In this instructional video, the speaker outlines a five‑step process for doctoral students who feel their dissertation advisor or committee member is unresponsive. Step 1 advises students to review university policies on faculty response times to determine if a policy breach has occurred. Step 2 recommends a polite follow‑up contact, assuming the faculty member may have missed the original message. Step 3 suggests scheduling a concrete meeting (phone, video, or in‑person) and providing an agenda in advance so the advisor can prepare. Step 4 explains how to respectfully escalate the issue to higher‑level administrators (department chair, program head, dean) after documenting prior attempts, emphasizing a collaborative tone rather than a threat. Step 5 presents the last‑resort option of requesting a new chair or committee member, noting institutional procedures, potential delays, and the need to quickly build a positive relationship with the new faculty. Throughout, the speaker highlights the power imbalance between students and faculty, the importance of maintaining professional relationships, and the modern university focus on student retention, which can make administrators more receptive to genuine concerns.
Chapters
If you come to the conclusion that, yeah, I am being ignored, what do you do? Well, I like to think of it as five steps, and hopefully not all of them, but five steps are needed. And the first one, it's always good to know where you stand, know what your university policies are. So check any guidelines that are available. And by that I mean, you know, some universities have, you know, rules, laws, whatever for their faculty that they must respond to student inquiries within a certain time period, one day, two days, seven years, whatever the university policy is. If they have not broken the policy, then, you know, there's nothing you can do. But if that policy is not being followed, well, then go move forward from there. And the second step that I would say to take is to reach out again to your person, committee member, chair, to try to engage again. They may have missed it, they may have forgotten it, but reaching out again may prompt them into responding. And in fact, they might even feel guilty and be more disposed to help you if they're feeling like they let the ball drop. The third step is to then request a meeting, whether it be a phone or a video call, or if you're at an institution where you're actually there, set up a time to meet, to fight so that you, you know, there is a schedule, there's an appointment, there's a time. And if you're going to set up a time to meet, many times it's beneficial to say, and here's what I want to accomplish, or here's what I want to know ahead of time so that they are prepared or have the ability to be prepared to respond to exactly what you're looking for instead of just asking them in the meeting. And they might say, well, I have to look into that and get back to. You can delay things, but if you can let them know ahead of time, hopefully they can look into it ahead of time and then be ready to accomplish this and move forward. Because in their world, in their mind, they want to help you, but they want to help you as quickly as they can so they can move on to other things. So as fast as they can get things through and help you, it's also better for you if that doesn't work. Well, this is when you start having to make some really interesting decisions. Because as the role of a doctoral student, the power balance differential is pretty big. Your chair, committee controls a lot of what you want to do to move forward. So we always want to be in a good relationship with these people. But if you're not getting anything, you're not getting responses. You're being slowed down. It's costing you more money and time. Then step four is, okay, escalate this. Move it up to a department chair, a program head, a dean, even whoever control, you know, this. Next up in the line at the institution, hey, I'm having some problems connecting with my faculty member. They're going to say, well, have you done A, B and C? Have you followed all the guidelines? Yes, I followed all the guidelines, but I'm not getting responses in time and it's slowing me down and cost me more money. Can you help me figure out what to do? So enlist their help. Get them on your side. They're going to typically be predisposed to be on the faculty member side. But just let them know that you've tried, you've followed all the rules. You're not screaming or yelling and complaining yet. I wouldn't do it as a threat. But you're just there saying, I need help. And I'm seemingly not getting it. Now, can you help me figure out how I'm going to move forward? And that'll work lots of times. Because, look, no faculty member wants to get contacted by somebody saying, why aren't you helping Suzette or John or whomever, what's going on? Help me understand that takes more time, and they don't want to spend that time doing that. And nobody likes to be told they're not doing their job well. You know, there is this concern, wow, if I go above my chair, I'm going to be punished or I'm going to be put in the doghouse, or I'm never going to move forward. And, you know, that is actually less of an issue than you might think, especially in today's world. Because in today's world, universities are pressed to help their students move forward faster. There's all these internal concerns about, what are we doing to support our students, what are we doing to help them move forward? What are we doing to retain our students? Because retention is a lot less expensive than going out and try to attract new students. So reaching out, if you do it in a respectful way and asking for help as opposed to, look, this guy's not doing his job, I'm ready to sue. If that doesn't work, we move on to request a new chair. This may or may not be an option for you. There may not be a chair, any available or be with interests in the area that you have and you're going back to, okay, how do I solve this situation? And sometimes some students just say, I'm just going to shut up and grin and bear it and figure out how to move forward. But if there is is a way, then you just request. I have tried to engage with my chair. I've tried all the steps you've suggested. What I. I do not see a way to move forward like this. And moving forward is my goal. So I would like to request a new chair or a committee member. If it's not your chair, it's just a committee member that has there's issues with. And then you request a new chair. This is the last option I would suggest because every time you get a new committee member, a new chair, you're opening up what you've done to new eyes. And those new eyes may have a different interpretation of how things can move forward. So you may take a step backwards to get a new chair, but hopefully that means you're going to be moving forward much faster. So it may be worth it. But just be aware it's not seamless. And again, check your institution policies because they may say, yes, you can have a new chair and it starts the next semester or the next, next quarter or whatever. So that could be three weeks, eight weeks down the line that you get the new chair. And if you do get a new chair, I would encourage you to have an initial meeting so that you can become very, very in line, in sync, friendly, however you want to state it with your new chair to then avoid problems. If this is the fourth time you're requesting a new chair, the institution's gonna start saying, what's the common denominator in all these chair changes? And they might say, oh, it's you. Okay, let's start. You know, and it might be an issue, but, you know, once it's not uncommon to ask for a chair change.
