The relationship between adviser and advisees are considered one of the most crucial interactions in graduate education, particularly in doctorate education. While the number of international students that come to the United States to pursue doctorate degrees continues to grow, it is important to better understand how graduate education operates in other countries and how are the relationships between adviser/advisee to which international students were exposed before coming to the United States. CIRGE and students organizations of the College of Education at the University of Washington are co-hosting a student panel on adviser/advisee relationships that will solve these questions.
From the right to the left, the students Weijia Wang (China) from the College of Education, Ricardo Pedregal (México) from College of Engineering, Max Schneider (Ukraine) from department of Statistics, and Francisca Gómez (Chile), from the department of Sociology, participating in the student panel.
The relationship between advisers and advisees is considered one of the most crucial interactions in graduate education, particularly at the doctoral level. While the number of international students that come to the United States to pursue doctoral degrees continues to grow (10% of graduate students at University of Washington-College of Education are temporary visa holders), one key issue that needs to be considered by advisors and student support offices is the experiences that international students bring as advisees in other countries. What are students used to in regards to advising? Would international students be better off if they knew in advance how similar/different the US culture in graduate education is in comparison to what they have experienced before?
CIRGE and two student organizations from the College of Education (International Educators at the College of Education & Teacher Education and Research Interest Group) at the University of Washington co-hosted a student panel on adviser-advisees relations in higher education the past October 17th. The panel was composed by UW international graduate students coming from countries such as China, Chile, Mexico and Ukraine, and who are studying at different departments across campus. The event, which was also supported by the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion of the College of Education, allowed to see differences and commonalities between being an advisee in countries whose educational model is highly influenced by the Confucianism philosophy versus educational models heavily influenced by western cultures.
Being an advisee in the Confucianism model
International doctoral students who obtained their master’s degrees in countries like South Korea and China pointed out that the image of the advisor is very close to the image of a father/mother, which is highly influenced by the Confucianism philosophy. “Professors and teachers in our countries represent an important authority, and everyone recognizes that the relationship between professors/students is a hierarchical relationship. This does not mean that students cannot have their own opinion, but the style is much more oriented to do what professors recommend us to do”, comments Weijia Wang, who is currently a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction from China. Soo-Yean, also a doctoral student in the College of Education, commented that her experience as a master student in South Korea was relatively similar. “In our culture, professors are seen more as authorities who are responsible for leading us in a desirable direction”.
In comparison to the experience of being an advisee in the US, international students from Asia posed that one of the main differences between being an advisee in a model of education rooted in confucianism versus a US model relates to the expectation of “who” starts the conversation in the advisor/advisee dynamics. Another doctoral student from South Korea who was in the audience added that she was unaware that in order to receive support from the advisers, the student himself/herself is responsible for advocating and reaching out to the advisors. “When I arrived in the States I did not know that I needed to speak up, until after three months of being here, I realized that my US colleagues were being offered more research opportunities than me, because they were talking directly with our adviser. This is something that we do not know pretty often in South Korea, because we assume that professors will contact us if there is any research opportunity”, the student commented.
Being an advisee in western countries
Students highlight the uniqueness of their experiences as advisees. Francisca Gómez (at the right in the pic), who studied his master in public policy in Chile, pointed out that her adviser became a close colleague and friend. “I used to discuss not only technical topics with him [adviser], but also opinions about controversial political issues in society”, Francisca adds.
I had a very close relationship with my advisor, and we created a type of relationship where I felt safe giving my political opinion about very controversial topics
From a different perspective, the relationship between adviser/advisee in western European and Latin America countries seems to be more dependent on the role of students. Francisca Gomez, PhD student in the Sociology department at UW and originally from Chile, commented that from the undergraduate level, students in Chile are expected to contact and ask for help to their advisors. “In Chile, students are expected to contact their advisor when they need it. I had a very close relationship with my advisor, and we created a type of relationship where I felt safe giving my political opinion about very controversial topics. It is important to notice that this cannot be generalized. It occurred that my advisor was someone that committed to a similar political ideology than me”. Slightly different, Max Schneider, PhD student at the department of Statistics originally from Ukraine and who conducted his master studies in Germany, explained that doctoral students are the main responsible to contact the adviser to ask for help or to provide support, and although classically the relationship between advisor and advisee has been very hierarchical in Germany, this dynamic changes dramatically across institutions. “I took classes at different universities in Germany while I was doing my master, and it was very obvious that the relationship with the professors changed according to the size and level of prestige of the university. Usually, the level of hierarchy among advisor/advisee was higher at more prestigious universities”.
