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Paso, The department admitted you so now has an obligation to find faculty for you. If you don't get some news this week, I would pick up the phone, get the graduate chair in the department (the faculty member, not the adminstrator) on the phone and tell him/her your story to indicate - politely - that they are about to put you in a terrible position and must take responsibility for this. You must be active in this and you have a right to be active in this. You should start trolling their website and the university website to start identifying people you could work with so that if they say "Oh, we're still looking..." you can respond: "I am going to email Dr. Smith and ask if he can serve as my new advisor since I need this settled right away." Is it a big program? Their may be a few other people who can stand in for the prof that has flaked out on you. It is always a good idea to apply to a program where you have lots of supervisory options since this can happen in any department if faculty are bad at saying "no" when asked about supervision, or go on sabbatical and refuse to work with grad students (I work with grad students all the time, sabbatical or not), or if someone becomes gravely ill unexpectedly. I switched grad advisors during my PhD and I know quite a few people who had to change (out of duress like you) and landed on their feet just fine. The main thing - don't be passive. University culture often thrives on students who don't stand up for themselves... P.S. Hang in there, you and your spouse will probably be just fine. - Prof. Susan

Hi Psych9, I think you may not be getting good supervision from your advisor. I would never allow on of my grad students to proceed with research that we weren't sure would produce some kind of useful result. Your advisor may be trying to just keep you moving in the program and not thinking about your long-term future. (Sorry, but it happens.) You have two options: 1. get the degree done fast by doing the course work so that you can minimize your costs and move forward in life, even if you may end up with a different career path than you originally thought. 2. Ask for a meeting between your advisor and anyone else on your committee so that you folks can figure out if it is actually viable to rework your hypothesis and research as it is so that you can do a research-emphasis degree and move on to the next stage. No one can make that decision for you, so talk it over with yourself and your advisor. Also, beware: if you want to do a PhD at a top program, I suspect you'll need to have shown you could execute your own research as an MA student, and you'll need the support of your advisor for letters, etc. From what you've posted it looks like he/she may not be in a position to give you that kind of recommendation. On the other hand, a coursework MA may not keep you out of the PhD - but at what calibre of school? Ask around in your department about this to get the skinny on what your options will be with a coursework MA. I have heard of Humanities programs accepting candidates for the PhD who did quickie MA's if they have excellent grades. - Prof. Susan