Academic Exercises and Lazy Supervisors
I look back on my years as an academic supervisor with some fondness; I look back at some kinds of academic supervisors with a kind of visceral disgust. I once taught in a school where we had more than 350 graduates each year, each one having to do an academic exercise as part of their graduating requirements. It was interesting to see how supervisors attempted to manipulate the process.
To begin with, not all supervisors are educators. They are in academia for research funding, or to do their own stuff, or both. They think of students as cannon fodder, grunts who can do the work; they think of themselves as generals who shouldn't be getting their hands dirty, and of supervision as a chore because the 'best' students don't need any supervision.
It's that which arouses my disgust. If you're an educator, you shouldn't assume that just because a student is interested in something, he is automatically postgraduate material and needs no help from you. On the contrary, you should feed his interest just as you feed a flame — provide a bit of fuel (not so much that you smother the flame), some oxygen (not so much that the flame flares and burns out too quickly), and some sparks whenever the flame looks a little weak.
The current philosophy of some of these 'educators' at the old farm is that prospective candidates for their exalted assistance should have already done all the work. Basically, a lot of those academic sods who claim to be supervisors are a collectively lazy disgrace which couldn't even use the Internet to come up with a good reading list if their lives depended on it.
It's not that there aren't good supervisors. Some will even go out of their way to read up on the student's area of interest if they don't know it well. Some will point to likely starting points on the Web. Some will lend the student an out-of-print but important text from their own collections. But the rest are more interested in sucking on the institutional teat than in helping their students to learn something new.
These are the scum who will tell a candidate that his proposal is rejected because it lacks credibility or 'lustre' simply because they can't be bothered to help him come up with something, or because the project won't add to their own glamour. These are the scum who say they are not confident of a candidate's ability because they realise their own ability to supervise (or the time it would take) is insufficient. These are the bums who want proposals in (or even pre-drafts of research that hasn't even been carried out!) a month to three months before the actual deadline for proposals; if you were to submit one on the day of the deadline, I can imagine the sneering look and the venomous, "Not interested enough in your research to submit your proposal earlier?"
The problem is that there are too many incompetent supervisors out there who are being paid a lot to supervise, and too few competent supervisors, most of which are not paid as much as they're worth.
The solution is simple. Provide CVs for all the potential supervisors online. Then let the students ballot for their choice; for example, vote in preferential order for their choice of five supervisors. The supervisors ranked first may opt to accept or reject candidates up to half the maximum number they can supervise. This means that the most popular supervisors (probably the most effective and helpful — students aren't dumb) get to choose candidates for supervision first.
It also means that highly specialised supervisors can also be picked by candidates who have unusual topics, knowing that these supervisors are less likely to be picked for anything else. Market forces can thus be brought to bear on bad supervisors; they're the ones who will end up having to do more work (and hopefully learn from it).
However, the remaining candidates should be randomly assigned to the supervisor pool. This is so that all supervisors will at least have some sort of range of candidature; nobody will end up living off his reputation forever in some sort of overly tight positive feedback loop.
The last part of the solution is the cull. Candidates should be allowed to evaluate their supervisors' competency. Supervisor bonuses should be raised or lowered depending on their consistent excellence or lack of it with regard to supervision of candidates. Really bad supervisors should have reduced funding and perhaps even be asked to leave; after all, if educational guidance is not a major function of academic institutions, what is it?
To begin with, not all supervisors are educators. They are in academia for research funding, or to do their own stuff, or both. They think of students as cannon fodder, grunts who can do the work; they think of themselves as generals who shouldn't be getting their hands dirty, and of supervision as a chore because the 'best' students don't need any supervision.
It's that which arouses my disgust. If you're an educator, you shouldn't assume that just because a student is interested in something, he is automatically postgraduate material and needs no help from you. On the contrary, you should feed his interest just as you feed a flame — provide a bit of fuel (not so much that you smother the flame), some oxygen (not so much that the flame flares and burns out too quickly), and some sparks whenever the flame looks a little weak.
The current philosophy of some of these 'educators' at the old farm is that prospective candidates for their exalted assistance should have already done all the work. Basically, a lot of those academic sods who claim to be supervisors are a collectively lazy disgrace which couldn't even use the Internet to come up with a good reading list if their lives depended on it.
It's not that there aren't good supervisors. Some will even go out of their way to read up on the student's area of interest if they don't know it well. Some will point to likely starting points on the Web. Some will lend the student an out-of-print but important text from their own collections. But the rest are more interested in sucking on the institutional teat than in helping their students to learn something new.
These are the scum who will tell a candidate that his proposal is rejected because it lacks credibility or 'lustre' simply because they can't be bothered to help him come up with something, or because the project won't add to their own glamour. These are the scum who say they are not confident of a candidate's ability because they realise their own ability to supervise (or the time it would take) is insufficient. These are the bums who want proposals in (or even pre-drafts of research that hasn't even been carried out!) a month to three months before the actual deadline for proposals; if you were to submit one on the day of the deadline, I can imagine the sneering look and the venomous, "Not interested enough in your research to submit your proposal earlier?"
The problem is that there are too many incompetent supervisors out there who are being paid a lot to supervise, and too few competent supervisors, most of which are not paid as much as they're worth.
The solution is simple. Provide CVs for all the potential supervisors online. Then let the students ballot for their choice; for example, vote in preferential order for their choice of five supervisors. The supervisors ranked first may opt to accept or reject candidates up to half the maximum number they can supervise. This means that the most popular supervisors (probably the most effective and helpful — students aren't dumb) get to choose candidates for supervision first.
It also means that highly specialised supervisors can also be picked by candidates who have unusual topics, knowing that these supervisors are less likely to be picked for anything else. Market forces can thus be brought to bear on bad supervisors; they're the ones who will end up having to do more work (and hopefully learn from it).
However, the remaining candidates should be randomly assigned to the supervisor pool. This is so that all supervisors will at least have some sort of range of candidature; nobody will end up living off his reputation forever in some sort of overly tight positive feedback loop.
The last part of the solution is the cull. Candidates should be allowed to evaluate their supervisors' competency. Supervisor bonuses should be raised or lowered depending on their consistent excellence or lack of it with regard to supervision of candidates. Really bad supervisors should have reduced funding and perhaps even be asked to leave; after all, if educational guidance is not a major function of academic institutions, what is it?
Labels: Academia, Education, Supervision
etched with acid at 1:51:00 pm
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