Ricardo Pedregal, doctoral student in Material Sciences at the University of Guadalajara- Mexico and visiting fellow at UW, commented that his experience as an advisee working with professors in different countries falls into a similar dynamic where students are expected to raise the question and advocate for themselves, but at the same time, these interactions also vary across western countries, institutions, and disciplinary fields. Ricardo, who studied his master in three different institutions in Italy, Poland and France, said that within the same field of study there are aspects of the national culture that shaped his experience as an advisee. “In Italy, every day I would have coffee with my adviser to talk about my research and/other related topics. In Poland, the environment was very kind and welcoming, but the relationship was never as close as an Italy”.
These student voices indicate the advisor/advisee relationship is not only influenced by national (civilizational) cultures, but also affected by institutional characteristics and disciplinary norms. At the same time, their voices call the attention to the existing institutional spaces that allow us to recognize and understand better the background and expectation of students that grew up in different societies.
The UNIKE project –Universities in the Knowledge Economy – is looking to fill 12 doctoralpositions and 2 post-doctoral positions at 6 European Universities (AU Aarhus University, UB University of Bristol, UK Graduate School of Education, RU Roehampton University, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, LU Univerza V Ljubljani, and Universidade do Porto/FPCE) in an Initial Training Network (ITN).
Applications are welcome from anywhere in the world. The deadline for applications is 3 February 2013 at 17:00 CET.
Aims of UNIKE project
What are the changing roles and scope of universities in emerging global knowledge economies and regions? The first aim of the UNIKE project is to train a networked group of critical researchers who will examine these issues and especially compare developments in Europe and the Asia-Pacific Rim. The second aim of the UNIKE project is to generate potential research leaders who are committed and able to develop doctoral education in their own institutions and internationally.
Any offer of a position will be conditional on the applicant providing evidence that they meet the language proficiency requirements of the university in which they are enrolling.
Job description
1. Undertake an independent research project, with academic supervision, including a secondment and/or research visits to associated partners, as agreed in a detailed ‘Individual scientific, training and career plan’, which is to be written within 6 months of the commencement of the appointment .
2. Complete the host institution’s doctoral training requirements and submit a thesis within three years.
3. Attend and participate in UNIKE’s 3 workshops, 4 summer/winter schools and final conference, help organise one of these events, and give a presentation at a minimum of one of these events.
4. Contribute to the formation and activities of a work package team led by the post-doctoral researchers by participating in webinars, wikis, etc. (e.g. to discuss literature, interview associated partners with relevant knowledge, share research and fieldwork plans, comment on each others’ draft chapters and papers).
5. Give papers at two international conferences and submit two articles to international peer reviewed journals. Contribute to a chapter in an edited volume resulting from the UNIKE project.
6. Disseminate research to a wide academic and general public by writing in other genres, including one individually or jointly written blog, one newspaper feature article and a multimedia release; by knowledge transfer in a form suited to a secondment partner where relevant (e.g. presentation, report, press release); and by presenting research results as a Marie Curie Ambassador to another university or school or the Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association.
7. Other duties as specified in the relevant project description.
Remuneration
Doctoral students will be employees of their university for the duration of their UNIKE doctorate and will be given a full-time contract for three years. The salary for a doctoral position is set in accordance within the regulations of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme and the labour laws of the relevant country. In addition to the salary, funds have been allocated to cover the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs of attending all UNIKE workshops and summer schools, including a 2-week summer school in New Zealand; and towards the costs of secondments and research visits to Associated Partners, including the Asia-Pacific Rim.
