Every season during the Dissertation House, we discuss ways to improve communication with your advisor and your dissertation committee. This year, we have several people from the DH, past and present participants, who are planning to defend their dissertations very soon. 2012 will be a big year! One question that seems to be looming is nailing down a dissertation defense date. How does one do that with 4, 5, or 6 committee members? How do you respectfully let them know that you really want to finish this thing and that you need their assistance? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a process of negotiation. Here are some tips that might assist you. Different people have different methods, and this is not an exhaustive list, but here are some things that work:

1. Find a month where you are flexible. Pick a month where you can say with 98% certainty that you can be available at anytime of the day, Monday – Friday. If your flexibility is limited, you know in advance that you are reducing your probability of finding consensus. (We have had defenses at 8:00 AM on a Friday morning, and the room was packed!)
2. Map out your committee members’ schedules in advance.  Start with your advisor’s schedule, then work your way through the rest of the committee.  You need to know what their obligations are in advance without imposing your desired dates upon them.  Know and respect their immovable events.  Mark off their teaching days, the entire week before their grant or paper is due, conference days, and more.  Some people have their calendars online, some have their calendars managed by the department’s administrative assistant or their lab manager.
3. Give email a break, go and visit them in person.  Before you try to work everything out with a bunch of emails, make an appointment with your committee members (individually) and talk about their schedules for the month that you’re interested in. Remember that your faculty members are people too. They are juggling their teaching, research, service, grants, conferences, publications, external committee obligations, and more. Some have families at home, are caring for aging parents, or are taking care of their own health needs.
4. Let other committee members know about your advisor’s availability first. Don’t try to make the schedule by starting with your outside member. Find your advisor’s availability, then work in the availability of those in the department.  Chances are that there may be some similarities with schedules of those within your department. As you talk with your other committee members, let them know about your advisor’s schedule.  For example, you can say, “Dr. Jamison, my advisor, Dr. Corles, is open on April 3, 5, 10, or 12 after 2PM.” Schedule your external member last. Your advisor may allow your external member to participate by conference call or Skype.
5. Request that your defense be a “feature” for a standard department event. Perhaps your department always has a lecture on the third Friday or the month at 2PM, or your advisor always has a group meeting on Wednesdays at noon. Perhaps the department’s weekly faculty meeting is on Mondays at 1, and you can ask if you can schedule the defense at 11.
6. Make plausible suggestions. If teaching schedules are the bottleneck, talk with some of your friends (advanced grad students, postdocs, alumni) and ask if they might consider facilitating a class for your advisor or committee member on your defense day. If the friends agree, bring this up to your advisor or committee member. For example, you can say, “Dr. Jones, I know that you teach Math 202 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this semester.  I’d like to suggest a possible way to free your schedule on one of those days. One of your former top students, Dr. Maria Harris, is a Senior Analyst at NSA and has agreed to come in on my defense day to cover your class. She said that she can also tell the students about some of the unclassified projects and how the content that they are learning applies to national security.”

These are just a few suggestions, six out of many that have worked for doctoral students over the years.  Yes, everyone is busy; perhaps people are more busy than ever these days. But in this age of technology, remember to invoke the human connection. Do not try to do everything over email. This may work for some people, but it doesn’t always work for the whole group. You may need to schedule a conference call with each person. Solidify things with your advisor first, and let those dates guide you. Good luck and best wishes!

_____________________________________________

This post may be copied, but please reference “The Dissertation House — http://www.thedissertationhouse.com, a program of PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.”

_____________________________________________

The text content of this post was compiled and written by the staff of PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP and may not be copied without referencing the PROMISE organization, as “PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP”.

PROMISE AGEP Online Information by PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Every season during the Dissertation House, we discuss ways to improve communication with your advisor and your dissertation committee. This year, we have several people from the DH, past and present participants, who are planning to defend their dissertations very soon. 2012 will be a big year! One question that seems to be looming is nailing down a dissertation defense date. How does one do that with 4, 5, or 6 committee members? How do you respectfully let them know that you really want to finish this thing and that you need their assistance? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a process of negotiation. Here are some tips that might assist you. Different people have different methods, and this is not an exhaustive list, but here are some things that work:

