IDPhD IDPhD

Managing Supervisory Committees

The IDPhD is unusual in that the supervisory committee is entirely built around the unique research of the student. There is a small IDPhD office in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) office complex but supervisors, students, and committees largely work on their own.

While the IDPhD assistant and Director are always available for help and advice, students and supervisors are expected to take responsibility for reviewing IDPhD processes and guidelines as outlined on our webpages and also to be aware of the FGS regulations and processes that govern all PhD students at Dalhousie.

FOR STUDENTS

Ultimately, you have the responsibility for ensuring your success in the PhD program. Many of the recommendations for supervisors apply as well to students, such as open discussion of expectations and preferences, meeting agreed upon milestones and submitting work for review on time.  Additional considerations for students are:

  • You should monitor your own records in the Graduate Studies Information System (GSIS) and in your academic record and alert your supervisor or the Director if a record is not correct or up to date.
  • Ensure that you hold at least one whole committee each year, summarize any decisions or important statements in that meeting, and ensure that all committee members agree it is accurate.
  • If you are unable to meet deadlines or milestones, alert your supervisor as soon as possible, it is not necessary to reveal details you are uncomfortable with sharing.
  • Try to maintain your own physical and mental health while you are in the PhD program. A PhD program is long and may pose unexpected challenges and lack of health can impact your ability to meet those challenges.
  • If you are running into challenges, take time to learn about the many types of support Dalhousie can offer or ask for help from advisors you trust.  

FOR SUPERVISORS

Supporting your student

Supervisors are expected to support their students in many ways.  Here are some of the most helpful ways.

  • Start the relationship with an open discussion of expectations and preferences.
  • Check in with your students regularly on their situations.
  • Provide support by offering space, funding or employment (as RA or TA)  if at all possible.
  • Set and regularly update clear and reasonable agreed-upon deadlines for completion of work and achievement of milestones.  Note:  FGS regulations specify a maximum of 6 years for the PhD, aside from leaves or other unusual circumstances. Extensions can be requested but 10 years is the absolute maximum possible time for the PhD.
  • Set appropriate meeting schedules, depending on student needs.  
  • Promptly review submitted work and alert your student if you are unable to complete reviews promptly.
  • Maintain reasonable accessibility even during research leaves, summers, etc.
  • Manage the committee: keep members up to date on the direction of the student, call regular meetings, and consult on each stage of the dissertation.
  • Hold a meeting of the entire committee with the student least once each year, as is required by FGS.
  • Ensure that a summary of major decisions reached in meetings, and especially decisions reached with the whole committee are shared with the entire committee
  • Be willing to protect the interests of the students in difficult times.
  • Encourage students who are unable to work for a period of time to apply for leaves of absence, otherwise the unproductive time is included in the 6 year maximum time to completion.
  • Mentor students by helping and encouraging them to develop and build towards career plans through publication, conference attendance, professional development, etc.

Problems in supervision

Some of the most common ways that supervision can become ineffective are:

  • excessive support of a non-productive student (e.g. failure to confront students if needed or excessive editing of work that is substandard)
  • reluctance to drop an unperforming student
  • excessive neglect of a student (withdrawing unexpectedly, without due notification to the student; becoming unreachable during the last stages of the degree)
  • unnecessarily delaying your student by:
    • exceptional requirements for publication or for “perfection” in parts of the thesis, as the thesis is drawing to a close
    • allowing the student to pursue futile directions
    • forcing your student to go down a difficult or unexpected path
    • failing to monitor progress and encourage meeting milestones
  • allowing extreme delay, leading to an 8 to 10 year completion time, after considering delays  due to health, shift in family situation, finances, etc.;
  • lack of care in checking student’s work (with plagiarism or improper data going unnoticed)
  • requests made to students to do research or teaching or even clerical work for the supervisor’s own benefit
  • taking students work as one’s own
  • lack of honest support of a student (emotionally withdrawing)
  • failing to inform the whole committee of a major change in direction

IDPhD specific challenges

The most common and serious challenge to an IDPhD student’s successful completion of the degree, aside from individual student and supervisor issues, is disagreement amongst committee members due to disciplinary differences or even differences in personal preferences. It is important to be aware of and mitigate this problem throughout the interdisciplinary PhD process. Preferably, problems are not allowed to fester but are dealt with early and effectively. Some suggested actions to select from are:

Hold a committee meeting very early in the PhD planning process, with the student included. This meeting should discuss and agree on key elements of the PhD process, and then document agreements in writing:

  1. Format of the thesis (single manuscript or several published papers, or other format)
  2. Nature of each committee member’s involvement, e.g. only at the annual meeting; as needed; only regarding specific elements of the thesis
  3. A strategy to resolve interdisciplinary practices and preferences, including preferred writing style (e.g. use of first vs third person, nature of the presentation of the background), method/methodology to be used
  4. It is suggested that members agree to accept the opinions on specific aspects of the thesis from committee member with expertise in that aspect (e.g. if the method is qualitative, the expert in qualitative research should guide that aspect of the thesis)

It is suggested that if committee members find they cannot agree on important elements of the thesis, that the discordant committee member resign and be replaced by someone who meets the need for expertise while being able to collaborate successfully with the committee. If additional help is needed to resolve challenges in supervision of the student, the Director can provide additional guidance and support.