Understanding how the system works helps you work the
system and achieve your goal of finishing a thesis. Some students seem
to have a characteristic that can be called “savvy.” They’re
not only intelligent, they’re also perceptive and shrewd. They’ve
learned to read the environment they find themselves in, and figure out
how to manipulate it to achieve their ends. They have a knack for getting
what they need and finding the right people to help them . These students
manage to find resources when “there are none,” and to have
access to anybody who’s important in the department. Not surprisingly,
they’re also the students who sail through the thesis process, assembling
supportive committees headed by impressive advisors, and finishing within
a reasonable time. What is their magic?
In a phrase, these students have learned to work the system. They’ve
taken the initiative to scope out the situation and steps to make the
system work to their benefit. What these students have learned to do is
something you can do too without much effort. You need to analyze the
political environment, learn the rules of the game, and manipulate the
system to the advantage of your thesis progress.
Getting the Lay of the Land
Working the system means knowing how to use system resources to get things
done and how to get system resources when you need them. This entails
knowing how the system works, knowing who has power to make things happen,
and knowing how to garner the attention and good will of these people
so they make decisions in your favor.
You have to become politically astute—know who to contact, how to
make contact, and how to maintain contact with powerful people. You need
to know how to negotiate, be diplomatic, make win-win deals, and resolve
conflicts amicably.
By the time you begin your thesis, you’ll already know how graduate
school functions. You know who the campus power-mongers are and can roughly
define their mini-empires. You may also know the formal and informal power
structure in your department—not just who the department chairperson
is and who the full, tenured professors are, but who holds the most power
among department faculty and personnel. The faculty power structure will
come into play in conflicts that may arise among your committee members
or during squabbles in your thesis defense; or in departmental decisions
on scholarships, fellowships, or grant-moneys to fund your thesis.
Power is important in any situation where the decision-maker has discretion
over allocation of resources, that is, where rules and policies allow
flexibility in making a decision. It’s crucial for you to understand
who the major players are, what resources they control, and how they make
their resource allocation decisions. The more you can learn about these
decision-makers—their personalities, their values, their social
philosophies, and their political agendas—the better. Your objective
is to (a) become known and liked by these people and (b) influence their
decision making in any matter that might concern your thesis.
You can determine who holds power in the department by answering the following
questions:
• Who sits on tenure and review committees?
• Who decides course schedules and teaching duties?
• Who makes budgetary decisions and decides how money is spent?
• Who allocates resources such as office space, parking space, equipment,
and travel funds?
• Who has the most renown, the best reputation in the field?
• Who brings in the most grant money?
• Who most influences the theoretical orientation of the department?
• Who speaks for other members of the faculty?
• Who organizes faculty functions?
You can determine who holds direct power over your thesis by knowing:
• Who gives approval to your thesis? (Of course your advisor and
committee are the primary decision makers about your thesis. But there
are probably others as well. Does the Dean oversee the committee’s
decision? To what extent does the Dean rubber stamp the thesis? Does a
university reader need to approve your manuscript before it’s bound?
Does your committee expect you to work closely with a particular statistician,
research methodologist, editor, or other technical expert?)
• Among your committee members, who defers to your advisor? Who
does your advisor defer to and in what matters?
• Which faculty members have control of resources you want and need
for your thesis?
• Who has access to these faculty members and could influence their
decisions on your behalf?
• What gatekeeping functions do office personnel play? (Is the departmental
secretary really the “power behind the throne?”)
• Who schedules meetings such as the thesis defense and qualifying
exams?
There may be many people who can influence the progress of your thesis
and whose favor you want to curry. You’ll want to favorably impress
the powerful people who will likely make decisions affecting you.
Learning the Ropes
Once you know who controls resources useful to your thesis, you need to
learn what rules these people use when they allocate those resources.
You need to learn existing laws, policies, formulas, rules, regulations,
and requirements so you know how you might best influence their decisions.
• Are they bound to a prescribed process for allotting resources?
• What kind of autonomy do they have?
• What are the bases for allocating various resources (seniority,
group membership, performance, academic merit, connections)?
• What specific resources are potentially available to you as a
graduate student? (You especially need to know about financial opportunities.)
• What are the goals that guide the distribution of these resources?
• What are the departmental priorities (interests) that must be
served?
• What are the amounts slated under existing formulas?
• What are the restrictions and instructions accompanying resource
allocations?
• What bureaucratic factors are involved?
• Are there hidden agendas that must be acknowledged?
• What are the current (or recent) coalitions and factions in the
department?
• How are allocation decisions reviewed?
• Is there a grievance process to employ in case of unfairness?
Lining Up Your Ducks
Once you’ve become informed about who makes decisions and their
rules for allocating resources, you then need a strategy for “scoring
points” with these people. You can influence people’s opinion
of you by building a good image and playing the political game well.
Build Your Image
The impression you create in your department will affect your graduate
tenure at the university, the smoothness of your thesis process, and—if
you plan to remain in academe—your future career.
Many students are simply hoping to make it through graduate school without
leaving a bad impression. That isn’t enough. You need to actively
work to make a good impression. You need to build your image in the department.
Generate a strategy by which you will leave a lasting impression that
can serve you well.
Faculty will know you first because of your academic reputation. If you’ve
already proven yourself to be a brilliant scholar (through coursework,
research assistantships, or your own publications), you’re off to
a good start. After all, a university is a community of scholars, so your
academic reputation should have the highest currency in the department.
