Although historians should not be in the business of prediction, I'm going to predict that this column in the Chronicle of Higher Education will generate outrage. A sample:
Working with graduate students is not all it's cracked up to be ....graduate school too often brings out the worst in students -- and, by extension, in faculty members as well....I should have been investing my effort in my own scholarly career rather than helping those who ultimately didn't deserve the help and, more important, didn't respect the life that they themselves claimed they wanted.... What is frustrating is the apparent deceit of would-be scholars enticing you to help them become the field's next superstar, only to discover that it was all bluster and empty talk....What's sad about all of those cases is that the students have lost sight of the real purpose of graduate education: to become a scholar and a teacher whose expertise will make a difference in their field of study, in students' lives, and in the world....It's not that every one of my graduate students has been a disappointment, or that they all exhibited the same boorish behavior that I describe here. I have fond memories of my time with many of them....But the truth is that, for me, the bad apples have spoiled the whole barrel.
Wow, remind me again about that time a columnist in the Chronicle warned people off blogging because people became intemperate on the internet! I don't really expect the Chronicle's columnists to be consistent over time. People have different views after all. My point, however, is that the psuedonymous forum of the Chronicle removes all the important readers from some people's shoulders and unhinges them.
I imagine that mentoring graduate students is not magic or perfect. I also imagine that some of the structural factors the author identifies as turning out bad apples really do exist, and that some people behave badly when they're trying to get ahead. But I do wonder if this author's bad experience with graduate students reflects more on their inability to judge character. As usual, the whole point of a Chronicle first person column is to relate dashed expectations, and the fall from idealism. I can understand the desire to write such a column, working through the fall, but it's not clear to me that the reader gains so much from pseudonymous overstatement and a narrative structure that sets the author out to be initially naive, but now experienced.
Posted by eroberts at October 11, 2007 11:00 PM