*sfx: head pounding against brick wall*

[rivka]

Tuesday evening, the day I finished my dissertation first draft, I sent the last section to my advisor with a slightly panicked note reminding him that he hasn't gotten any of my sections back with comments, and that the clock is ticking down. At the time I wrote the e-mail, there were a scant five weeks until my defense - which meant three weeks until I have to have my final draft.

No response Wednesday.

No response Thursday.

No response Friday morning.

I've really been freaking out. I mean, yes, I can make changes on my own. I'm a good writer and a good editor of my own writing. But I need to hear from him that I'm on the right track overall - that I've done all the analyses I need to do, that my discussion is adequate in scope, that I'm not missing anything important. I can wait for his stylistic comments, but I desperately need a big-picture evaluation from him, and I haven't been getting it.

Today I called him at his vacation cottage in Wisconsin. I was pretty worked up by the time I called - all this silence from him! - and there he was, sounding all relaxed and amiable. Happy to hear from me. Nothing in his voice sounded like he thought there was any kind of issue between us.

Yes, he got my e-mail. Yes, he knows he needs to send me something. He's going to try to get me the whole thing tomorrow or Sunday. Can he send me sections? No, because he's working back and forth through the whole document and thinking about how the sections relate to each other. Can he tell me anything? Well, the reason he hasn't been rushing to get it back to me is that it's pretty good. He's got some suggestions - I need to dig up references for some of the things I say in the introduction, for example - but he thinks it's in good shape. Has he read the whole thing? Oh yeah, of course. And he thinks my graphs are great - very persuasive. A word of advice - installing a glass block wall is a lot trickier than it appears. Any dissertation advice? Not at present, but he knows he's been derelict. He'll get it to me soon. Great talking to me.

Jesus Christ. Okay, I feel much much better knowing that I'm on the right track. If his only example of things that need fixing is some unreferenced assertions, then I'm fine. I'm not going to find out a week before it's due that I have to rewrite the entire back half. But for God's sake, why couldn't he drop me a single lousy e-mail to tell me so? He was so... so blithe, through the whole phone call. So cheery. As if it never occurred to him that not hearing from him might be causing me problems.

I feel like tearing my hair out at the roots - but only because I can't get to his.

Comments

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

Oof. I'm about ready to stomp on him in pointy-heeled shoes on your behalf. And I don't even *own* pointy-heeled shoes!

(btw, you need to close the quotation mark in the link to your previous post; it caused that tag to render oddly, and I *think* that it's the reason none of the rest of your HTML is rendering correctly)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Know anyone in WI who can go up to that vacation cottage and do the job for you? Pity it wasn't a month ago, my scary friend was visiting people there.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

his vacation cottage in Wisconsin.

i have a big stick. also, wisconsin is within driving distance (although, some of it less so than other bits).

any requests?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yes! Don't antagonize him until after my defense is over and he's signed off on my final copy. I don't think they'd let his secretary sign for him on something that important, especially if he had somehow vanished without a trace.

But on August 28? He's fair game.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Not speaking from personal experience, but I strongly recommend that you wait until *after* you pass your defense before you rip his hair out at the roots.

In other words, "Oh, for fleep's sake! What an inconsiderate thing to do! Is this rude-noun-of-your-choice so fleeping old he doesn't remember his *own* dissertation?!"

[jilesa.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. How very insensitive.

But congratulations on having a dissertation that doesn't need massive revisions!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

while your advisor not getting back to you, isn't something that i condone, i thought i should make the following outsider observations:

1) your panicked note doesn't read as panicked to me. it reads as a calm request for a response.
2) some people would conceive of 5 weeks as a significant amount of rewrite time.
3) your advisor may not really think that there are any overall problems with the work you've done.

of course, i haven't a clue, since i don't know him... but, those are things that come to mind.

"n"

[rivka.livejournal.com]

1) your panicked note doesn't read as panicked to me. it reads as a calm request for a response.

Departmental culture issue. The fact that I'm pressing him at all is a strong action, because it's ordinarily Not Done.

2) some people would conceive of 5 weeks as a significant amount of rewrite time.

Three, actually, because I'm obligated to get the final draft to my committee two weeks in advance.

3) your advisor may not really think that there are any overall problems with the work you've done.

This seems to be the crux of it. Which is fine, but he needed to tell me that.

regarding #3

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

you're absolutely correct -- he should have.

i know how it can be with some professors. i still have two professors that i asked for syllabi for their courses and they said they'd get them to me, but... you'd think they'd be excited that someone wanted to do the reading even if they couldn't take the course...

"n"

[saoba.livejournal.com]

*Must*control*RoboBoot*of Doom*


Gah. If he was closer I'd go whack him for you.

[redbird]

Wait until you're Dr. Rivka, then go up there and smash that glass block wall into little bits.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I hope that once you're successfully through this process, you'll have time to discuss the process with your advisor and give him feedback on how his lack of communication affected you.

And if he's not responsive to your concerns, I hope you'll share them with the department chair, the dean of the college, the president of the university, and whatever body accredits the program you attended. Faculty attention to the final stages of a dissertation is not something that can be done half-arsed, not if a program wants to successfully produce PhDs.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Some day, after you are Dr. Rivka, you will be driving along and see him walking in front of your car. Given what you've said here, against the light.

Run him over.

But be blithe about it.

[minnaleigh.livejournal.com]

Aaaaargh! You have every right to be pissed off at him. I'd like to trap him into a tiny room made of those glass blocks with an internet connection that exists only to send you email!

I really need to start writing down my list of things never to do as a supervisor because obviously the risk of forgetting what it's like to be a grad student is excessively high. I might need something to refer to.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

I never actually completed my Masters, because my advisor at the time let me get all the way through my project and then advised me that I had forgotten a preliminary step and that he wouldn't sign off on it. The only other thing I had to complete was three units of elective work. I would have fought it but I was in the middle of a divorce and I needed all my physical and emotional energy just to stay alive.
I'm still mad at the department 17 years later. I should have taken the matter to the Academic Senate then and there. Friends who did got speedy resolutions.