The Infinite Thesis: Interview with Professor D

Author(s): Todd Riggs

Professor D

(A most informative interview; had it been conducted 20 years ago, many of his comments might have gone straight into Snyder's book.)

Prof D focused on the open-ended nature of the doctoral thesis as the most likely explanation for this phenomenon: perhaps Professor Z gained some outside input or insight into the project and simply wants more results or relevance from it, for the student's own good. "They have different levels of understanding of the problem, different [and mismatched] drives or priorities." As for the student, "for personal or financial reasons, or whatever, the student just wants to graduate, to finish, to get out of here," while the professor is concerned with "how best to educate the student; he may subconsciously have some conflict because he wants to have the student see the project through to completion," completing the "cycle of education."9

He further cited the often conflicting obligations a professor at MIT has, the number of people with demands on time: teaching at a research university, the genuine desire to further advancement of research in chosen field, teaching undergraduate classes, one-one-one interaction with graduate students, getting grants, worrying about his professional achievements and reputation, etc.10

Professor D professed no awareness of any formal alternatives or how long they have existed, saying "I'm more into informal resolution of conflicts of this nature." The first and best safeguard is the development of a good relationship with your supervisor, saying that he doubted A truly had such a relationship with Z, despite what the scenario states. Students should judge early on in a project "if you can work with the guy," or else change advisors sooner, rather than later. Like Prof. A, he favored meeting early on in the project and coming to as specific an understanding as is possible at that time about the length of the project, what it will cover, etc., realizing of course that the open- ended nature of Ph.D. work requires that this agreement be flexible. "Depending on personalities," however, he didn't think it should be written down. "What worth is a piece of paper written three years ago?"

After the fact, "the most efficient way to handle it is to let the tempers cool off for, say, a week," that "a critical issue is reducing the antagonism." The two of them should first "get their versions of the facts straight" and "meet in order to attempt to see one another's perspective... [and] then recalibrate their view points until at some point they converge."

When asked about any bearing the past had on this scenario, he protested: "So what? Every person is an individual entity" and added that sometimes a "driven professor can be characterized as a slave driver!" After a little more consideration, he did say that "someone has to make aware to the professor the fact that he is viewed as a slave-driver," perhaps one of the members of the thesis committee.

Although by this point I think I could have predicted his answer to the thesis time limitation question, I asked him anyway: "No. No way. How can pulling out some guideline resolve a problem between two people who have been working together for years?" Again predictably, he "definitely" supported the idea of a limitation on Master's theses, and felt that there should be more informal interaction among faculty and between faculty and students about these and other issues.

Interestingly enough, given some of his earlier statements, when asked to reflect on any personal experiences, he said "The problem exists, although not with so much 'crash conflict."' He then went on to relate his own thesis experience, which turned out to be quite parallel to my scenario, (?!) so much so that I relate his account in the next section.

Footnotes

• 9.Fitting in rather well with one of Snyder's explanations.
• 10.Again, this is another reason cited by Snyder; see Chapter 3.

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