Thoughts from March Meeting
I had a great time at the APS March Meeting. Since I’m attempting to blog anonymously, I’m not going to get into the specifics of which talks I found most interesting/relevant to my research, but there are a few more general things I want to talk about over the next couple days. I’ll discuss some more fun things in the future, but for now, a somewhat grumpy bit about mentoring graduate students.
One of the moments during the meeting which really stuck with me was when a professor got up to give a contributed talk and explained why he was standing there, rather than his doctoral student (whose name was listed in the program). He said something like, “My student was going to give this talk originally, but I decided it was too important not to present myself, so I pushed him away. [chuckle] I hope he isn’t too mad at me.” (The use of the verb “pushed” I remember clearly.) After a brief pause, there was some (I think nervous) laughter from the audience, then he plunged into the rest of his talk.
For what it’s worth, though the talk did cover a reasonably important development, they weren’t the only group talking about it or the first ones to have demonstrated it, and their results weren’t particularly breathtaking as far as I could tell. What I think happened was that a more well-known group was reporting similar results, and when this professor saw the abstracts scheduled, he wanted to seem just as cool as them. But I’m willing to grant for the sake of a thought experiment that the results are actually unique and important. Also, for clarity’s sake: plenty of people give talks for other people at March Meeting. Sometimes people are sick or unexpectedly busy and unable to make it, and someone else in their group covers for them. It’s no big thing. So that part’s not my issue.
I may just be lucky — no, I know I’m lucky — to have an exceptionally nice advisor… but doesn’t this professor’s behavior seem really out of line? I know he’s the one in charge, and (in some cases) the one working day and night in order to win the favor of his tenure committee, but I don’t see any reason for stepping in in this case other than sheer arrogance and credit-greediness. He could have given his own talk; it is okay for multiple talks to come from the same group. (Though he would have had to come up with something at least slightly different to talk about.) The first and, if you want, last slide in the talk can have the professor’s name on it. Really big, if you like. With a picture, so everyone can recognize and find him later if they want, for congratulations or questions. He can make sure to be in the audience. It’s not considered really out-of-line for PIs to jump in during the Q&A period after a talk with more thorough answers than their students give, or offers to discuss issues after the session, so he could have made himself visible to other conference attendees that way too.
I can imagine a professor trying to do important things and get credit for them in order to impress his or her superiors (to get tenure, to get a promotion, to get some other special responsibility assigned to them, etc.). What I can’t imagine is that the tenure committee, or department head, or whoever, cares who is standing in the front of this breakout room in the Pittsburgh conference center to give this 10-minute talk. It doesn’t change whose name is listed in the official record! And presumably all that matters to the tenure committee (or whomever) is that important work was done under the supervision and guidance of this professor. Training brilliant and successful graduate students probably also matters to them, a little bit, yeah? So, having your grad student give this important talk at March Meeting on behalf of your lab is presumably just as good as you giving it yourself, if not better, in terms of your own career advancement.
For the student, on the other hand, being recognized at the conference is potentially a lot more important. Networking is significantly harder when you’re one of the small fish, and a great way to meet people is for them to approach you and ask you questions after your talk. That student is probably going to want a postdoc position someday, probably in the not-so-distant future! It’s not crazy to imagine that he’d end up making contacts in other groups that could lead to eventual postdocs or even permanent jobs.
In talking about this with others, I heard the suggestion that the student might have been terrible at the talk during practices beforehand, and the professor could have been stepping in to save face for his group. In that case, though, I think there’s no reason to explain it this way in front of the audience. (Maybe it’s the explanation you give your student if it’s the last minute and you just can’t convince him he’s unprepared.) You say something like, “My student wasn’t able to present this talk today, so I’m taking his place.” Something that makes it sound like he could have been sick, though you might leave it ambiguous if you’re really averse to little white lies.
Why rant about this, Z? you are probably asking. This one guy was a jerk. Big deal. Well, I’ve read and heard other people’s accounts of working with nightmarish advisors, so I know he’s not the only jerk out there. Also, if I saw one guy like this in during the small slice of the conference I attended (12 out of 14 sessions, minus a few talks here and there that became part of my lunch breaks), there are probably a few more. Each session has about 40 rooms of simultaneous talks. If we assume I saw a reasonable sampling of personalities at the conference, that predicts more than a handful of other professors out there like this one (not to mention a few more who think his behavior is okay but didn’t happen to act like him this time).
I just wanted to put it out there on the tubes that I think this sort of behavior on the part of a professor is inappropriately selfish and not at all constructive. I’m very interested in hearing the opinions of others out there in academic-blogger-land, on how frequent this sort of thing is and whether it’s as bad as it seems to me. (Those links are to people I thought of off the top of my head who’d probably have something to say on this, but this question goes out to everyone.) Tell me: am I very sheltered, or right to be outraged?
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In my experience with academic conferences, ‘ego’ is the unspoken word that runs through everything. I often find that the best talks are given by students because quite frankly they are usually the most passionate about the subject matter, even if not the most well-versed. I would guess the ‘grad student was really crappy in the practice run’ is a good possibility, though I’ve also seen advisors happily let their students crash and burn as some sort of cruel academic hazing and ‘character building’ exercise.
If his explaination was accurate, that he thought the info was ‘too important not to present himself’ they could have even tag-teamed the presentation, which I’ve seen done many times and it is often a good technique. The student presents background information and the build-up then the professor steps in to deliver the conclusions. The only bad thing about this is that the student is less likely to be consulted for follow-up info in the Q&A sessions.
Yeah, thanks for reminding me! Actually I meant to say something about how a good advisor ought to give his/her students experience giving presentations and help them get comfortable with public speaking. I guess this might come to the point where you have to let a student crash and burn so they learn their lesson… but I think that could be averted beforehand, by teaching them and helping them practice.
The joint presentation thing is an interesting idea. I’ve never seen it done, but it could be a good idea in cases like this.
You never know what will be great at conferences. I have a friend who is a brilliant archaeologist and a wonderful professor. Put her in front of a conference and she falls apart. I have no idea why. Meanwhile i have been to conferences where they let site volunteers give presentations and they were amazing.