is really frequent, one can get the feeling of solitary futility.
    So, for example, when I open up my work in the morning I often feel that I’m just alone sending my advisor work that they won’t like, submitting papers that will just get rejected, and sending in job applications that will get ignored. One thing that I think would really help is if I could approach the work with my advisor as a kind of team effort. Like they and I are trying to figure out something tough together. (This is one advantage, it seems to me, of taking on a project where you are in some way defending your advisor’s view. I’m very jealous of students who have large swaths of agreement on philosophical issues with their advisors.)
    So, for example, it would be easier if my meetings with my advisor were sometimes us reading a paper together or brainstorming different responses to an objection. Then if I hit road-blocks, I would feel like someone I respected was hitting them with me too, and that when things didn’t work out it was because philosophy is really hard and not because I’m dumb.
    In my experience, the more traditional kind of meeting, where the student sends work and the supervisor tells them everything that’s wrong with it, can sometimes have the paradoxical effect of worsening the work when it has the effect of making it seem like success is even less likely.
    It’s also worth noting that a little positive feedback on the good parts can go a really long way. I’m sure you sometimes get arguments that just don’t work, but if you can find a way to say “I wasn’t persuaded by your argument A, but I think your intuition that B is a powerful one/I think your insight that C is a good one. How can we build on that?” that would have a big impact. When I get the feeling that there’s nothing about my project that my advisor likes, it makes it very hard to believe thinks will get better.
    I can certainly understand your frustration, and like your students I feel sorrowful and ashamed when I don’t produce work I’m proud of. I think grad school can just be a really difficult time for reasons that aren’t your fault as a supervisor, and like Marcus I think it’s great that you care so much about your students. That’s certainly not universal.

    Reply
  2. Marcus Arvan

    @grad student: that actually reminds me of something my advisor did when I was struggling that proved to be really helpful. He started a “dissertation reading group” where his advisees and other ABD grad students could share work in progress in a low-stakes, supportive environment. It helped to bring us together, make the work less lonely, and provide some mutual support that helped to build confidence, while also helping to move each of us a bit closer to getting our dissertations moving and finished. I can hardly overstate how much it helped!

    Reply
  3. what to do?

    I went to a PhD program that was ranked around 50 at that time. A large number of the students admitted to the program (say 20-30 %), REALLY enjoyed teaching philosophy, but, as time passed, realized they did not enjoy research (many HATED it). I cannot imagine what it was like supervising them, waiting for them to either leave the program on their own or whip up a passable dissertation and then leave the profession. They often entered the program naively aspiring to get a job at the university from which they got their BA. I do not think much can be done in these cases because people have to come to terms with the reality of the situation in their own time. But, the one thing that I have seen work effectively with struggling PhD students is regular meetings – where written work is discussed. The student is thus prevented from drifting away or going down a rabbit hole. And the supervisor is doing what they can do, guiding the student in the right direction and ensuring that the student continues to work on the project. Good luck with it.

    Reply
  4. what to do?

    I went to a PhD program that was ranked around 50 at that time. A large number of the students admitted to the program (say 20-30 %), REALLY enjoyed teaching philosophy, but, as time passed, realized they did not enjoy research (many HATED it). I cannot imagine what it was like supervising them, waiting for them to either leave the program on their own or whip up a passable dissertation and then leave the profession. They often entered the program naively aspiring to get a job at the university from which they got their BA. I do not think much can be done in these cases because people have to come to terms with the reality of the situation in their own time. But, the one thing that I have seen work effectively with struggling PhD students is regular meetings – where written work is discussed. The student is thus prevented from drifting away or going down a rabbit hole. And the supervisor is doing what they can do, guiding the student in the right direction and ensuring that the student continues to work on the project. Good luck with it.

    Reply
  5. academic migrant

    I agree with “what to do?” a lot. And I think it’s also important to give students a sense of what the job market is like, and advise them to put effort into realising their own aspirations. While Marcus has pointed out several times that there may be several job markets, as far as I can tell, students who don’t take their own future seriously are competitive for none.

    Reply
  6. Generation Gap

    Think about how you can help your students with their philosophical output other than by advising them on the dissertation.
    While writing a good dissertation is necessary for graduating and something a student can be proud of for its own sake, contemporary graduate students aiming for an academic career should write with other goals in mind. These students are (or should be) thinking of their dissertation pages as part of potential articles and writing samples.
    For example, level with your students about the submission process. Talk about your own setbacks and successes. Ask students if they’ve submitted the chapter they just finished. Ask them where they submitted it and why. Ask them if it was desk rejected or rejected with comments. If so, ask them if they would like to share the comments. If the comments are mistaken, reassure the grad student that the reviewer is wrong. Help the grad student revise the paper. Heck, help the student revise the paper in response to an R&R. Explicit discussion of how to make a grad student’s work publishable should be a part of your meetings.
    Of course, you can’t just let a student submit your work as his own. I’d be interested in what other readers think about the ethical limits on advisors helping students respond to R&Rs.

    Reply

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