Why universities shouldn't hire their own graduates

[May_Me_D]

I'm currently a grad student in the process of obtaining my Master's in Counselor Education. I'm a good student, I enjoy the subject matter, and strongly feel that I will one day make a great counselor. However, I'm very disappointed with the program I'm in so much so that I'm considering dropping out.

 

In particular, I am having a lot of difficulty with this one professor. She got both her Master's & PhD from the same university she is now teaching at, and the program I'm enrolled in. Unfortunately, my advisor was her mentor, and I'm guessing that he likely helped her get hired. I really don't know who to talk to about the issues I'm having with her. I'm frustrated because I'm only a year into the program, and will have to take several more classes from her.

 

If I do drop out, I plan on writing a letter to both the Department Chair and President of the University addressing the ethical aspects of having hired this woman in the first place. After all, they have plenty of other students graduating with their PhD's from this program. Why should this professor have been given preference in the hiring process? Also, wouldn't "hiring their own" limit diversity and thereby impact the services they're offering students?

 

If anyone has any advice on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lisa44201]

I'm currently a grad student in the process of obtaining my Master's in Counselor Education. I'm a good student, I enjoy the subject matter, and strongly feel that I will one day make a great counselor. However, I'm very disappointed with the program I'm in so much so that I'm considering dropping out.

 

In particular, I am having a lot of difficulty with this one professor. She got both her Master's & PhD from the same university she is now teaching at, and the program I'm enrolled in. Unfortunately, my advisor was her mentor, and I'm guessing that he likely helped her get hired. I really don't know who to talk to about the issues I'm having with her. I'm frustrated because I'm only a year into the program, and will have to take several more classes from her.

 

If I do drop out, I plan on writing a letter to both the Department Chair and President of the University addressing the ethical aspects of having hired this woman in the first place. After all, they have plenty of other students graduating with their PhD's from this program. Why should this professor have been given preference in the hiring process? Also, wouldn't "hiring their own" limit diversity and thereby impact the services they're offering students?

 

If anyone has any advice on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

You are assuming that this professor was given preference; perhaps other students from the program did not apply for the job (sentences two and three in your second paragraph). Can you provide evidence that this person was given preference? That is not always what happens when a graduate lands a job at his/her alma mater. Hiring a graduate of a program is not an ethical issue unless you can show blatant favoritism on the part of the University, well above and beyond you (or your classmates) not liking this instructor - you have to be able to prove that all of the other candidates were significantly worse than this individual, both on paper and during their hiring presentations.

 

Talk to your adviser. That's what they're there for.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Lisa44201

[ProfLorax]

May_Me_D, you are talking about two separate problems: one, mistreatment from this professor, and two, questionable hiring processes at your institution. However, as a graduate student, you only have one problem, and that is with this one professor. Frankly, we do not have the authority to challenge or rewrite hiring policies. And since you did not serve on the hiring committee, you only have conjecture about why this prof was hired.

 

Still, if your professor is treating you in a way that makes you want to leave the program, that is a big problem that concerns you. I would focus my energy on resolving that issue. If you feel like you can't approach your advisor, the DGS or ombuds person will be good folks to approach. But when you do, just focus on your own problems with the professor. That is all that can be resolved at this point, and that is the most immediate barrier to your success. 

[fuzzylogician]

If I do drop out, I plan on writing a letter to both the Department Chair and President of the University addressing the ethical aspects of having hired this woman in the first place. After all, they have plenty of other students graduating with their PhD's from this program. Why should this professor have been given preference in the hiring process? Also, wouldn't "hiring their own" limit diversity and thereby impact the services they're offering students?

 

My best advice is: don't do it.

 

You have absolutely no evidence of favoritism in the hiring process. At the end of a hiring process, only one person can be left standing. If you want to interpret that as "giving preference" to that person, then well yes, that's how these things work. Obviously, the person who gets the job will beat the other students from their own department and anyone else who applied for the job. There is no apriori reason why hiring a former student should be prohibited--in fact, human relations are a very important part of the job and if there is someone who you already know you get along with and who does great research, why would you not want to consider them for a job? Moreover, I don't think the "diversity" issue is really something you can comment on. In hiring, a department may choose breadth - hire one person each working on very different questions, different methodologies, etc., to give students a chance to dabble in lots of things - or it may choose depth - hire several people working on similar problems using similar methodologies, to create a strength in that area in the department. Both are valid choices. If you go with depth, you want to create a concentration that will appeal to the best students in that area; you want the people who you hire to get along and work together well. In that case, it's not strange at all to look at former students who have been trained at your school, since they will have exactly the qualifications you're looking for. 

 

The fact that you don't get along with this person has nothing to do with where she went to school or why she was hired there. If you clashed with this professor and your advisor took her side instead of yours, that probably has very little to do with the fact that he was also her advisor (I mean, he is your advisor now, why is this one former student more important than all his current students?). Honestly, it sounds to me like you're unhappy and looking for reasons to blame this person and the people who hired her. I don't think that that's a good reason to complain, and since you're not giving us much to back this up, I don't think that your complaints are reasonable, either. If there are specific cases of mistreatment or problems with this professor, I'd try and work those out either with her or with the involvement of your advisor or someone else in the department (e.g. the DGS). I'd advise you to leave the hiring issues out of the complaint because they are not relevant. Your current thinking of leaving and then writing to complain about her hiring sounds like the wrong way to go about it if you want to see any kind of result. The only place where you have a standing is if you can address specific cases where there was an unresolved issue between you and her; hiring issues are just outside what you can reasonably complain about.

[Vene]

Moreover, I don't think the "diversity" issue is really something you can comment on.

Too add to this, I can't figure out why one would conclude that the diversity of the PhDs at their own university is automatically less diverse than the PhDs given at other universities. What if the department is actually statistically more diverse than the general population? Wouldn't that mean the university should favor hiring its former students?

[MakeYourself]

The OP's reasoning abilities are impeccable.

[fuzzylogician]

Too add to this, I can't figure out why one would conclude that the diversity of the PhDs at their own university is automatically less diverse than the PhDs given at other universities. What if the department is actually statistically more diverse than the general population? Wouldn't that mean the university should favor hiring its former students?

 

I assume that by diversity the OP meant access to different ways of thinking, methodologies, etc (academic diversity). Otherwise, there is no necessary correlation between where one went to school and one's ethnic diversity, one way or the other. 

[juilletmercredi]

Even within a department, though, there can be many different ways of thinking and methodologies.  I'm in two departments in an interdisciplinary program, and my methods and ways of thinking are quite different from most of the other students in my program.  I mean, some of my psych colleagues use eye-tracking and fMRI data.  And some of my public health colleagues do ethnographies and archival research.  I don't do either.

 

I don't disagree that people from the same department can have ideas and training more similar to each other than to people from outside that department, but I do think that depending on what kinds of experiences the student in question had, they can differ.  Which is why I too think this is a really bad idea - there's no way for the OP to know why the professor in question was hired and how diverse she is (in thought and in identity) from the other folks in the department.

 

A good person to talk to is the university ombuds.  The ombuds is supposed to be there to help university officers (faculty, staff, students) get through conflicts that might arise.  He or she may have some suggestions and thoughts for you on how to proceed, especially given that your advisor was her mentor.  (However, don't assume that just because your advisor was her mentor you can't take your grievances to him.  If your grievances are reasonable and based upon fact and not interpersonal conflict, he may be able to help you.)