1. Find a month where you are flexible. Pick a month where you can say with 98% certainty that you can be available at anytime of the day, Monday – Friday. If your flexibility is limited, you know in advance that you are reducing your probability of finding consensus. (We have had defenses at 8:00 AM on a Friday morning, and the room was packed!)
2. Map out your committee members’ schedules in advance.  Start with your advisor’s schedule, then work your way through the rest of the committee.  You need to know what their obligations are in advance without imposing your desired dates upon them.  Know and respect their immovable events.  Mark off their teaching days, the entire week before their grant or paper is due, conference days, and more.  Some people have their calendars online, some have their calendars managed by the department’s administrative assistant or their lab manager.
3. Give email a break, go and visit them in person.  Before you try to work everything out with a bunch of emails, make an appointment with your committee members (individually) and talk about their schedules for the month that you’re interested in. Remember that your faculty members are people too. They are juggling their teaching, research, service, grants, conferences, publications, external committee obligations, and more. Some have families at home, are caring for aging parents, or are taking care of their own health needs.
4. Let other committee members know about your advisor’s availability first. Don’t try to make the schedule by starting with your outside member. Find your advisor’s availability, then work in the availability of those in the department.  Chances are that there may be some similarities with schedules of those within your department. As you talk with your other committee members, let them know about your advisor’s schedule.  For example, you can say, “Dr. Jamison, my advisor, Dr. Corles, is open on April 3, 5, 10, or 12 after 2PM.” Schedule your external member last. Your advisor may allow your external member to participate by conference call or Skype.
5. Request that your defense be a “feature” for a standard department event. Perhaps your department always has a lecture on the third Friday or the month at 2PM, or your advisor always has a group meeting on Wednesdays at noon. Perhaps the department’s weekly faculty meeting is on Mondays at 1, and you can ask if you can schedule the defense at 11.
6. Make plausible suggestions. If teaching schedules are the bottleneck, talk with some of your friends (advanced grad students, postdocs, alumni) and ask if they might consider facilitating a class for your advisor or committee member on your defense day. If the friends agree, bring this up to your advisor or committee member. For example, you can say, “Dr. Jones, I know that you teach Math 202 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this semester.  I’d like to suggest a possible way to free your schedule on one of those days. One of your former top students, Dr. Maria Harris, is a Senior Analyst at NSA and has agreed to come in on my defense day to cover your class. She said that she can also tell the students about some of the unclassified projects and how the content that they are learning applies to national security.”

These are just a few suggestions, six out of many that have worked for doctoral students over the years.  Yes, everyone is busy; perhaps people are more busy than ever these days. But in this age of technology, remember to invoke the human connection. Do not try to do everything over email. This may work for some people, but it doesn’t always work for the whole group. You may need to schedule a conference call with each person. Solidify things with your advisor first, and let those dates guide you. Good luck and best wishes!

_____________________________________________

This post may be copied, but please reference “The Dissertation House — http://www.thedissertationhouse.com, a program of PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.”

_____________________________________________

The text content of this post was compiled and written by the staff of PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP and may not be copied without referencing the PROMISE organization, as “PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP”.

PROMISE AGEP Online Information by PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

PROMISE is partnering with the Women’s Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN) to publicize a webinar on the “Imposter Syndrome.” Graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and career professionals who attended the August 2011 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) in Columbia, Maryland will remember that one of our keynote speakers, Dr. Kellina Craig-Henderson from the National Science Foundation, defined and explained the “Imposter Syndrome” along with other issues that prevent success.  This webinar is free. It is open to women and men of all backgrounds and levels. For the purposes of PROMISE, we particularly hope that graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will take advantage of this opportunity.  The original paper on the “Imposter Syndrome” was published in 1978: Clance, Pauline Rose, and Imes, Suzanne Ament (1978). “The Impostor Phenomenon Among High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention”. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice 15 (3): 241–47.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST

Register Here!

 

Do you often dismiss your accomplishments as luck or timing? Do you think, “If I can do it, anyone can”? When you do succeed do you think, “Whew, fooled them again”? It’s called the impostor syndrome.

You will leave this session understanding what the impostor syndrome is and how it works, the reasons bright people feel like frauds, what makes women more prone to self-doubt, and strategies you can use to help yourself, your students, or your employees to unlearn this self-limiting phenomenon.

