Ten platinum rules for PhD supervisors
Is it time to add PhD supervision to your skill set? Tara Brabazon explains the pitfalls, challenges and rewards of this key academic role for the rookie mentor
I receive strange emails. Some request money, sexual favours or a reference. Thousands, sent from students, have outlined the failures of PhD supervisors. From this dodgy digital pile, one message remains in my memory.
A young academic was outraged. He was so outraged that he used capital letters throughout the email. He was offended that I had written an article, aimed at prospective PhD students, that provided a guide to selecting a supervisor/adviser with care, ensuring that expectations, rights and responsibilities are assembled at the start of their enrolment. He was outraged – sorry, OUTRAGED – that I focused on students and their right to choose. I had supposedly displaced his capacity to supervise by suggesting that students check academic credentials and expertise.
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This strange email captures the dense and difficult negotiations of power within PhD supervision. Students have choices. So do supervisors and advisers. The alignment of purpose and priorities is crucial. Too often, this relationship is toxic. Therefore, let’s park the outrage and provide 10 maxims to consider as we start – or continue – as a supervisor/adviser, so that we are authentic, credible and useful.
1. Just because you have completed a PhD does not mean you can supervise one
Very few academics hold teaching qualifications, particularly outside the education disciplines. Higher degree supervision – too often – is based on homology. We supervise as we were supervised. Or – more worryingly – we supervise how we think we were supervised. This strategy has never been effective – as confirmed by PhD attrition rates. As the PhD student cohort diversifies to include more women, Indigenous and First Nation students, rainbow students, scholars of colour, students with disabilities, and a wide span of ages, homology is not only inappropriate but destructive. My first 18 completions were all students under the age of 25. My next 30 were all over 40. Our students are changing. They will not put up with platitudes, excuses or comments about the good old days.
Experience is not enough. Expertise is required. Enrol in professional development courses. Learn how to supervise. Learn about doctoral studies. It is a burgeoning field of research. Do not assume that we know what we are doing because we graduated with a PhD. Simply because we drink milk does not mean we can run a dairy farm. In no other area of our scholarly lives would we generalise from a data set of one.