16 - An Ethical Challenge

Summary

The headlines in the Chronicle of Higher Education sometimes scream “MY ADVISOR STOLE MY THESIS,” but I generally dismissed these claims, assuming the advisor had made substantial contributions to the thesis, which were overlooked by the student. Then a student collapsed in my office, sobbing, “My advisor stole my thesis.” She added, “And submitted it to [a federal funding agency] ... and then hired me to do something else.” I had served on the student’s Masters committee and knew her history: the advisor had been on sabbatical leave during the year that the student had conceived, executed, and written up the thesis; I knew that the student had complained that the advisor had not responded to e-mail messages, had provided little guidance, and had not reviewed drafts in a timely manner. I had been urging the student for some time to switch advisors, but she stuck with him because he was a recognized authority in the field. Now this: the advisor had submitted the thesis to a federal agency as an application for a small grant; when it was subsequently awarded, he hired the student and assigned her a new line of research. She protested, arguing that the grant was awarded for work – her work – already done and the new line of research was not specified in the grant application. The advisor dismissed her concerns telling her, “This is how it works. Everybody does it.”

This situation raised a number of concerns: how to protect the student from retribution yet ensure she received appropriate credit for her thesis; how to inform the funding agency; what to do about my colleague. At my urging, the student compiled a timeline, including a trail of e-mail messages to the advisor that had been ignored, and electronic drafts of the thesis bearing timestamps as well as a copy of the grant application. We then met with the vice-chancellor for research, who appointed a committee to investigate the student’s allegations. Meanwhile, the student was shifted to a teaching assistantship. And the grant – which after all was awarded to the university – was declined. Neither I nor the student ever saw the committee report, nor were we informed of the outcome of the investigation. But by the end of the academic year, the advisor had left the university, taking a similar position at another. And, unfortunately, the student also left the university, abandoning her research career to become a high school teacher.