Two days prior to this, my chair had the "sudden" realization that my committee needed to read my chapters. I use quotes because I have been reminding and pestering him to read them for two months. The ensuing panic resulting in two more of my committee members finally coming clean and admitting they hadn't read anything either. The fourth member had actually read and commented on several chapters. Two of the members refused to sign off on it until they read a few chapters. A mental breakdown began to boil.
Thankfully, the graduate secretary in our department has an in with a secretary in the Dean's office and was able to give my committee more time. This may have single-handedly staved off multiple murders on my campus. I doubt this is the first time ze's had to do so...or the last.
The committee finally agreed it was defensible 5 days later. Given the comments I've seen, I'm still not convinced they've read anything.
All the paperwork is in now. Fluffy is set for release on April 5th.
6 comments:
Yay the upcoming date for defending Fluffy but oh dear about your suspicions about the lack of reading. :-(
Ah the mysteries of the advising/supervising process. you will pass. If not, you may have to do some revisions, but it's not the end of the world. you will do them, and the committee will sign off on your hard work and then you can call yourself "Dr.". Woot Woot!
Then you can never think about it again ;)
I'm glad you have a defense date upcoming, but I don't blame you for the stabby feelings. You'd think I'd be unsurprised about the lack of caring and procrastination among faculty by now, but I was still shocked to read this.
You'll pass with flying colors, and then you can get the heck away from that place. Good luck!
So, according to that recent Chronicle of Higher Ed piece, tenured profs are resisting the call to shrink grad programs b/c they want lots of grad acolytes around--but when said acolytes actually produce scholarship they don't want to read it???
Oh, sigh.
Thanks all for the encouragement!
I'm fairly certain they'll pass me. They've let some really crappy dissertations pass already this year and mine's not nearly that bad.
As for the not reading, that's something of a really depressing joke in my department. It's just annoying. Maybe I'll just answer every question at my defense with "I address that on page blah ..."
And WTF, I already try not to think about it! I like to think of it as practicing for post-academic life!
Good luck! I'm sure you'll do fine!
And I kinda wish my committee had paid LESS attention to my dissertation! Sometimes they asked me questions about stuff I could barely remember researching/writing about....the danger of *too* diligent a reading committee :)
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