Contacts
For enquiries about the overall UNIKE project, please contact UNIKE Administrator Astrid Cermak asce@dpu.dk or UNIKE Coordinator Professor Susan Wright suwr@dpu.dk. For enquiries about individual positions, please see the contacts given in each individual doctoral project description.
One of the main concerns for graduate schools is the attrition and completion of doctoral students. CIRGE has carried out diverse studies to analyze the patterns that intervene in the doctoral completion.
This study examined time-to-degree at the University of California in order to determine if students took longer on average to complete their doctoral degrees than they did 20 years ago. It presents factors which may have led to long time-to-degree, addresses underlying structural reasons for prolonged time-to-degree among all students and examines whether or not these factors influence ethnic minorities and women in particular
Nerad, M. “Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree.” In response to the California State Senate (SRC 66). Report to the Office of the President. Oakland, CA. June 1991.
In attempting to compare doctoral times-to-completion and completion rates for institutions in different countries, it was found that issues of definitions and data availability are major stumbling blocks. National and institutional contexts also complicate matters. Because of these complications, comparisons are difficult to make, but it might be possible to account for these confounding issues to gain some insights from such comparisons.
Hall, F., Evans, B. and Nerad, M. 2006 Feasibility of International Comparisons of PhD Program Time-to-Degree and Completion Rates. Unpublished article.
Many stories have been told about postdoctoral fellows prolonging their stays in temporary positions in order to assemble that last publication thought to be necessary to compete for a faculty position. Also, popular in recent years have been stories of disappointed post-docs who were unable to find permanent academic research jobs. Despite these stories, no recent comprehensive study on postdoctoral appointees and their experiences is available, given that the last national post-doc survey was published nearly 20 years ago.
Rectifying this situation was one of the goals of the Ph.D.s—Ten Years Later study, which collected data on the career paths of doctoral recipients in biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science including the role of postdoctoral appointments.
Addressing matters related to the educational and training environment of post-docs is a task complicated by the fact that few universities have a central authority overseeing conditions of postdoctoral appointments, such as duration, salary structure, benefits, and placement services. Although in recent years a number of universities paid more attention to post-docs, still few can provide a truly accurate count of the number of postdoctoral fellows on campus. These deficiencies exist due to the lack of a consistent definition among hiring units of what constitutes a post-doc, and because post-docs are compensated and/or recorded in several different ways—some are paid as university employees; some are paid through an entirely separate stipend account; and others are paid directly by foundations and foreign governments.
Download: Complete Report
Other publications related
Nerad, M & Cerny, J. (2002). Postdoctoral Appointments and Employment: Patterns of Science and Engineering Doctoral Recipients Ten-plus Years after Ph.D. Completion, Communicator, VXXXV (7), August-September 2002. Download: Postdoctoral-appointments
Nerad, M. & Cerny, J. (1999). Postdoctoral Patterns, Career Advancement, and Problems. Science, Vol. 285, pp. 1533-1535. Download: Postdoctoral Patterns
Respondents give high marks to their history programs for “academic rigor,” and training in “critical thinking” and “data analysis and synthesis.” They also identified areas to target for improvement, including training in writing and publishing reports and articles and in how to teach, as well as providing concrete feedback to students on their progress, socializing students into the academic community and having a diverse student population. Surveyed historians urged programs to address the fact that the academic labor market cannot absorb all the doctorate holders, to be aware of opportunities for historians outside academia, and to recognize the value to society of historians working in diverse employment sectors. Even knowing what they know now about the history job market, more then 80% of respondents would get a PhD in history again.
Nerad, M., Aanerud, R. and Cerny, J. 2004. “So You Want to Become a Professor! Lessons from the PhDs—Ten Years Later Study,” in Paths to the Professoriate: Strategies for Enriching the Preparation of Future Faculty. eds. Donald H. Wulff, Ann Austin, and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
The core debate over Ph.D. recipients from abroad who earned their degrees at U.S. institutions of higher education centers around the questions: who (and how many) stayed in the United States, and who (and how many) returned home? To explore these questions, Deepak, Nerad and Cerny undertook an in-depth study within “PhDs – 10 Years Later” survey.
