The Fun Begins
QoH got his tenure. I have dreaded this day for a long time now. He had applied last year but was turned down since he hadnt graduated enough students and his publication list was pretty slim. Then he became buddies with a heavy weight prof in the department and made him his mentor. The other prof is in line for the Dean’s post and no one has the guts to counter any of his recomendations. So now, QoH is a tenured faculty. This is not good. I know I should be happy for him, but I am not.
About two years ago QoH was a decent adviser. He really cared about his students and their welfare. He infact gave couple of grad students a whole quarter off while supporting them so that they can do some soul searching and sort out personal issues. I have never heard of a prof who has done that. He used to drop in on us in the lab regularly and discuss research. He threw parties at his home. He was generally a fun person to be around.
Then he met this departmental heavy weight. It was a marraige straight from hell. He learnt every single bad trait of this prof, but passed on the good ones. He transformed into a major egoistical control freak. He started using terms like “my lab”, “my research” and stuff. He started enforcing all kinds of management tools like TRP reports, performance reviews, ranking of students, heirarchy structures, and a lot more. He bought into this whole management through fear policy. He for some reason thinks that he owns us and all of our time. He stopped being our advisor and started being our manager. I dont remember the last time I got any research advice from him. In the last year alone two grad students have left the lab because of his attitude.
But he has been really good me in certain aspects. For example, he let me co-author this book chapter. He asked me to the second author on a paper that was published in an extreremely prestigious journal. There are professors with 25 yrs experience who havent been published in that particular journal.
Now that he has tenure, all chains are off. He has unbridled freedom to do whatever he wants. I emailed him earlier this afternoon asking him which budget he would like me to charge the registration fee for the conference I got accepted to. He replied saying I should withdraw the paper coz he thinks it is not upto par. What the fuck? The paper was peer-reviewed and only then was it accepted. Is he saying that he knows better than the three reviewers and the entire technical committee? More importantly he had the full text of the paper even before I had submitted it. He had even suggested a few modifications to earlier drafts. Couldnt he have asked me to withhold the paper then? This I am sure is the first of many nightmares he is going to put me through.
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By Zelda, April 24, 2005 @ 1:41 pm
sorry to hear about that. that’s nasty of QoH to tell you to withdraw the paper. – and that “my research” thing reminds me of a sup i had (i eventually switched) who one time threw her arms up in to the air and said, “I *am* the lab”. What was I supposed to say to that?
By admin, April 24, 2005 @ 10:47 pm
At least he read your paper. There’s plenty of that in my dept. though too.
By RageyOne, April 26, 2005 @ 1:29 am
Bummer..sorry to hear he is being such an a$$hole. I tell ya, the ego of some of those profs!
By Pseudosanity, April 27, 2005 @ 1:04 am
I guess it could be worse…