Presenter: Dr. Valerie Young

Dr. Valerie Young is an internationally-known speaker and author whose career-enhancing tips have been cited in publications around the world.  She is the author of a new book (on Amazon’s Top 100 for Women and Business), The Secrets Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, published by Crown Publishing/Random House.

Visit the website: http://www.impostorsyndrome.com/

————–

The primary webinar content of this post is the property of the Women in Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN).  Other parts are attributed to Dr. Valerie Young’s site on the “Imposter Syndrome”, and PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.  PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP is sharing this conference with our community.  Aspects of the PROMISE program have been presented at the national WEPAN conference in Seattle, WA, June 2011. In 2011, members of UMBC’s ADVANCE (NSF program for women faculty) and PROMISE: AGEP teamed up to develop a paper; the abstract was accepted and the full paper will be presented at the national WEPAN conference in Ohio in June 2012. 

PROMISE is partnering with the Women’s Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN) to publicize a webinar on the “Imposter Syndrome.” Graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and career professionals who attended the August 2011 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) in Columbia, Maryland will remember that one of our keynote speakers, Dr. Kellina Craig-Henderson from the National Science Foundation, defined and explained the “Imposter Syndrome” along with other issues that prevent success.  This webinar is free. It is open to women and men of all backgrounds and levels. For the purposes of PROMISE, we particularly hope that graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will take advantage of this opportunity.  The original paper on the “Imposter Syndrome” was published in 1978: Clance, Pauline Rose, and Imes, Suzanne Ament (1978). “The Impostor Phenomenon Among High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention”. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice 15 (3): 241–47.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST

Register Here!

 

Do you often dismiss your accomplishments as luck or timing? Do you think, “If I can do it, anyone can”? When you do succeed do you think, “Whew, fooled them again”? It’s called the impostor syndrome.

You will leave this session understanding what the impostor syndrome is and how it works, the reasons bright people feel like frauds, what makes women more prone to self-doubt, and strategies you can use to help yourself, your students, or your employees to unlearn this self-limiting phenomenon.

Presenter: Dr. Valerie Young

Dr. Valerie Young is an internationally-known speaker and author whose career-enhancing tips have been cited in publications around the world.  She is the author of a new book (on Amazon’s Top 100 for Women and Business), The Secrets Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, published by Crown Publishing/Random House.

Visit the website: http://www.impostorsyndrome.com/

————–

The primary webinar content of this post is the property of the Women in Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN).  Other parts are attributed to Dr. Valerie Young’s site on the “Imposter Syndrome”, and PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.  PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP is sharing this conference with our community.  Aspects of the PROMISE program have been presented at the national WEPAN conference in Seattle, WA, June 2011. In 2011, members of UMBC’s ADVANCE (NSF program for women faculty) and PROMISE: AGEP teamed up to develop a paper; the abstract was accepted and the full paper will be presented at the national WEPAN conference in Ohio in June 2012. 

Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale started today’s Dissertation House at UMBC at exactly 9AM EST! There are 19 people in today’s Dissertation House in the Commons on UMBC’s campus. They’ve just taken a break to have a buffet lunch in the Skylight Room.  This afternoon, Dr. Susan Han from UMBC’s University Counseling Services will be giving the DH Mini-lecture this afternoon.

We welcome all of the people who are joining us online: http://dissertationhouse.wordpress.com/blog-online-challenge/winter-challenge-2012/; we have several students who have participated in our Dissertation House at College Park joining us virtually to post their own goals and provide encouragement.   Our online blogs range from January – June (“Winter”) and July – December (“Summer”) to coincide with the annual “Winter Dissertation Houses” in January, and the “Summer Dissertation Houses” in July.  During the Summer 2010 range, there were 428 blogged comments in our Blog-Online Challenge section, 266 for Winter 2011, a whopping 912 blogged comments for Summer 2011, and as of this morning, there were 58 for Winter 2012.

Congratulations to all of you who have joined us today to make a commitment to work on your documents. We have people who have taken time off from their jobs to be here, busy Moms with young children (and a mom with a son who is also in grad school!), people who are working through balancing work and health, people from all walks of life.  We have engineers, computer scientists, physicists, psychologists, public policy experts, environmental scientists, biologists, teacher education specialists, information technologists, etc. in the room today, and an even wider range of varying disciplines online.  Thank you for joining in.  You can do this! Go ahead … get it done!