Hello all,
I’m a brand new doctoral student in a humanities field, and am having trouble with my de facto advisor in my program. She is the only one in the school with interests similar to mine, and I’ve been essentially assigned to her for both my RA work, and she will by my actual advisor if I cannot find some way to acquire another.

The problem is that she is consistently belittling, condescending, and I believe giving me bad advice, perhaps deliberately. Since I’ve never really seen malevolent motives in anyone before, I’m uncertain as the “truth” behind my feelings. Since I’m new to graduate school, I don’t know if this is standard behavior. I don’t know if she’s actually giving good advice, but I’m too stupid to understand it, or whether my impressions of her behavior stem from actual pomposity, meanness and slyness, or if I’m imagining it. She also appears to be claiming my ideas as her own, which I understand is common in academia. But I’m frustrated and worried. I have some unique ideas (according to all the other academics I’ve spoken to in the field) and I feel that my value is being stolen, and she is deliberately sending me astray so that she can take what I am attempting to do and make it her own career.

Her situation is that of Assistant Professor. She does not have tenure yet. Her research stream is minimal at this point, though I understand she may be starting work on a book soon. She came to academia late in life, after many years as a practitioner. She is single and about 25 years older than I am. I also come to academia a bit later than most of my peers. I spent a substantial time as a practitioner as well, though not nearly as long as my de facto advisor.

She was on my thesis committee during my master’s progam, and was difficult and demeaning then as well, to the point that my thesis advisor told me to ignore her.

Here’s what she has said to me in the last week:
Don’t go to conferences. She said I don’t have anything to say yet, though I think I do. This could be great advice. But I have two articles that were just accepted and 2 more in review. I started publishing before I even began the phd program, and have had very positive feedback from editors. I’ve also been invited to speak, out of the blue by people who have simply read my blog, at conferences. Other professors invited to me present during my master’s program. I was invited to speak at the national conference this year. I think that means I have something to say, and moreover, that others want to hear it. Other students tell me to go to the conferences (our program funds our conference travel) and other faculty have encouraged it.

I am weak in theory. Ok, she could be right. Though I have a philosophy undergrad directly underpinning what I’m doing now, wrote a thesis that was a theoretical beast, and well received, and have more theoretical “chops” than the other first-year students, I am still only 3 weeks into my program. I don’t know why this means I sho

cut me off! Sorry for length of post, but I feel all of this is necessary to make myself clear:

...I don’t know why this means I should not be presenting at poster sessions. I research the theory behind my papers/posters very extensively. I have a very solid grounding in research methods compared to the other beginning students, and I’m only looking to present at the student level at this point.

I need to focus on a research stream. Not sure what she means. I do have a consistent point of view and focus of interest. It happens to be in the same general area as hers. In fact, she took a research project and idea I presented on in my first year of my master’s program, and is doing a large-scale study on it now. I am RAing this project. At first I thought she was being kind and giving me a project directly responding to my interests (and the fact that I am doing a longitudinal study on this topic) since none of her work previously had been in this particular area. Now I think she’s ripping me off. She also took my proposal to start a “center” on my research focus area, which I’d already started to implement on my own with a blog, a co-editor, and I was starting to gather editors and reviewers for an online journal, and she spoke to the school about funding it under her leadership, and as her idea.

She may be giving me great advice, reining in overconfidence, but I don’t think I am overconfident. I think I want to learn, to do the research I’m here for, and to present that research like the other students are being encouraged to do. Am I wrong? I need to know, so I can take what may be hard, ego-busting advice and move on, or dismiss her advice and try to find a different advisor immediately.

Thanks so much for any insight.

It's pretty worrying that you have this many difficulties this early on (3 weeks into your program). Is there a chance that you could have a different supervisor? Can you go around and recruit another quietly before things go too much further?

Just a thought re: ideas and publications (once into the thesis); it is pretty common to share cudos regarding what you do, write and publish during the doctorate, with your main supervisor and the second or third as well. I have two supervisors (a 70% one-who is basically what I would call 'my supervisor' and a 30% one-whom I have not yet met but who apparently reads
and approves things like Ethics Applications and research plans before they go into committees). All of our names appear on any correspondence going out or being received relating to my study and will also, no doubt, appear on anything I publish from this particular study. They get copies of every email, letter, etc as well.I presented and published a paper and article from my Masters and my former supervisor was credited as the second author for these particular pieces even though, once I had actually submitted my Masters thesis, I pretty much did the rest myself.So accepting that your supervisor may get more credit for your ideas that you would like or think is fair, is sort of fairly common. Your name should be first though on anything published.

Is your doctorate an extension of your Masters? If so then presenting posters and papers at conferences right now would be fine I imagine as you would have a lot of data backing up your ideas. If (like me) your new study is a relatively different topic again, then her caution might be warranted. I could have presented a poster at my university's recent Research Conference but decided to wait until the next year's conference simply because I just don't feel that I have quite enough yet to be really confident with all that I would like to say. Same with articles and papers-for me I'm thinking around this time next year would be right for an article and paper but that's me...if I had chosen to extend my Masters (as was my original plan) then I might feel very differently about it.

You are probably her very first doctoral student, so she may be overly cautious as well but if you are getting 'bitchy' and demeaning vibes from her this early on, it sounds like it is going to be difficult to get that solid working relationship that is most helpful to you and your work.

Regardless who is wrong or right. it is pretty obvious that you don't trust her or appreciate her or even value her advice, so it would be better if you found some other supervisor you can work better.

Good luck with your PhD

Thank you Dr. Jeckyll and Pjlu. Dr. Jeckyll, you're right, but I'm not sure if I SHOULD be valuing her advice! That's sort of my problem--am I seeing problems where there are none? I'm not used to being distrusting of someone's motives, and don't know if I should in fact not be going to conferences, etc.

I really appreciate Pjlu's insights as to how authorship is shared and about presenting based on one's master's work. That's what I was hoping to do. My thesis was like a pilot study for my dissertation. The insight about me being her first doc student is very well taken. Perhaps I just need to relax and let her find her way as well. If only I didn't come away from conversations with her feeling like a two year old that just drew on the walls! It may be that regular "spankings" are good for me.

I may keep things as they stand for now, keeping my eyes open for other possible advisor relationships. But I certainly won't ask my de facto advisor for any more advice.