Although academic reputation is important, your influence is also a function
of your professional and social reputation. Perhaps you’re a well-known
professional in your field and have an impressive history of accomplishments
in your career. Perhaps you’re a socially prominent member of the
civic community and well-connected socially. A good professional or social
reputation implies that you’re connected to others in the community
with power over resources which might somehow be of interest to faculty
members. You may have business and professional connections that can directly
contribute to university research activities or in other ways benefit
the department.
Even if you have no established academic, professional, or social prestige,
you can still impress faculty and influence their decisions by force of
your personal character and charisma. You can strive to be perceived as:
• A responsible and dedicated student
• A bright and independent thinker
• An optimistic and cheerful person
• An energetic and enthusiastic student
• A mature, even-tempered, diplomatic, tactful negotiator
• A good communicator
• A clever, savvy, sharp organizer
• A friendly, respectful, helpful person
• A productive scholar.
Play Departmental Politics
Dealing cleverly with the political realities of graduate school is seldom
mentioned as one of the keys to doing a thesis. In fact, most graduate
students would not identify departmental politics as important to thesis
progress, even though they’re at least subliminally aware that politically
astute students seem to negotiate the thesis process more smoothly than
others.
If you’re a typical graduate student, you have only the vaguest
notion of the power structure in your department. You may think such awareness
unnecessary because you cruised through the first few years of graduate
school blissfully ignorant of departmental politics. But just because
you weren’t concerned about politics doesn’t mean they didn’t
affect you. Certainly by the time you begin a thesis, departmental political
agendas may bear directly on whether you complete your thesis and graduate.
This is because doing a thesis increases your need for and dependence
on departmental people and resources.
To research and write your thesis, you may need any or all of the following:
on-line library access, web access, special computer facilities, special
software, research subjects, laboratory equipment, mailing or telephone
services, conference and travel funds, tuition, office space, permission
to access research sites, time off from employment, relief from domestic
duties, editorial help, statistical or programming assistance, contact
with leading researchers in the field, and, of course, advisory time and
advice.
You’re competing with other students for these scarce resources.
Hence, your thesis progress depends on the decisions of people who control
them. You need to affect these people’s decisions to allocate resources
on your behalf.
In addition to building your reputation and image in the department, you
want to initiate and maintain contact with as many powerful people as
possible. People with power help those whom they personally know and like.
Even if you are off-campus, part-time, and fully employed, you need to
keep in contact with influential departmental personnel.
• Choose your advisor based on an understanding of departmental
politics. Tenured full professors (dubbed “full bulls”) have
the most power, and of these, the researchers who bring the most money
into the department are superstars. In conflicts and disputes, the most
powerful professors will prevail. The more powerful your supporters, the
smoother your graduate tenure and the richer your post-graduate opportunities.
Even if you can’t find a “full bull” advisor, try to
get at least one on your committee.
• Prevent committee conflict. Include on your committee only faculty
members who are part of the same departmental factions and coalitions
who don’t harbor antagonisms toward one another. Use the grapevine
to learn about departmental politics and personality clashes.
• Meet regularly with your advisor and committee members. Keep in
regular contact even when you don’t meet. A “monthly update”
of your progress may be all you need to keep your self in the front of
their minds.
• Look for opportunities to do favors for committee members. Try
to do a good turn for each of your committee members at least once a year.
• Keep a high profile in the department. Build a strong base of
support. Try befriending office personnel (who’ll also keep you
informed of policy changes). Being in the good graces of people in the
department will give you clout with your committee in case of conflict.
• Participate in all departmental activities you can, especially
those in which new students mingle with old students and faculty. Attend
departmental functions, gatherings, meetings, departmental receptions,
seminars, conferences, colloquia, and parties.
• Don’t be a pest, but do be a presence. Take advantage of
casual encounters to build personal relationships with everyone in the
department. Introduce yourself to professors whenever the occasion allows.
Learn something about their work or their recent accomplishments. Express
interest in their research if it’s relevant to yours. Even if you
never took a class from a professor, make a point of becoming a known
quantity to him or her. Get to know personal information about the faculty
as well. Do you share interests such as sports, travel, literature, or
hobbies which you can bring up when you meet faculty in social settings?
• Offer to help organize colloquia, seminars, courtesy suites at
conferences, departmental receptions, TGIF parties, and so on. Ingratiate
yourself in any way you can. But don’t overdo it. There’s
a fine line between enthusiasm and obsequiousness.
• Serve on faculty-student committees. This is an excellent way
to get an insider’s view of the political realities of your department.
It also helps you feel comfortable and collegial with professors. Many
committees welcome graduate student input. Especially if you plan an academic
career, make the effort to participate on at least one committee as early
in graduate school as you can.
• Initiate social activities that include faculty. Invite your advisor
(and other committee members) to a dinner at your house along with other
graduate students, postdocs, and office personnel.
• Know how to work behind the scenes. Know how to file complaints
in a way that doesn’t ruffle feathers. Know how to get your voice
heard and lobby for your views. Know how to rally support by having others
speak on your behalf.
• Don’t count on continuities within the administration. Administrations
change and, with them, policies change. Keep a copy of your original program
guide in case policies change while you’re writing your thesis.
Most often you can argue against changes that impede your progress.
• Integrate yourself into professional and academic networks through
e-mail, correspondence with others in the field, and attending conferences.
Stay alert for any and all information about resources that might help
your thesis progress. Connect to others who broker such information. Share
the information with other students to build an information network.
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