Maresi Nerad and Joseph Cerny were the principal investigators for this study, which was funded by the Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The national survey examined the career paths of nearly 6,000 Ph.D. recipients who completed their doctoral degrees in the United States between 1982 and 1985 in six fields of study (biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science).
While, overall, 40 percent of the Ph.D.s from abroad returned home to start their post-Ph.D. careers, there was, in fact, considerable variation by field of study, region of origin, and even subregion. Exit rates were the highest for those with Ph.D.s in English and political science, with between one-half to two-thirds leaving the United States. The rates were lowest for technological fields (computer science and electrical engineering), fields in which international Ph.D.s are concentrated, with only around a quarter leaving the United States for their first jobs.
There was extensive variation among those who left, depending on geographic region of origin. Those from Africa, Central and Latin America, Canada, and Australia were the most likely to return home for their first jobs, with almost two-thirds making this choice. In contrast, only around a third of the East Asians and Europeans chose to return home for their first jobs. Finally, South Asians were the least likely to return home, with less than one-tenth leaving the United States.
Gupta, D., Nerad, M., and Cerny, J. (2003). The Road Home: Exploring the Choice to Stay or Return of International PhDs, International Higher Education, Spring. Download: International PhDs
Nerad, M. (1992). Using Time, Money, and Human Resources Efficiently and Effectively in the Case of Women Graduate Students. Paper presented at the Conference Proceedings of “Science and Engineering Programs: On Target for Women?. Sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council/ Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel. Download: Using Time, Money, and Human Resources Efficiently and Effectively in the Case of Women Graduate Students
Organized by the European Science Foundation, CIRGE participated in the workshop entitled “How to track the researcher’s career” in Luxembourg, February 2012. The event highlighted the relevance of research career tracking in the European research agenda.
According to the main conclusions, knowing how researchers move in their careers will contribute to improve the quality of research, to understand the decision of researchers in their careers and to provide accountability to the tax-payers.
By following up with doctoral graduates, surveying them after graduation, and tracking studies, CIRGE assessed the suitability of funding, the quality of training and working conditions offered during the doctoral phase, and also explored the quality of doctoral training.
A major reason for carrying out career tracking studies is to provide the information on career movements and understand international and intersectoral mobility as well as employment patterns of researchers.
On the other hand, these studies indirectly measure impact which is an interesting source for the funders of doctoral education, in most cases, tax payers.
Dr. Maresi Nerad, key speaker in this workshop, asserted that career studies of masters and doctorates should be used with a broader purpose than for labor market concerns and to “focus on understanding the diverse developments of individual within intersections of their private lives, institutional and societal forces.”
In her opinion, these studies should also take into account the many attempts undertaken by national research funding agencies for innovative interdisciplinary programs with international involvements.
Respondents give high marks to their history programs for “academic rigor,” and training in “critical thinking” and “data analysis and synthesis.” They also identified areas to target for improvement, including training in writing and publishing reports and articles and in how to teach, as well as providing concrete feedback to students on their progress, socializing students into the academic community and having a diverse student population. Surveyed historians urged programs to address the fact that the academic labor market cannot absorb all the doctorate holders, to be aware of opportunities for historians outside academia, and to recognize the value to society of historians working in diverse employment sectors. Even knowing what they know now about the history job market, more then 80% of respondents would get a PhD in history again.
Sclater, K., Rudd, E., Morrison, E., Picciano, J. & Nerad, M. (2008). After the Degree: Recent History PhDs Weigh In On Careers and Graduate School. CIRGE Report 2008-04. CIRGE: Seattle, WA. www.cirge.washington.edu
The relationship between adviser and advisees are considered one of the most crucial interactions in graduate education, particularly in doctorate education. While the number of international students that come to the United States to pursue doctorate degrees continues to grow, it is important to better understand how graduate education operates in other countries and how are the relationships between adviser/advisee to which international students were exposed before coming to the United States.
